CfTracker

While CfTracker 2.2 finishes brewing into a final release (currently RC1 but looking very stable so far), why not help me out by letting me know what you want to see in the next release (2.3).  I've already assigned a few ideas to potentially make it ... [More] but I'd love to hear what you people using it would like. Check out the CfTracker feature requests tickets. Or come up with your own ideas. Let me know your choices via a comment on this post, a discussion group message, a tweet @cftracker, submitting a new feature request or via the contact form (for my eyes only ;)). Share| [Less]

I've managed to get 2.2 RC 1 out earlier than expected. If you're a user of any beta versions, please upgrade and help with bug hunting so we can get closer to the final 2.2 release. Downloads OpenBD Support pushed back Yet another feature that I'd ... [More] have liked to have included will have to be pushed back to a future release. I'd hoped to add better OpenBD support when I found out that I'd broken even basic support. This was due to OpenBD not having a GetComponentMetaData() function that ValidateThis requires. I have a couple of ideas to get around this issue but I don't want to keep holding up the 2.2 release. Reporting bugs Don't forget that you can report issues via the new support site http://support.cftracker.net. You can use your Google, Yahoo or set up a fresh Assembla account to access the support system. When logging issues, please make sure you set the version you're using (hopefully 2.2 RC 1).Share| [Less]

Work towards 2.2 Railo web/server admin plugin support being pushed back. Due to my Java knowledge not being up to scratch enough for the task, I'm pushing back the release of the Railo plugin support. It'll remain pending until I get my head around ... [More] the Java required for the scheduled task or come up with a workaround that doesn't feel like too much of a hack. I won't be removing any of the code changes involved though, so if someone wanted to try and help, the code will still be there. OpenBD extended support. After testing the waters on the OpenBD mailing list, a couple of people are interested in seeing CfTracker add support for their CFML engine. Basic support is already baked into the 2.2 development code but I'm looking at including at least basic information for the applications and sessions that are currently active. Next release (2.2 RC 1) I'm hoping to get a release out during this week. I feel historical graphs are quite an important feature which people using the project should have and don't want to hold it back any longer. When the OpenBD changes are in place I'll be releasing the first "release candidate", meaning I'll try and resist temptation to add any new features and focus on bug fixing to get a stable release out. Support The project has moved to Assemabla for support, the reason being that the Github issues were quite basic and I wanted a suitable replacement for the (unused) uservoice site. The new support.cftracker.net site will be the go to place for logging any bugs, issues and features changes you'd like made. I've also logged a lot of "feature request" tickets and created milestones to hopefully give people a good idea of where the project is going. Mentions Facebook CfTracker managed to get a mention on the Adobe ColdFusion Facebook page. This generated a staggering spike in hits and downloads of the project, I'm very happy that a bunch of developers have gained knowledge of the projects existance. AdobeMax There was no chance that I'd make it to AdobeMax (I'm dead jealous of their freebies!), but that didn't stop the project from getting a mention. Thanks goes to Rob Brooks-Bilson who had added the project into his "Maintaining Health ColdFusion Servers" presentation. I'm very happy that the @cftracker Twitter account also made it onto the "People you should Follow on Twitter" list at the end of the presentation. It'd be great to hear from anyone who attended the presentation. Donations The project received another 2 donations from happy users who have found the tool useful. I've already purchased a copy of Matt Giffords book, "Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion", with some of the donations. This should hopefully help improve my OO skills, hopefully making the project code cleaner and more organised. I'm currently comparing several Java books to hopefully get me starting on improving the Java integration of the project and adding several very useful features.Share| [Less]

CfTracker is switching away from Github for it's issue tracking, to Assembla.  This should provide users with a much more detailed view of what's going on with development of the project, any bugs and feature request plans. Milestones, see what ... [More] versions are planned and scheduled release dates. See feature request tickets assigned to future versions. Tickets can be of various types including bugs and feature requests. You can now select what version you're logging a ticket for. Accepts Assembla, Google and Yahoo accounts for authentication. It also does much more but that's some of the advantages I've already found while testing it out. https://cftracker.assembla.com So feel free to start logging any issues you're having and especially any feature requests. Twitter There's also a new twitter account to go with this @cftracker_log who'll be tweeting about tickets, milestones and commits related to the project.Share| [Less]

I'm happy to annouce that Host Media UK have started to make monthly donations to the CfTracker project. Though it's only a small donation, every little bit helps when you're running an open source project. Host Media UK is a hosting company that ... [More] offer a wide array of hosting options and they've been working on an application called CFManager. This application allows their ColdFusion hosting clients a way to manage their ColdFusion Datasources, sandbox security settings and some other configuration items. As part of this application they've decided to include other useful information like what applications and sessions are currently active on your hosting account. This is where CfTracker has come in to help as they're taking advantage of it's core components, within the CFManager application. Donation usage As I've stated before, I plan to use any donations received to make this project better. Currently I'm hoping to build up enough funds to purchase some CF books to improve the CFML organisation of the project, Java books to aid in the future developments of CfTracker as they need to dig deeper than before and any useful software, like CFBuilder, that'll aid in the development processShare| [Less]

This will hopefully be the first post in a series of updates to keep users of the project up to date on what's happening. I'll try and cover the work planned, problems encountered and new ideas on the horizon. Work towards 2.2 Railo server admin, no ... [More] scheduled task support The only feature that's really holding back the 2.2 release at this point is the new Railo Server admin plugin support. The 2.2 Beta 5 release can current work as a Railo admin plugin but the admin itself currently has no scheduled task support. While this wouldn't be a problem for previous versions, 2.2 includes a new scheduled task to monitor certain statistics and store them in a special database format (rrd4j). This is quite an issue to try and workaround. I've had several suggestions from the Railo Google Group and the one that makes the most sense is to port the scheduled task to Java. Unfortunately my Java skills are pretty basic and it's going to take some learning on my part to achieve this (any help is welcome). Future developments Remote monitoring I've been investigating the possibility of running CfTracker in it's own instance. Certain information can already be monitored remotely and if I can expose the rest then this would provide quite a boost in usefulness of the project. Request monitoring A small amount of progress has been made towards having current request information, so you can see exactly what requests are taking place and perhaps further information as well. I've found a couple of libraries that could help with this but they require some customisation to make them more useful to us. Again, due to lack of Java experience, this may take a while to appear.Share| [Less]

Everytime I hear that CfTracker has been useful, it keeps me motivated to maintain the project and try and improve it. In this case it was Janusz Buda, a ColdFusion developer living in Essex, England. Here's what he had to say about the project... ... [More] CFTracker has been awesome for me recently. Been trying my hand at caching with ColdFusion and was not getting the values in required, the caching became confusing and i have values everywhere. Using CFTracker i was able to inspect my applications without the need to cfdump all over place and see what was happening and where. The essential function of this was the ability to start/stop the application and thus clearing the scope so i could start again! Being able to run CFTracker on locally on CF9 and remotely on Railo was also a huge plus point. Will definitely be using CFTracker with future development projects. Thanks for the comments Janusz! Hopefully they'll give other developers ideas on what CfTracker can be used for.Share| [Less]

This is a request for some help to give CfTracker a significant boost in usefulness and features. I need someone with decent Java knowledge, skills and a little spare time that they wouldn't mind giving up to help the project out. If you are the ... [More] someone or you know a person who fits the bill, please get in contact with me (see bottom of this post).  What would you get out of this? Your name in lights and the fame that goes with it, can't promise you any fortune as this is open source ;) What do I need help with? One instance to rule them all I've been messing around with something called JMX, which has allowed me to retrieve certain information (like memory usage) remotely. Doesn't sound like much but this could allow for CfTracker to be run in it's own instance (if required), monitoring multiple CFML engine instances. This would be a huge jump in the usefulness of the project and give way to having a central location to monitor your servers. Taking requests Another feature that I'd like to include is request monitoring. Obviously it'd be fantastic to see what requests are taking place and there'd be some very useful statistics that could be gathered which would prove very useful during troubleshooting. Again, I've gotten part of the way by playing around with some pre-existing Java libraries but the ones I've tried don't quite do what's needed. J2EE Session support This has been an annoyance for me. In Adobe CF I couldn't find a way to stop or refresh these types of sessions and in Railo I can't even get a list of them. There are several good reasons to switch to J2EE Sessions instead of the native CF ones, not having them supported means Adobe CF can't take action on them and on Railo servers CfTracker isn't giving you the full picture. Making contact There are a few ways to get in contact, so here's a list. Google Group Twitter Direct contact form (at the bottom of the support page) P.s. Anyone who tried the use the contact form previously, it hasn't been working, so please re-contact me if it's important.Share| [Less]

Railo Admin Plugin Support CfTracker can now be installed as a Railo admin plugin.  At both the web and server level.  This means that when you log into a web admin or the server admin (and depending on how you installed it), you'll see CfTracker ... [More] listed at the bottom left of the navigation. No login required since you're already in the Railo admin. Everything is inline, no frames / iframes. Still one code base (exact same files are used for the standalone installation). Scheduled task working under Railo, including automatic set up of the task. While this is great news, I need help testing this beta.  Although everything appears to work pretty well on my local development installation of Railo, I need feedback and help confirming that it's working for everyone else.  When confirmed we can finally push 2.2 out as stable and include support for being installed through the Railo admin. Installation Check the install.txt for details.  Remember this is a beta as well and there are still some issues to be addressed. Download Thanks Thanks goes to Mark Drew for the original idea and Andrea Campolonghi for helping me out with a few issues I ran into. Other changes Open BlueDragon support (very basic, no application or session information). Historical Graphs (see previous beta posts for further details). CfUniform (used for laying out the forms). ValidateThis (providing validation for CfTracker's forms). Screenshots Share| [Less]

Sometimes CfTracker can be a pain to release.  There's a lot of testing to do (fresh install, upgrade, Adobe CF 8/9, multiserver, single server, Railo etc...) and sometimes something will slip through the net, unnoticed.  This time it was the fact ... [More] that I started using Mark Mandel's JavaLoader to load the rrd4j library (used for historical statistics and graphs), got the jar path wrong but forgot to delete the library out of my CFML engines lib directories.  Which meant that it was working for me but if you've been trying out beta 1/2 of 2.2, the scheduled task wouldn't have been working and no historical graphs were being generated. So if you've been using CfTracker 2.2 Beta 1 or 2, please upgrade. Sorry to anyone that's been trying out those beta's.  Even though you should accept they are only beta quality and likely to still have bugs, you should at least expect that they'll work to a certain degree. To make up for this, here is 2.2 Beta 3 of CfTracker.  It includes everything mentioned in the Beta 1 post, with the addition of much better error handling when it comes to the new graphs and tabbed views of the graphs so you can see the last day, week, month and year of activity. Feedback Thanks to Charlie Arehart for logging a bug that got me thinking that there was something dodgy about the release.  Please remember that if you find a problem with CfTracker, I'd love to hear about it from you as I'm sure this is becoming a more useful tool with each release and wouldn't want anyone to miss out. If you've ever tried CfTracker before, don't forget you can submit a review of the project.  This helps me steer the project in the right direction for you, rather than whatever direction I feel like ;)  Also, since no one has yet to submit a review, you'll be pretty much guaranteed to have an impact with it.Share| [Less]