ColdFusion Editors
ColdFusion can make creating website applications very easy, but your life will be made so much easier if you pick the right editor for editing your CFML code.
Free ColdFusion Editors
Some free ColdFusion editors that do an excellent job in assisting with your ColdFusion projects. Here are some options for a free ColdFusion editor:
- CFEclipse - One of the more popular ColdFusion editors, CFEclipse is a plugin for the Eclipse platform that provides a professional quality IDE for CFML developers. Includes standard features such as code insight, auto-complete, bracket matching, code folding, method and outline views, snippets, and more. To run CFEclipse, you first need to install Eclipse. This may seem like a bit of a hassle at first, but it's well worth the effort, given the impressive functionality you will be getting for absolutely free. CFEclipse is an open-source project solely supported by volunteers.
- CFBrackets adds ColdFusion support to the Brackets open source text editor. Includes a realtime connection to your web browser, so your web browser updates automatically with each update (no need to refresh every time you make a change).
- ColdFusionPad - Like a simple text editor, but with menus for ColdFusion tags & functions. Includes code examples.
- Another option is to download HTML Kit (HTML editor), then download and install one of the ColdFusion plugins such as dfCFMX.
If you don't feel like downloading anything, you can always use a text editor such as Notepad (for Windows) or SimpleText (Macs). Having said this, I don't know of any serious CF developer who would go down this route!
Paid-For ColdFusion Editors
If you're happy to pay for a ColdFusion editor you might look into Adobe ColdFusion Builder. However, many developers still prefer CFEclipse over CF Builder even when price is not an issue.
Also, if you use Adobe Dreamweaver, you've probably noticed that you can use it to code your ColdFusion pages. However, the release of DreamWeaver CC has removed some of the ColdFusion support that was previously available. This may be fine for doing basic CFML, but you might find it limiting when working on more advanced projects.
Another option is to use Sublime Text with the ColdFusion plugin, which many developers love due to it's snappy performance.