Bob's Blog

I am pleased to announce that ValidateThis, an awesome validation framework for ColdFusion, has finally gone gold! That's right, version 1.0 of the validation framework that you've come to know and love is in the wild. While I'm proud of the framework, I'm even prouder of the number of developers who contributed to this release. In addition to me, the following people made a contribution:

• John Whish
• Chris Blackwell
• James Buckingham
• Dustin Martin
• Marc Esher
• Jamie Krug
• Seb Duggan
• Mike Henke
• Adam Drew

Most of went into this release won't be noticeable to the developer, or at least won't affect the way you interact with the framework. Here's a quick summary of the changes in this release:

• Upgraded to the latest version of the jQuery Validation plugin, which replaces jquery.validate.pack.js with jquery.validate.min.js. If you are loading this file yourself (as opposed to using a CDN, which the framework does by default), then you should replace that file.
• The default generated failure messages are now identical on the client and server, and are based on information in a resource bundle. This means you can easily change the default generated failure messages if you wish, and the changes will be reflected on the client and the server.
• Thanks to John Whish (who I have unilaterally appointed as client-side-czar for the framework) the Javascript that is generated has been greatly improved. Many of the changes that John made were based on suggestions from Dan Switzer.
• You can now store your definition files in a folder structure that mirrors a dot-based naming scheme for components.
• You can now instruct the framework to ignore missing properties in your objects, as opposed to throwing an exception if a property is missing.
• A new config option has been added: vtFolder which you only need to use if the framework resides in a folder that isn't called ValidateThis and you are on a case-sensitive system.

The biggest change is the second one mentioned above: the default generated failure messages. If you are currently using the i18n capabilities of the framework this may affect you, so I suggest you read the i18n information available in the online documentation.

If you've been holding off checking out the framework until it reached version 1.0 (silly people), now's the time to get cracking. Here are some resources that will help you:

• The main home of the framework is www.validatethis.org, which includes an online demo and links to all of the following.
• The framework can be downloaded from the ValidateThis RIAForge page.
• Online documentation is available at www.validatethis.org/docs.
• API documentation is available at www.validatethis.org/docs/api.
• There is a Google group available for asking questions, making suggestions, and general discussion at groups.google.com/group/validatethis.
• The source code is hosted at GitHub, and contributions are always welcome.

So what's stopping you? Go download the latest and greatest version of ValidateThis and take it for a spin!