Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

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Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

Out of the bag, RDS Plugin for (CF)Eclipse

March 21, 2006 · 3 Comments

Finally they have released the RDS plugin for Eclipse. This is a great contribution from Macromedia Adobe to the community. I dont know if they will charge for it but it finally gives a GREAT feature back to the community for people using CFEclipse. The nice thing about the RDS plugin is that it allows you to browse datasources on registered Coldfusion services and (on windows only) use a familiar homesite style Query Builder. I have been using the RDS plugin for a while now and its fast, damn fast! And unlike other database plugins for Eclipse its very easy for the CF'er to set it up, since you dont need to add jdbc connection strings or driver classes.

The other feature of the RDS plugin is that you can browse the filesytem on an RDS server and edit the files (and if they are CFM files) in CFEclipse. A great combination!

Along side the RDS plugin there are some great wizards that allow you to create some DAO and Beans for each of the tables. Or you can choose to create an active record CFC. Its pretty damn awesome stuff if I may say so and it just shows how you can use CFEclipse + adobe plugins together in Eclipse as your single IDE of choice. (ok ok.. apart from the design part)

And yes... it all comes under the banner of Flex for some reason... but I guess that is just because you can also create Flex AS objects for your database tables.

A small warning though, I noticed that the RDS plugin doesnt seem to play nicely with the myEclipse plugin, I need to check iinto this issue more as to why that is and workarounds.
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Tags: adobe · cfeclipse · coldfusion · flex

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Teddy Payne // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:11 PM

    Hey Mark,
    I am totally excited about this, but...

    I went to the Macromedia labs web site. I read through and executed the instructions that were offered for updating the CF Eclipse plugin. The instructions directs users to update to the most current stable build of the CF Eclipse plugin. When I performed this update, 1.2 was the available stable build from www.cfeclipe.org/update. Now, after the workbench restarted itself, the new options and features that Adobe discuses were not there. Specifically, Adobe mentions the ability to click the Windows options from the toolbar and then Preferences adn then RDS Connections. I did not get this option.

    Do I a mental swift kick in the butt or is the plugin not there?

  • 2 Teddy Payne // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:11 PM

    Sorry mark, a blogger from Raymond's website tipped me off.

    The web site for the Eclipse plugin is not intuitive to find or at least it was not for me.

    http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs

    You will have to login or register into Adobe labs.

    Under the section "Flex Builder 2.0," there is a link that says "Download ColdFusion Extensions to Flex Builder 2.0."

    This is what you want as it unzips into the plugins folder of eclipse.

  • 3 Mark Drew // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:11 PM

    Its like a release by jumping through hoops isnt it?

    The RDS plugin isnt really part of cfeclipse but they play well together like toddlers in a sandpit. The labs.macromedia.com site isnt the best in terms of usability but hell.. it IS their labs so fair play!

    Well done adobe for finally releasing them though!

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