Charlie Arehart's Compendium of
Spry Resources for CFML Developers
(Last updated Aug 2007)
As more and more CFML developers become enamored of Adobe's Spry Ajax framework, or hear others extolling it, they may benefit from knowing about several available resources to help you get started. Some you may find more readily than others. I'm not just talking about the docs, or Adobe-provided resources, but also community-contributed ones, and especially some that focus on CFML-related aspects.
I've gathered together several of them here, both to save you the work of trying to find them and more important to help you avoid missing key ones. You really ought to give most of them a look before you delve too deeply, to avoid making some mistakes (or mistaken conclusions) that others have. This document is broken into the following sections.
- Notes
- Specific Adobe-provided Spry Resources to Note
- Informational Resources from Others
- Code Resources from Others
- Spry Demos
- General Spry Repositories From Adobe
- Updates Since Original Posting
[Hey, Mr./Ms Impatient, to get the most out of this resource, don't just click one of these links to "get to the good stuff" but instead read the document sequentially from here down. These links are more for getting quick access to subsections on your return visit. I can't stop you, of course, but I can offer the advice! :-)]
Notes
If nothing else, please do take the time to read those resources marked with an */bolded below. (No offense to those whose resources I did not mark */bold. Obviously, it wouldn't help to mark them all as key. I just picked a few that are really good starting points for folks that have something unique to offer, and which may themselves point to the others.)Note as well that some of these entries speak to a generic web development audience, not CFML developers specifically. Indeed, it's easy to make mistaken conclusions about the usefulness of Spry, thinking, "I could just do that in CFML". Trust me, as you explore it more, you will see where it makes sense. I'll touch on that in a later entry.
Indeed, be sure to check out my future Spry entries here, where I'll highlight other key points to keep in mind.
I'll try to keep this up to date with new community resources as they're offered (see the updates section below where I track additions). In addition to listing each new entry in that section, I am also adding new resources to the top of each section.
Of course, some Adobe-provided resource will more likely become the ultimate best place to find Spry resources in the future. For now, I'm just trying to help while there are scattered resources, and by pointing to community-contributed resources as well. Drop me an email if you know of something I should add.
I'll share that on the list of things I plan to add here are:
- An automated form for submission of new entries (which I would then need to approve---dang spammers!)
- Option to view compendium as one long page (as it is now, and to facilitate printing) or as one page per section (better for web viewing)
- RSS feed to notify folks of changes
- I welcome other ideas
Specific Adobe-provided Spry Resources to Note
- Who's using Spry? (Added July 15, 2006)
- * Dynamic Table Tutorial, which in 10 pages (if printed) walks through creating an HTML table, using very effective teaching techniques (building slowly, highlighting additions to code, etc.) Spry can certainly do more than just build tables (more on that elsewhere), but this is a very effective intro to general Spry concepts of dynamic HTML generation. (Added July 11, 2006)
- * Using the Spry Framework, spry_help.pdf, found in docs directory of Spry download. A GREAT 32-page resource to start with. (which I found at least one person had posted online, though that may not last long, plus it could soon be dated).
- * Spry Data Set and Dynamic Region Overview, a substantial, 35-page article that you don't want to miss
- Adobe LoggedIn article, Introducing the Spry framework for Ajax
- Adobe Spry Breeze Presentation from Adobe Community Week
- Adobe of course has some broad Spry repository info (FAQ, wiki, downloads, and more), which I discuss in a separate section below (those are what most people find most easily, so I'm highlighting first these more specific resources)
Informational Resources from Others
- Ray Camden did another recorded presentation on Spry to the Auckland CFUG. (Mar 2, 2007)
- Scott Meberson has a Spry category in his blog, among which he discusses his Spry Xtensions mentioned below
- A tip from Mark Drew on remembering to use XMLFormat when doing Spry/Ajax.(Feb 1, 2007)
- John Beynon's useful observation about unexpected reserved words in Spry XML processing ("parent" and "child"), really a problem in the underlying Google XPath library (Jan 5, 2007)
- Universal Mind Consultant Andy Powell's Spry blog entries (Nov 29, 2006)
- Adobe Developer Ashwin Mathew's "Why I Like Spry" blog post (August 3, 2006)
- Charlie Arehart's Spry blog entries (the list below is now a Spry-generated feed of my Spry posts, Added July 12, 2006)
As I'm adding so many entries on Spry in my blog, I figured I'd leverage spry here to go grab the entries and show them automatically, so I don't need to edit this file to track them. Therefore, since I'm not marking their "add date" individually here, I'm putting the list here at the top of this section. Other, more recent entries from others, may well appear below.
- {title} (added {pubDate})
- Ray blogs about his experience with Spry 1.2 (Added July 14, 2006)
- Doug Knudsen has posted an entry called Spry Example with various thoughts and an example that runs against PeopleSoft data (Added July 11, 2006)
- * Ray Camden has a series of blog entries looking at it from a CFML perspective. Take the time to read the comments from others and his replies, as well. You will see an evolution in thought that will help speed your own introduction to Spry (presented with the most recent first):
- For the latest entries, see those in his Ajax category
- Spry 1.4 (Added Dec 14, 2006)
- Spry 1.2 (Added July 14, 2006)
- Sending Data with Spry (Added July 12, 2006)
- ToXML CFC - Converting data types to XML (to download the code, see the "download" link that appears immediately below the blog entry) (Added July 11, 2006)
- Spry Demo CFLib
- Spry Demo Updated (again)
- Another Spry demo
- Spry demo updated
- I heart Spry
- Rob Brooks-Bilson's blog entry on Kelly Brown's Spry presentation at CFUnited
- "ColdFusion Podcast" looks at Spry
- TechTarget Article on Spry
- David Fekke's exploration of using Spry with SOAP web services
- WebMonkey Spry article
- One last generic suggestion (to stay updated) is to do a search for "spry" in the blogs of folks listed above, to see what they may add that I may not notice
Code Resources from Others
- Massimo Foti has put together many Spry resources.(Added Feb 05, 2007):
- Scott Meberson's Spry Xtensions. (Added Feb 01, 2007)
- Nathan Dintenfass's classic QueryToXML function at the cflib.org (thanks, Doug Knudsen, for suggesting that). (Added July 11, 2006)
Spry Demos
- Demo from Adobe Dynamic Table Tutorial (Added July 11, 2006)
- Doug Knudsen's take on traversing a corporate hierarchy, from PeopleSoft with Spry (Added July 11, 2006)
- Demo from WebMonkey article (Added July 10, 2006)
- Adobe Spry Demos (see also the samples provided in the download)
General Spry Repositories From Adobe
- http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/spry/, of course, the home (for now), with samples, discussion forums, and many other resources
- Adobe Spry Wiki
- Adobe Spry blog, not very active as of now (early July 2006)
- MXNA aggregator topics related to Spry (not a category there yet, so this does a simple search)
Updates Since Original Posting
Here I will track any updates I add, so that folks who return can quickly find what's been updated.- Mar 2, 2007:
- added link to Ray Camden's recent Spry presentation, in the info from others section
- Feb 5, 2007:
- added link to several Massimo Foti custom tags for CF/Spry integration, in the code from others section
- Feb 1, 2007:
- added link to Mark Drew's entry about remebering to use XMLFormat, in the blog posts section
- added link to Scott Meberson's entry about a set of Spry "Xtensions", in the code from others section
- added link to Scott Meberson's blog Spry category, in the blog posts section
- Jan 5, 2007:
- added link to John Beynon's entry about the Spry reserved word problems, in the blog posts section
- Dec 14, 2006:
- added link to Ray's entry about the Spry 1.4 announcement. Andy Powell has one as well. See the link to his Spry post blog entries, both in the blog posts section
- November 29, 2006:
- added link to Universal Mind consultant Andy Powell's Spry post blog entries in the blog posts section
- August 03, 2006:
- added link to Adobe developer Ashwin Mathew's Spry post in the blog posts section
- July 15, 2006:
- added link to Who's Using Spry, listed at Adobe, in the Specific Adobe-Provided Spry Resources to Note
- July 14, 2006:
- Added links to blog entries from me and Ray about Spry 1.2 in the list of Spry blog entries
- July 12, 2006:
- Added a Spry-generated feed of my own list of Spry blog entries, so the list is always up to date!
- Added Ray's blog entry on "Sending Data with Spry"
- Since John Farrar's 2-selects related demo is offered on his site only as something you must download, I've added link to a live demos running on my site, so you can see it first
- July 11, 2006:
- added Adobe's "Dynamic Table Tutorial" in the section, Specific Adobe-Provided Spry Resources to Note
- added Doug Knudsen's blog entry and demo
- added Nathan Dintenfass' QueryToXML UDF in the code from others section
- added Ray's "ToXML CFC - Converting data types to XML" entry to his list of Spry blog entries
- added John Farrar's 2-selects related demo in the demos section
- July 10, 2006:
- added link to demo in WebMonkey article, in the demos section