Integrating Coldfusion 8.01 with LiveCycle DS 2.6 Beta

Posted by Joshua on Jun 10, 2008 * Add comments
Categories: LiveCycle DS , Coldfusion , Flex

I wanted to start playing with the new LiveCycle DS 2.6 functionality and I wanted to integrate 2.6 with Coldfusion 8. What I found on Adobe labs wasnt really clear enough to me on how to install 2.6 into CF 8.01, maybe it was just me but I like things explained throughly in terms of instructions. I found some good resources after googling last night and decided I would just combine what I found on my blog for others as a reference. So grab a beer, sit back and relax, because its really easy to do if you know "exactly" what to do.

You can download the below instructions here as a PDF file.

Step 1: If you dont already have Coldfusion 8.01 update go download it first, if you already have it proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Download LiveCycle 2.6 Beta here

Step 3: Download the Flex 3 Compiler Module for Coldfusion 8 here

Step 4: Download the latest Flex 3 SDK (current is 3.0.1.1732 as of the date of this post) here so you can update your Flex Builder (or Eclipse Plugin)

Step 5: Install the CF 8.01 update if you dont already have it installed

Step 6: Install LC DS 2.6 Beta as a J2EE Application. You can probably install as the Tomcat turnkey option if you want, but since we are integrating with CF 8.01 why bother? (I installed it under my C: Drive as C:/LCDS)

Step 7: Shutdown Coldfusion

Step 8: Open up the root directory where you installed LCDS 2.6 and find the folder named "resources" then open up the Coldfusion folder

Step 9: Open up the LCDS_for_CF.txt file (would of been nice had Adobe told us about this on labs) you can use this for reference in the future, the text file misses two other steps that I will cover in a couple more steps.

Step 10: Unzip the lcds.war file included in your installation of LiveCycle Data Services ES 2.6 to a temp directory (temp for this document).

Step 11: Copy the ColdFusion ColdFusion8/lib/flex-messaging*.jar files (four files) to a backup location. If you are running multi-instance or J2EE install, these files are in the WEB-INF/cfusion/lib directory.

Step 12: Copy the temp/lcds/WEB-INF/lib/flex-messaging*.jar files (7 files) to the ColdFusion 8 lib directory and overwrite any files (you just backed them up so no worries)
Step 13: Copy the Coldfusion 8 lib/cfgatewyadapter.jar to your backup location

Step 14: Copy the file temp/lcds/WEB-INF/lib/cfgatewayadapter.jar to WEB-INF/flex/jars. Overwrite the existing file (again you just backed up the old one, no need to worry)

Step 15: Back up your ColdFusion8/wwwroot/WEB-INF/flex directory. In particular, back up any XML configuration files you have made changes to.

Step 16: Unzip the Flex 3 Compiler Module for ColdFusion 8 ZIP file that you downloaded in Step 3 into the ColdFusion wwwroot directory (for standalone Windows in the default location, that is C:/ColdFusion8/wwwroot). Overwrite the existing files (which you have backed up)

Step 17: Copy the new "fds" SWC libraries from the lcds.war file (temp/lcds/WEB-INF/flex/libs) to the ColdFusion WEB-INF/flex/libs directory:

- Copy the temp/lcds/WEB-INF/flex/libs/fds.swc file to the ColdFusion8/wwwroot/WEB-INF/flex/libs directory.
- Copy the temp/lcds/WEB-INF/flex/libs/player/playerfds.swc file to the ColdFusion8/wwwroot/WEB-INF/flex/libs directory.
- Copy the temp/lcds/WEB-INF/flex/locale/en_US/fds_rb.swc file over the ColdFusion8/wwwroot/WEB-INF/flex/locale/en_US/fds_rb.swc file.


Step 18: Unzip the latest Flex 3 SDK in a new folder (create this folder) called 3.0.1.1732 in your Flex 3 SDK install directory. (Mine was: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3 Plug-in\sdks)

Step 19: Open up Flex Builder 3 or Eclipse (if your using the plugin version). If compiling in Flex Builder you should update the SDK at least to revision 1173 that you already downloaded in Step 4. Now go to: Window > Preferences > Flex > Installed Flex SDKs and add the new extracted SDK and name it Flex 3.0.1.1732

Step 20: Restart ColdFusion.

Step 21: Write some code and test it, you can use the Flex Builder 3 Wizards to do something rather quickly. Just make sure you compile the Flex App using the new SDK we installed in Step 19.

If you want to revert back to LC DS 2.5 in CF 8 just open your backup and overwrite the 2.6 files, make sure you delete the three new Flex messaging files we added in Step 12 and to overwrite the cfgatewateyadapter.jar file with your backed up one. (Dont forget to shutdown CF first before you do any of this)

References:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/LiveCycle_Data_Services:Integrating_with_ColdFusion_8
http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads_updates.html
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+3
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/livecycle_dataservices2_6.html
http://www.onflexwithcf.org/index.cfm/ColdFusion

 


2 responses to “Integrating Coldfusion 8.01 with LiveCycle DS 2.6 Beta”


  1. brian on  Jul 2, 2008 at 6:06 AM

    brian Thanks Josh, I know I would have torn out my last remaining strands of hair trying to figure all that out. Adobe, for those of us with attention deficit problems, please turn this into a 1 or 2 step process.

  2. TomJ on  Jul 2, 2008 at 6:20 PM

    TomJ What steps did you think are left out of the LCDS_for_CF.txt file?

    In those instructions, updating LCDS to 2.6 is a 4 step process (ignoring the setup 'get the software' steps). And the (optional) update to the web tier compiler is also 4 steps (total 8). You have 21 steps here, includeing updating FlexBuilder, which if you are using that, you do not need to update the web tier compiler in CF at all. Just ensure that you point to the services-config.xml file used by the server when you compile your flex applications and point your compiler output directory to someplace in your document root so you can load the swf via the browser.

    @brian See, only 4 steps!

    P.S. Yes, I wrote the LCDS_for_CF.txt file.

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