Quick CFBL update and a minor LighthousePro update
Two quickies for the lunch time crowd. As folks remember, I ran a "We are too dang fat" contest back in January. I was proud to say I went from 230 to 211 during the 10 week process. Today I went to the doctor (not for anything important) so I took the opportunity to use a 'real' scale.
Yes, I used the blink tag. Sue me. 6 more pounds and I'll be at my goal weight.
Secondly, I released a small update to LighthousePro. This was work done by Ron Stewart and involves some minor cleanup in the project view area. Not a critical update, but I'd grab it anyway.
LighthousePro Updated
Just a quick note to let folks I released a small update to LighthousePro, my ColdFusion-based issue tracker. The updates include:
- I finally got off my lazy rear and changed Loci/Locus to Areas/Area. I don't know why I took so long since no one knew what Loci meant.
- In Application.cfc, I added code to check for the attachments folder and create it if it doesn't exist.
- Fixed some bugs in the main project view, and I now allow you to filter to a ID number. So if you have a lot of bugs and the client says, find bug 212, you can now type 212 and see the bug.
The Jedi Punts - Need IE testers
I've been working with a Lighthouse Pro user today who has discovered a very odd issue. When generating reports (the flash charts version), he got a null pointer error from ColdFusion at the end of the first chart.
I opened up Firefox, gave it a whirl, and couldn't reproduce the error.
We then found that the error only occurred in IE (I tried 7, not 6).
So this is what bugs me. It's a CF error - not a client side error. I debugged the FORM scope after posting from the page where you select what to chart and it was the exact same. I debugged the Data variable which all the charts use and it was the exact same in both browsers (as expected), yet somehow only IE is throwing the server side issue.
It seems impossible - but we are both seeing the same thing. Soooo.... consider this my official call for help. If anyone out there wants to try to duplicate this, and actually can duplicate it, post here. FYI - the database the user was running was SQL Server, not that I think it should matter, but there ya go.
I hope we can figure this out - because it certainly is interesting (and frustrating).
Ask a Jedi: Where did Loci come from in Lighthouse Pro?
This really isn't a ColdFusion question, but I thought others may find it interesting. Jeff asks:
As I continue to evaluate and use Lighthouse Pro, something sparked my interest. You used the term "project loci", which clicked with me and made perfect sense. But my background with the term "loci" comes from genetics and biology (previous life). Do you have a biology background too?
The answer stems from the history of Lighthouse Pro, and directly relates to why there is a "Pro" in the name. Many, many, many moons ago, Nathan Dintenfass created a bug tracker. This bug tracker was very simple. It required no database. But as it was one file, you could drop it in and start using it in about 5 minutes. I loved the simplicity of it. I did some basic updates to his code and released a version named Lighthouse that was just a bit cleaned up.
Anyway - Loci is the term Nathan had used, and it stuck. When Macromedia approached me to write an application for the old DRK (boy do I miss those), I proposed an update to Lighthouse that would be a bit more formal, ie, actually use a database. Hence the "Pro".
Frankly, I know "Loci" confuses people and I keep meaning to change it to "Location" or "Area", but I forget. ;) I'd rather focus on adding features.
Speaking of which, the next update to LHP will include milestones, and I'm considering a system by which you can add any field you want to a project issue, so if you want each issue to have a 'How Sucky' field, it will be possible.
Small update to LighthousePro
Just a quick note to say I released a minor update to Lighthouse Pro. This last update has a few changes, but the main one is that if you are editing an issue and let your session timeout, after you login your changes are preserved. So if you had entered some lengthy notes, timed out, hit Save, when you login, you changes to the issue are preserved and stored.
There are a few ways you can do this, but here is how I did it. Also note I was only only concerned about people timing out in an issue edit. First off, in login.cfm, I look for a form post from the issue editor:
<cfif structKeyExists(form, "issuetypeidfk")>
<cfset session.issueform = duplicate(form)>
</cfif>
Then back in view.cfm, the file that handles editing issues, I simply added:
<cfif structKeyExists(session, "issueform")>
<cfset structAppend(form, session.issueform)>
<cfset structDelete(session, "issueform")>
</cfif>
Note that I clear out the session data. This is important so as to not keep restoring the edits for future editing.
Lighthouse Pro Update
Just a quick note to let folks know I released a minor update to Lighthouse Pro. I don't normally bother even blogging about minor updates, but this one includes a feature that I've had on my person bug tracker for a few weeks now and I've really enjoyed it. When you enter a project and filter out the issues (ie, show issues that are open and belong to me), the tracker will store these in a cookie. When you return to the list, the filters automatically reapply. This is darn nice when going back and forth between the list view and the issue view. The cookie is only for one project, so it won't remember multiple project views, but it is better than nothing.
For Spry users, you may want to take a look at project_view.cfm. I use an observer on the dataset that runs after it has been loaded. This code checks the cookies and updates the dropdowns accordingly.
(Unofficial) Lighthouse Pro for Sybase
Attached to this blog entry is a modified version of Lighthouse Pro that works for Sybase. This modification was written by Tri Nguyen so all credit goes to ... um... him or her. Not sure. :) As the title says, this is an unofficial modification. I don't want to post his/her email address, but if you have any support requests, post a comment her. I will let Tri know to monitor the entry.
Lighthouse Pro 2.4 Released (ColdFusion Bugtracker)
A semi-big update today. Lighthouse Pro now has the follow enhancements/updates:
- You can now attach multiple attachments to an issue.
- You can now delete attachments. (Duh, why didn't I have this before?)
- I now store and display the original file name of the attachment. So if you upload foo.txt and ColdFusion has to rename it to vivapinataisweird.goober, then you will see foo.txt displayed on the front end.
- Email support has been updated to allow for attachments. So now your users can email you a bug report and include a screen shot for example.
- The XML used in the AJAX has been slimmed down quite a bit. I'll switch to JSON once Spry 1.5 is released, but for now it should make the application run a bit faster. A project with 300 issues was clocking in at 400K or so. Thats insane. It now comes in at 120K or so, which is still big, but less than half of what it was before.
- Plus a few other small fixes here and there.
Thanks to Scott Pinkston for doing the MS Access update. I just discovered today that I no longer have a copy of MS Office installed. I'll have to add that to my Parallels install. (Unless anyone knows of a decent OSX Access editor.)
As always - the application is free and your support is welcome.
Happy Release Day
Hey, buddy. Yeah, you. You wanna some new releases? How about...
BlogCFC 5.7.001 - Includes updated RSS and Search code
Canvas 2 - Yes. Finally. Includes... um, a whole lot of stuff. It still doesn't have an upgrade script for 1.5, but I'm not the first person to release a delayed project out of just pure frustration. Mark Mazelin gets credit for 99% of Canvas 2. He was done months ago. This is my fault.
Harlan 1.0.4 - The ColdFusion Ad Server so poorly written it sends people to PHP!
Lighthouse Pro 2.3.004 - This is just a minor bug fix.
ColdFire/Lighthouse Updates
ColdFire v 0.0.4 was released today. It contains a few bug fixes and support for CFTIMER. Next will be exception handling. Download it here: http://coldfire.riaforge.org
Lighthouse Pro had a few updates this week. The big update was a fix for IE6/7 (although we all know the real fix for IE is to use Firefox). Download it here: http://lighthousepro.riaforge.org