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ValidateThis! - Object Oriented Validations Demo Now Online

I have put together a demo of my validations framework for ColdFusion that I have been working on for the past several weeks. It's available here. The demo shows how the framework can take a simple xml file, which describes the business rules for an object, and generate client-side and server-side validations on the fly. It is a proof-of-concept, running in an environment identical to that which would be used in a real application. It is a simple, one-page example, but is utilizing Coldspring and Transfer behind the scenes.

From the demo page one can view the xml file that is being used to drive all of the validations. The schema for this file is still a work in progress, but it provides some insight into how one would implement the framework. Note that the schema itself is somewhat irrelevant, as the framework is designed to accommodate any schema, as long as it contains the expected metadata. Also, as a result of a conversation I had with Matt "I hate xml" Quackenbush, I have added the ability to define validations using ColdFusion code inside either your business object or another object injected into your business object. This is not something that I'd probably use, but I was led to believe that there are those out there who would appreciate not having to write an xml file to define their validations.

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What the heck is an optgroup?

Although I've been developing web applications with ColdFusion for about a decade, I only discovered the existence of this html tag a few days ago, and it's way cool.

I've been reading up on creating accessible forms, and this article made the following suggestion:

Complex selects, with more than 11 options, should be coded with option groups and labels.

And contained the following example:

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