DP Libraries Setup: Overview

Before you consider downloading any files you might be interested in knowing what's going to be involved with using them. This is a quick overview and assumes some understanding of ColdFusion MX. If you'd like more information please feel free to drop me a line.

Environment

DP Library files require ColdFusion MX 6.1 or above (BlueDragon 6.1 or higher should also be applicable but I've been unable to test this yet). None of the components will work properly under previous versions of ColdFusion (including ColdFusion MX 6.0).

The components were developed using Windows-based systems. I don't know of anything that would present a problem to Unix-based systems, but in the spirit of disclosure it must be admitted that no testing in this area has been completed.

If you have comments or testing results that would add to this please let me know.

Developer Requisites

There are really no developer requisites to using the DP Libraries. Building your own DP Libraries applications requires at least a basic understanding of ColdFusion Components and how to build and call them. For most of the applications a good, basic understanding of the ColdFusion Application Framework (the CFAPPLICATION tag, ColdFusion Sessions, etc) would also be very helpful. Lastly as the DP Application Framework Library makes use of shared memory scopes (the Server, Application and Session scopes) an understanding of the issues of multi-threading and locking is also recommended.

Although the DP Libraries use some Object-Oriented concepts and constructs an understanding of OO is not needed to use or extend them. (In truth I think that those with a very good understanding of OO may find the libraries too simplistic.)