UNIT 01 - Introducing the Course
Overview
FarCry Core is a web application framework based on the ColdFusion language. FarCry CMS is a popular content management solution built with FarCry Core. As a community, we provide support for the framework, CMS, and a host of community plugins including libraries for Google Maps, free text searching, and many more.
FarCry 6.x Jump Start is designed to bring developers up to speed with the FarCry Core Web Application Framework. Although FarCry is a huge topic, this course distills key components of the development environment in a bid to enable students to start building their own solutions immediately.
Prerequisites
In order to get the most from the course students should be:
- familiar with basic web development concepts such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- comfortable with the ColdFusion mark-up language
Course Format
Concepts
The course is divided into units, each of which presents new information and contains demonstrations, walkthroughs, and a lab. At the end of each unit, you will find a summary and a short review to test your knowledge of the unit's content.
The following concepts are used throughout the course:
- Demonstrations illustrate new concepts
- Walkthroughs guide you, with the instructor's assistance, through procedures
in a hands-on context. - Labs let you practice new skills on your own.
- Summaries provide a brief synopsis of the unit's content.
- Reviews test how well you remember the concepts from the unit.
Author Highlights
Additional Information or Cross Reference
A cross reference or additional information about something that is not specifically course related. For example, we might refer to Blueprint CSS Framework in the courseware and need to define what it is and provide a link to the site.
Something Important
A call out to something important in the course material.
Alternative Approaches
Additional information about a topic being covered. For example, this might be a popular alternative approach or an advanced option.
Warning. Be Careful!
An alert highlighting an activity that might cause a problem for the student.
Great Learning Resources
FarCry Cheat Sheet
Get the FarCry developer cheat sheet, print it out and set it beside your keyboard. It will be a great help in getting to grips with FarCry Core: http://farcry.posterous.com/farcry-developer-cheat-sheet-v01
In addition to this course there are a variety of great online learning resources that you should explore:
- FarCry Developer Forums (http://groups.google.com/group/farcry-dev); google group forum for the FarCry developer community
- FarCry Developer WIKI (https://farcry.jira.com/wiki/display/FCDEV60/Home); the home of this course, references, tutorials, sample code and the FarCry Contributor Guide
- FarCry Core Auto-Docs (http://docs.farcrycore.org); automatically generated docs from the FarCry code base (great for tag, formtool and FAPI options)
- FarCry Committers Blog (http://farcry.posterous.com); tips and tricks from the FarCry Core development team
FarCry Custom Google Index
We have a custom search index for all the sites, blogs, and docs from the FarCry community. Use this search to focus your results: http://www.farcrycore.org/search?q=help