Raymond Camden's Blog Rss

Announcing ColdFire

77

Posted in ColdFusion | Posted on 03-09-2007 | 8,380 views

If you have attended any of my Spry presentations, you have heard me sing the praises of Firebug, the best Firefox extension ever created. About once a week I discover something new about it that just amazes me.

About a week or so ago I discovered that Firebug, a Firefox extension, can also be extended. Turns out someone made FirePHP, an add on to Firebug that lets you do basic debugging of PHP code in Firebug.

Now I don't know about you guys - but I think anything the PHP folks can do we can do better. (And easier. And quicker...) So I started looking into how this could be added to Firebug. Turns out working with Firefox is a bit complex. Luckily I found out that Adam Podolnick (Podman on the CF IRC channel) was experienced with it. I've had plenty of experience working with ColdFusion's debug templates. So we teamed up to create ColdFire.

ColdFire is a plugin that will let you view debugging information in Firebug instead of a giant dump at the bottom of the page. This is especially useful in cases where ColdFusion's debug output doesn't play well with CSS based sites. Right now it is not quite ready for release, but Adam and I hope to have a 1.0 release sometime soon. Here are a few screen shots. Click the image for a larger picture.

The first screen shots shows the General Information tab. This is basic information about the request including server level, template, and other pieces of information. Unlike the built-in debug template, I also added support to show the current active application, if one exists.

This second screen shot shows the template display. Note how you can tell regular templates from includes, custom tags, and CFCs. Also note the red background on slow templates. We may add filtering so you can restrict the display to just one template or method. This would be useful when you are working on cutting down the execution time of just one part of the request.

Last is the query display. As you can see, it shows each query along with the SQL. This will probably need a bit more work for larger queries. Since I was able to use the code from Starfish, the queries will automatically replace cfqueryparam values with their real data, so you won't see ? in the SQL.

So - what do you guys think? Useful?

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Jay McConathy said on 03-09-2007 at 10:12 AM #
I like the look of that. I definately think it will be useful
John Ramon said on 03-09-2007 at 10:16 AM #
Nice Ray, sounds like a great tool, I'm first in line to be a Beta or Alpha tester hehe.
Nick Tong said on 03-09-2007 at 10:16 AM #
This looks great Ray, well done to you both. If you need beta testers please let me know. I find the data sources on the 3rd screen shot quite amusing... sorry is that childish... ;)
Mike Elston said on 03-09-2007 at 10:16 AM #
Very nice! Just make sure it is Mac OS X Compatable.
Danlance said on 03-09-2007 at 10:17 AM #
Very nice...

What needs to be enabled on the server / in the application in the terms of debugging settings?
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 10:20 AM #
Nick - what are you - 2 years old? ;)

Danlance - You turn on debugging, select coldfire as the template, and that's it.
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 10:21 AM #
Elston - I demonstrated this at CFUNITED/Express... on my Mac.
Joe Danziger said on 03-09-2007 at 10:21 AM #
This is great!!!!! Firebug is the ultimate debugging tool and having CF debugging available as well would make it just awesome. Especially love how you've made it even better than the standard stuff by reconverting the cfqueryparam variables. Great work Ray and Adam!!!
Shlomy Gantz said on 03-09-2007 at 10:24 AM #
Awsome
Jeremy Prevost said on 03-09-2007 at 10:29 AM #
Is it ready yet? It's been like over 15 minutes! Come on already :)
Marcos Placona said on 03-09-2007 at 10:36 AM #
That's brilliant Ray. I can't wait for it to be released. Here's one more beta tester if you need.

Cheers
Ryan Arneson said on 03-09-2007 at 10:44 AM #
Count me in for beta testing, this looks amazing.
Michael Dinowitz said on 03-09-2007 at 10:45 AM #
I'd have to argue that the web developer toolbar is the best, but firebug is right up there with it.

Now about that beta testing. :)
Rich Kroll said on 03-09-2007 at 10:53 AM #
Amazing work Ray! Add +1 to the list of beta / alpha testers ;)
Frederic Fortier said on 03-09-2007 at 11:00 AM #
How is it going to function with fusebox and AJAX?

In Fusebox 5 you have to disable query execution time.. since the fusebox cfc's are clogging the debug parsing time.
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 11:04 AM #
AJAX: Good question. Let's say you load foo.cfm, and foo.cfm does an ajax call to goo.cfm. RIght now ColdFire shows the _main_ debug info, which is foo.cfm. Adam has said he thinks hew can make it support N sets of data per request, so we may have all soon. This will be HUGE as right now you can't do debugging with ajax since it adds crap to the output stream. Since ColdFire is all header based, this would not be an issue.

Fusebox: Well, as I said, we should be adding a filter. This will let you drill down to specific entries. It was not intended to remove entries, but you could do that to focus on non-fusebox stuff.
jonese said on 03-09-2007 at 11:05 AM #
bring it on! we've got a few sites we've built in the past where we had to turn off debugging output cause it mucked with JS or CSS or something else.
Jim Prist said on 03-09-2007 at 11:19 AM #
This looks great! I always have Firebug open so this would be really convenient!!

Release it to the masses!!! :)
Nick Walters said on 03-09-2007 at 11:20 AM #
Very cool. We love FireBug here, these days you really just can't work without it. This extension onto it would be great. Count me in for testing.
Richard Davies said on 03-09-2007 at 11:24 AM #
Wow! I'm so excited---I can hardly wait to try this. I love Firebug and this would only add to its usefulness. Thank you for taking on this project!
Sam Curren said on 03-09-2007 at 11:25 AM #
Awesome! You just made my friday.
Frederic Fortier said on 03-09-2007 at 11:37 AM #
Well if you guys can make the AJAX integration. That is just going to be awesome.. but it still will be without it :-)

Thanks a lot.

Good work!
Sam Farmer said on 03-09-2007 at 11:40 AM #
This sounds awesome.

When displaying queries could it parse the real values in and not the ? when using cfqueryparam?

AJAX support would be amazing.
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 11:46 AM #
Sam, I think you missed some of my text in the entry. The code does replace the ? from cfqueryparam. A lot of ColdFire comes from the old Starfish.
Scott Krebs said on 03-09-2007 at 11:47 AM #
This is really sweet. What a fantastic idea... Thank you Ray!

>support N sets of data per request

Will it support -gag- frames and allow viewing the debug info of each frame in the current set? I'm personally not a frames-lover (or even liker) but I've got to support some legacy apps that make extensive use of them (they were so cool in 1998! ;). It's tough to get debugging info out of very small frames and this would make life so much easier.

If frames support isn't planned and this sounds like a feature request on a piece of software that isn't even released yet, then my apologies for that. I'm really looking forward to something to squash the CSS positioning headaches with debug info once and for all. Woohoo!
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 11:50 AM #
Frederic - no promises. But - at a bare minimum - you can have debug turned on and it won't _break_ AJAX requests
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 11:53 AM #
Scott, I believe this is all related to the AJAX stuff. Ie, if one URL has N sets of data than it should work. Should. Again - this is Adam's area here so I don't want to over promise.
Ken Dunnington said on 03-09-2007 at 11:58 AM #
This is fantastic! I'm working on a project now that suffers from the "CSS Ate My Debugging" syndrome :) Firebug is incredible, and this will only add to its indispensability. If this is an unofficial beta signup page, count me in! Would love to see an extension to ModelGlue that made its debug output available too.
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 12:01 PM #
There may be some confusion. When I asked if people would be interested, I didn't mean in the beta, but in the product as a whole. Ie, "Does this make sense?".

There won't be a beta sign up or anything, I'll just post the bits to my blog. It will open to all.

Oh wait - no - um - the beta is available to anyone who visits the wishlist! Or gets me a good import beer! There we go! ;)
David Stockton said on 03-09-2007 at 12:09 PM #
This is a top idea!

Well done!
Don said on 03-09-2007 at 12:09 PM #
This would be perfect for remote servers that do not have debug turned on like on jodohost.com. It is maddening not being able to see debug when I write such sloppy code.
This would save me hours of frustration!!!
John Ramon said on 03-09-2007 at 12:14 PM #
Don, the best solution is to download a Developer Version of ColdFusion and run locally.
jeff said on 03-09-2007 at 12:17 PM #
Fantastic! What about variables? I didn't see anything in the screenshots. Also, assuming variable dump will be included, would there be any way to add in my own scope as I've done in existing debug?

Very cool idea Ray! Thanks for all your hard work.
Joel Cox said on 03-09-2007 at 12:23 PM #
A big woot! I use Firebug all the time, this makes it even more useful. Good job.
Brian Swartzfager said on 03-09-2007 at 12:35 PM #
Ray,

That looks really cool! Kudos to you and Adam for coming up with this. I look forward to hearing more about it.
Kurt Bonent said on 03-09-2007 at 12:40 PM #
Brilliant!!! I can't wait for ColdFire's release. I've been doing a lot of sites with CSS layouts so this will be a huge help!
Roy Martin said on 03-09-2007 at 12:43 PM #
Ray,

Once you get this wrapped up let me know because it would be the ideal thing to port the ModelGlue debugging info into this.

- Roy
Justice said on 03-09-2007 at 12:45 PM #
I dont know where I might fit into this, but if you need any help feel free to hollar. =) This looks awesome.
Mark Mazelin said on 03-09-2007 at 12:57 PM #
Late to the party, but looks like a promising tool. By the way, for Michael Dinowitz, I use a combination of Web Developer and FireBug--they each have their strengths. I love the ability of FireBug to integrate through such an extensible interface. Pretty awesome Ray!

Mark
DK said on 03-09-2007 at 12:58 PM #
This looks like it will be a great addition to the toolboxes. I love firebug more everyday especially with some of these css challenged sites I've had to help on. Thanks as always :)
Jeff Wilkinson said on 03-09-2007 at 1:03 PM #
very cool. I've just begun to learn of the beauty that is firebug, so to find out there is similar support for php and now CF is great.

So, how about ASP now?
Michael Brennan-White said on 03-09-2007 at 1:04 PM #
I am definitely looking forward to using this.

I love Firebug and often thought it would be great if I could do CF with it as well.

Michael
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 1:11 PM #
Lots of stuff here. Nice.

So first off - I didn't consider it for ModelGlue. It _may_ be something to consider. We could make ColdFire extensible, where if it finds a header of the form coldfire_XXXX, then it tries to parse XXX. It would only support simple datasets, but, it could be possible. Definitely a 2.0 thing. ;)

Jeff - I'll do an ASP one when they pry the CF from my cold, dead, hands. :)
Scott P said on 03-09-2007 at 1:21 PM #
I just want a R2D2 mailbox...
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 1:28 PM #
I just want Starbuck back...
Mike said on 03-09-2007 at 1:57 PM #
tes
Alfio said on 03-09-2007 at 1:58 PM #
Definitely looks cool and useful. Wouldn't mind giving it a spin when it is completed.
desd said on 03-09-2007 at 1:59 PM #
dsa
Sid Wing said on 03-09-2007 at 2:16 PM #
AHA! So THAT is where that CF tab in Firebug came from in your demo to the NZ Folks! Sneaky! Very Sneaky! But also WAY cool!
Adam Fortuna said on 03-09-2007 at 2:39 PM #
Looks great! Definitely would use this.
Sean Corfield said on 03-09-2007 at 4:19 PM #
This would certainly get me to install FireBug. Looks awesome Ray. When can we have it? :)
Sam Clement said on 03-09-2007 at 5:00 PM #
Brilliannttt!
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 5:12 PM #
As an FYI, I just added Total Execution Time and CFTRACE support on the server side. Next will be CFTIMER, EXCEPTIONS.

And not to get too wild.... but RDS is really just HTTP calls. If you look at Dreamweaver, it just does HTTP calls to get data. It is possible to enable RDS support via the plugin to let you browse DBs, and even see source code for files. Now mind you - I'm just talking wildly here so take this with a gigantic grain of salt.
Jaana Gilbert said on 03-09-2007 at 6:45 PM #
That is awesome! Count me in for beta testing!
Matt said on 03-09-2007 at 8:12 PM #
How can we help?
Raymond Camden said on 03-09-2007 at 9:17 PM #
Matt, it will be hosted at RIAForge, which means that you will be able to log issues and help us debug.
Jay Greer said on 03-10-2007 at 1:31 AM #
To borrow a phrase...

"Insanely Great!"
Richard Tugwell said on 03-10-2007 at 2:46 AM #
Wow - 55 replies in 8 hours. I think that answers your question Ray
William from Lagos said on 03-10-2007 at 12:35 PM #
Great stuff. I just started getting used to this Firebug thingie.

How can I sign up to be notified when it becomes available?
William from Lagos said on 03-10-2007 at 12:35 PM #
Great stuff. I just started getting used to this Firebug thingie.

How can I sign up to be notified when it becomes available?
Ken Dunnington said on 03-10-2007 at 1:20 PM #
"Oh wait - no - um - the beta is available to anyone who visits the wishlist! Or gets me a good import beer! There we go! ;)" - LOL! If I make it to cf.Objective I'll try to sneak some homebrew on the plane, does that count? :)
Raymond Camden said on 03-10-2007 at 1:43 PM #
I've had a few more repeats on this so I'll say it again. You do not need to sign up. I'll be posting the bits when they are ready (which should be very soon). So... stop asking how to get the bits. ;)
Sam Farmer said on 03-10-2007 at 2:02 PM #
@Ray -- Great stuff about the cfqueryparam being replaced. Thats my bad for not actually reading the whole entry. Damn reading....
Raymond Camden said on 03-10-2007 at 2:16 PM #
Sam: Yeah, the feature isn't perfect. Like for example, if you had name = <cfqueryparam ...>, you will see name = foo, where in reality it should be name = 'foo', but I figure people can deal.

Again - a lot of this was already done in Starfish - I'm just using the old code with some new updates.
Alexander said on 03-10-2007 at 9:20 PM #
PLEASE tell me this is coming out soon! It might be a dream come true for me, honestly, you know exactly what some people just need!
David Harris said on 03-10-2007 at 9:55 PM #
I remember you pointed that out when I said "Hey, Look, PHP!" when you did the Spry presentation to the Auckland CFUG.

I'm looking forward to it being ready!
Anand Paleja` said on 03-12-2007 at 7:59 AM #
Is it ready yet? jk! :)
Paul Glover said on 03-12-2007 at 12:30 PM #
Looks *very* useful! Will be installing it as soon as it's available.
Jeremy Prevost said on 03-12-2007 at 4:01 PM #
@ Ray: way off topic, but you started it :)
I want Starbuck back too! What the heck were they thinking? That said, I want Cylons back too! Season 3=yawn (with a few exceptions).
Brandner said on 03-12-2007 at 4:49 PM #
Awesome, can't wait!
Trond Ulseth said on 03-13-2007 at 3:46 AM #
hmm...what to say that's not said already?

Awesome, cool, rocking, miindblowing - please apply the one(s) that are not already used.

I'm using Firebug all the time, and I won't be using it any less once this get out.
Dave Konopka said on 03-15-2007 at 8:07 AM #
This rocks. Unfortunately my work development environment is all done on a shared CF web server. So I can't hook up the ColdFire.cfm to debugging without affecting everyone else.

But it's an awesome tool.
Tak said on 05-08-2007 at 8:34 AM #
Looks like a great tool, Ray!

I wouldn't mind Alpha/Beta testing it!
Raymond Camden said on 05-08-2007 at 8:39 AM #
It has been out for a few months now. :) Still considering it 'beta' though.
JOZEPH said on 12-30-2007 at 6:14 PM #
Unfortunately my work development environment is all done on a shared CF web server
yes.
SEO said on 01-21-2008 at 3:48 PM #
If this is an unofficial beta signup page, count me in! Would love to see an extension to ModelGlue that made its debug output available too.
Raymond Camden said on 01-21-2008 at 3:52 PM #
It was released sometime ago. http://coldfire.riaforge.org

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