Skip to main content

Navigation enhancements in ColdFusion Builder 2.0

Do you spend a lot of  time scrolling large files, just to find out the next function definition in place or to figure out the end\start of a tag? If your answer is YES, then why don’t you try the Navigation enhancements in ColdFusion Builder 2.0?
ColdFusion Builder comes to you with three types of Navigation enhancements:
-         Code Navigation
-         Smart Tab Navigation
-         Jumping to matching tag.

Code Navigation

Code Navigation is all about navigating to the next function definition in place. Imagine a CFC containing various cffunction tags. It is a time-consuming task to keep scrolling and keep an eye on the file to get to the next cffunction tag. ColdFusion Builder 2.0 provides a shortcut key CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN to navigate to the next function definition. And to navigate to the previous function definition, you can use the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + UP.

Code Navigation works in conditional statements as well. Consider an example of a cfif-cfelseif-cfelse conditional statement. If the cursor is placed, say at the start tag and if this particular conditional statement has several conditions in it, then on pressing the shortcut key, the next condition in place is highlighted. That is, on placing the cursor at the start of the cfif tag and pressing the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN, the next cfelseif condition is highlighted.

Smart Tab Navigation

Smart Tab navigation is about navigating to the next attribute value. The shortcut key for this is CTRL + ]. On pressing the shortcut key, the next attribute value is highlighted. This works in script style code as well, wherein the function arguments are also highlighted.

Jump to matching tag

If you have several nested cfif tags, it becomes very difficult to find out the end of a particular cfif tag. ColdFusion Builder 2.0 provides the shortcut CTRL + ALT + M, which shifts the cursor position to end of the tag. If the cursor is placed at the end tag, then on pressing the same shortcut key the cursor position shifts to the start tag.

Summary:
  • Code Navigation - Navigate to the next function definition or the next condition. Shortcut- CTRL + SHIFT + DOWN \ UP.
  • Smart Tab Navigation - Navigate to the next attribute value or arguments (cfscript). Shortcut- CTRL + ] \ [.
  • Jump to matching tag - Jump to the start or end tag. Shortcut- CTRL + ALT + M.

    Labels:

    Comments

    1. LolaApril 7, 2011 at 5:28 PM

      Are there Mac equivalents? I couldn't find any key combinations that match what you've described.

      ReplyDelete
    2. Sagar GanatraApril 7, 2011 at 5:33 PM

      CTRL is mapped to CMD.
      Code Navigation - CMD + SHIFT + DOWN\UP.
      Smart Tab Navigation - CMD + ]\[.
      Jump to matching tag - CMD + ALT + M.

      ReplyDelete
    3. LolaApril 7, 2011 at 5:43 PM

      Thanks!

      ReplyDelete
    4. DominicApril 7, 2011 at 6:37 PM

      Great tips, thanks!

      ReplyDelete

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    Custom validation messages for HTML5 Input elements using the constraint validation API

    HTML5 has introduced several input types such as EMAIL, URL, RANGE, SEARCH, DATE, TIME, etc,. Most of the modern browsers have implemented them and are ready to be used in a HTML document. Another exciting feature introduced in HTML5 is the form validation. Instead of writing JavaScript to validate users input, browsers can now validate it and show an appropriate message if the validation fails. The validation message is shown in line with the field for which the validation has failed. The default error message is shown when the validation fails. In this post I'll explain how these error messages can be changed.
    8 comments
    Read more

    De-obfuscating javascript code in Chrome Developer Tools

    I had blogged about JavaScript debugging with Chrome Developer Tools some time back, wherein I have explained how these developer tools can help in debugging javascript code. Today Google Chrome 12 was released and my Chrome browser was updated to this version. As with every release, there have been some improvements made on performance, usability etc,. One feature that stood out for me is the ability to De-obfuscate the javascript code.

    What is Minification?

    Minification is the process of removing unnecessary characters such as white spaces, comments, new lines from the source code. These otherwise would be added to make the code more readable. Minifying the source code helps in reducing the file size and thereby reducing the time taken to download the file. This is the reason why most of the popular javascript libraries such as jQuery are minified. A minified jQuery file is of 31 KB in size where as an uncompressed one is about 229 KB. Unfortunately, debugging minified javascript file…
    9 comments
    Read more

    Adding beforeRender and afterRender functions to a Backbone View

    I was working on a Backbone application that updated the DOM when a response was received from the server. In a Backbone View, the initialize method would perform some operations and then call the render method to update the view. This worked fine, however there was scenario where in I wanted to perform some tasks before and after rendering the view. This can be considered as firing an event before and after the function had completed its execution. I found a very simple way to do this with Underscore's wrap method.
    1 comment
    Read more