Ask Mark: CFEclipse's lost help...

Posted At : January 28, 2007 9:09 AM | Posted By : Mark Drew
Related Categories: cfeclipse, ASK MD

A reader asks:

I've installed it (using Software Updates) but can't seem to get the context sensitive help to work. Each time I click F1 it redirects the browser pane to http://www.cfeclipse.org/cfdocs/?query=cfif (for example) which is an invalid page. Is there a way to have local help on the language?

This is a mistake, I was a bit over enthusiastic with my archiving procedure on friday, and lost our cfquickdocs redirection.

This is a new feature, in CFEclipse 1.2.1 (previous version) the help would point to www.cfdocs.org but that site has died, now we do two things:

  1. If you dont have the Coldfusion Extensions from Adobe it will point to http://cfquickdocs.com and get you the relevant help in your internal browser
  2. If you have the flex builder plugin or the Coldfusion Extensions (I think its the extensions, I cant remember off the top of my head) it will do a search in the local docs.
Why is this you might ask? Well, the CFEclipse team dont re-distribute the help, Adobe does, so we try and make it a bit easier by giving you the choice.

Another thing is built in CFEclipse help.

If you go to Help -> Help Contents and expand the CFEclipse node, you might find its a little bare.

I have to admit, I am terrible at writing this documentation, so if anybody wants to help, they could write on various topics about CFEclipse and I shall update the help, I would be most greatful!

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Andrew's Gravatar Thanks for your pronto reply. Wow - that's quick -- on a Sunday too!

Ok I understand the problem now - I've uninstalled and re-updated CFEclipse 1.3.0 and it works now!

On another note - what are my options for getting local documentation for Eclipse 3.2.1? Can I download the Flex Builder plugin/Coldfusion Extensions from Adobe and try to get it installed on Eclipse 3.2.1 (does it even work on a vanilla Eclipse 3.2.1.. or do I need to downgrade to 3.1, or must I buy Flex 2)? I am a bit lost over what I need to do. Or is there anyway to redirect it to my own help docs, because it is not tenable to ask my team to hit the internet for the help every time.

Also - the docs are not just a bit-bare - the 2 pages there (Creating a Cold Fusion Project & Adding Cold Fusion Files) doesn't link to actual help files... at least in my install... just to let you know :)

Mucha gracias for your help, really appreciate it.

- Andrew
# Posted By Andrew | 1/28/07 9:52 AM
Mark Drew's Gravatar I belive (I haven't checked this today) that if you download a beta of the flexbuilder, expand it (you dont need to install flex builder, you should be able to find a cf_extensions.zip, unzip that and install it as a local software update site, you will get the RDS plugins as well as the documentation.

I dont know where the documents that were there are gone... so I use the word bare in the most precice manner :)

(BTW, you didnt need to reinstall or update CFEclipse, this was an issue on the serverside)
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 10:22 AM
Mark Drew's Gravatar *I should also add that it was incredibly early on a sunday too!*

I was just going through some updates to the website...
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 10:23 AM
Jake Munson's Gravatar I've got a weird one. I had Flex builder installed at some point, it still shows up as a perspective option, but I must have uninstalled it because I don't see it under "manage configuration" nor under about eclisp->plugin details. When I hit F1, it sends me to livedocs instead of cfquickdocs. Do I have a hosed eclipse install, or is there a quick way to get rid of the Flex reference that's still showing somehow?
# Posted By Jake Munson | 1/28/07 12:21 PM
Mark Drew's Gravatar Check that you dont have a com.rohanclan.cfml.xxxx plugin in your plugins directory

That will be thte ticket.
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 12:40 PM
Jake Munson's Gravatar Yep, that was the ticket. Thanks Mark.
# Posted By Jake Munson | 1/28/07 12:48 PM
Andrew's Gravatar Thanks Mark - I got the docs installed from Flex 2 CF-extensions. It now shows up in the Help contents.

However, clicking F1 does not automatically get me the CFML context help - it seems to be searching for '"Help view" OR "CFEclipse perspective"' all the time and not returning the right context. However, if I click F1,
then click on Goto:Search at the bottom, it will do a context search properly. Weird, but just a minor inconvenience of an extra click, not a showstopper. Am I not setting something correctly?

Also - I see you have refreshed the CFEclipse.org site and added the manual download link. However the .zip file downloaded cannot be installed directly in Software Update/Install/New Archive File because the root
directory is not the one with the site.xml (this is easily corrected by removing the top directory in the zip though). It will be more helpful for bewildered noobies like me to have the .zip file ready installable :)

Cheers!
# Posted By Andrew | 1/28/07 1:14 PM
Mark Drew's Gravatar I did mention you need to unzip it... but point made
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 1:58 PM
monkey woo's Gravatar The link from your nifty banner, http://www.cfeclipse.org/update, gives a file not found error.
# Posted By monkey woo | 1/28/07 9:56 PM
Az's Gravatar Mark, there appears to be an issue with the update site at this time. I am trying to add the CFEclipse 1.3.0 feature and I can see it, select it and it even SAYS it's installing 1.3.0 but if you watch the update window closely it's pulling down the 1.2.1 JAR file instead of the 1.3.0 JAR file that it should be pulling down. In the ZIP file download on the CFEclipse site, if it look at the feature file for the 1.3.0 release there is a place inside that still says 1.2.1, perhaps that could be causing the problem?
# Posted By Az | 1/28/07 10:11 PM
Mark Drew's Gravatar There are some problems with the site at the moment, I am trying to fix them as we speak.
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 10:13 PM
Az's Gravatar Thanks for the quick reply, thought I'd report it in case you weren't aware of the issue yet.
Nice work on the new release by the way. :)
# Posted By Az | 1/28/07 10:15 PM
Mark Drew's Gravatar Update site should be working now, I have even changed how the download file works so you dont need to unzip it, you can just do New Archive Site and point it to the zip.

Something strange went on with the site, I am stilly trying to see what happened as a lot of files went AWOL

Sorry for the downtime (but hey! its sunday! what are you doing downloading CFEclipse, actually, come to think of it... what am *I* doing working on it???)
# Posted By Mark Drew | 1/28/07 10:30 PM
seo's Gravatar if you watch the update window closely it's pulling down the 1.2.1 JAR file instead of the 1.3.0 JAR file that it should be pulling down.
# Posted By seo | 3/20/08 11:15 PM
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