MGDoc, a Model-Glue documentor
If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm all about the Model-Glue. If I wasn't married, I'd ask Model-Glue to marry me. We would settle down in a small, ranch style house in the mid-west. I'd gladly stay at home so Model-Glue could go out into the work place, quickly and efficiently helping ColdFusion developers create better applications. Alas, it is a forbidden love...
As much as I love Model-Glue, one thing that bugs me is large XML config files. I've worked on a few sites now where the ModelGlue.xml files gets to be so huge, it's hard to navigate. That's why I've created MGDoc, a CFC that will parse your ModelGlue.xml file and create documentation from it.
This documentation is heavily based on the documentation you get with CFCs. So, um, Adobe, don't sue me, ok? I love Photoshop! By default the documentation is generated in HTML, but you can use PDF and Flash Paper as well. (For the Flash Paper I cribbed some code from Jared Rypka-Hauer's excellent cfcToPrinter UDF.) For an example in PDF, here is the config file from the ColdFusion Cookbook:
http://ray.camdenfamily.com/downloads/mg.pdf
The code is not quite done yet. It is missing a few of the optional things you can supply to views and broadcasts. But - play with it - and let me know. I think the text is a bit big in PDF format, but in general, I think the layout is nice. (Although again I can't take credit for the table styles.)
Comments
It seems this little utility needs a simple front end so that documentation can be generated on the fly from a form. It doesn't look that difficult. When I get some time, I might look into that.
Dude,
Not I. ;)
So I haven't looked at the code yet but I sure hope you just have a single XSL file that you transform the ModelGlue.xml with, into HTML, right? :)
Ugh. No. Although that would have made sense. ;)
I actually did something along these lines with XSLT a while back (http://swem.wm.edu/blogs/waynegraham/index.cfm/200...). Generating the documentation with XSL is really pretty simple...and the PDFs are even easier now that you don't have to use FO to generate them.
To be fair, I did have one good reason to do it by hand - I wanted the funcs that grab stuff (settings, events, controllers) to be public so that if you wanted to, you could get that data. I can't imagine anyone doing that at runtime, but hey, it's there if you want it. :)Wayne, I like yours as well. I didn't know you had built one at well, but hey, the more alternatives out there the better.
That is awesome stuff!I am thinking of writing a CF(Eclipse) plugin for Model Glue and this documentor would be a great way of viewing your MG app.
The XSLT route might be easier for Eclipse development though.
Any other ideas for something to help you build your MG app let me know! (IDE wise I mean :))
Oh yea - an Eclipse plugin that worked like the CFC view would kick butt.
I was thinking that is one way to do it, but we could do it a bit more interesting, like the plugin.xml editor (or how Flex Builder does it). You can see a screenshot if you havent seen it before here: http://www.markdrew.co.uk/images/pluginxml.pngnotice the tabs at the bottom, this lets you flick between the actual code and the sections, so for example at the bottom we could have the following tabs: config | controllers | event-handlers | modelglue.xml
You would hit each to add/edit each of the items in each section.
If you added a new controller you could select the CFC, and then add listners -> functions (from a drop down) kind of thing.
Just some thoughts....
I should have added that the last one would be a documentation map of the modelglue.xml app, as you have done!
That's pretty slick. I'm always amazed at how well built the Eclipse framework is.
Here is a nice FAQ for Model Glue - 
Thanks for this resource Ray.....Mark,
The MG plugin Idea is a great one, even more reson to switch to cfeclipse.......
Hi Not able to downlaod the docs and pdf from the link too
By the way, I just started using Reactor with MG and I'm already impressed. I'm sure you'll like it as much as MG once you get some time to play with it.