Developing ColdFusion MX Applications with CFML
Designing and Optimizing a ColdFusion Application

About applications

The term application can mean many things. An application can be as simple as a guest book or as sophisticated as a full Internet commerce system with catalog pages, shopping carts, and reporting.

However, an application has a specific meaning in ColdFusion. A ColdFusion application consists of one or more ColdFusion pages that work together and share a common set of resources. In particular, the application shares an application name as specified in a cfapplication tag, and all pages in the application share variables in the Application scope. What appears to a user to be a single application, for example, a company's website, might consist of multiple ColdFusion applications.

While there are no definite rules as to how you represent your web application as a ColdFusion application or applications, the following guidelines are useful:

• Application pages share a common general purpose. For example, a web storefront is typically a single ColdFusion application.
• Many, but not necessarily all, pages in a ColdFusion application share data or common code elements, such as a single login mechanism.
• Application pages share a common look and feel, often enforced by using common code elements, such as the same header and footer pages, and a common error message template.

This chapter describes the tools that ColdFusion provides to create an application, and presents information on how you can develop and optimize your application.

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