Did you have the experience of learning Fusebox some time ago and wishing that there were better sample applications to learn from? Several members of Team Fusebox are working on putting some more samples on the website. You can help! Do you have a sample Fusebox app that you could contribute to the fusebox website for others new to Fusebox to learn from? If so please goto the Fusebox website contact us form at http://www.fusebox.org/go/about/contact-us and direct your comments to the Sample Apps group. We will be happy to help clean up your code before sharing with the rest of the Fusebox community.

Or do you have a large Fusebox app that we could use to test future versions of Fusebox on for backwards compatiblity? (We won't publish your code on the website and will keep it confidential). If so please goto the Fusebox website contact us form and direct your comments to the Testing group. Thanks!

Many of you know Cameron Childress from his leadership of the Atlanta and San Diego ColdFusion User Groups. He is continuing his tradition of giving back to the ColdFusion community by leading the Fusebox documentation project. While the Fusebox code has been very strong over the past few years the documentation has taken a back seat. And I have heard from many people in the Fusebox survey that I did that improved documentation is very important. Especially to people new to Fusebox. So I am especially excited at Cameron joining Team Fusebox.

When I spoke with Cameron recently he said that "initially I would like to gather as much information and as many suggestions as I can". If you have a suggestion for Cameron or if you want to help him out with the project you can provide it via the Fusebox website contact us form at http://www.fusebox.org/go/about/contact-us and direct your comments to the Documentation group.

Sandra Clark started a working group to discuss and come up with the Fusedoc 3.0 specification. Fusedoc are a way of specifying what a Fusebox fuse does, its inputs and outputs and other useful documentation. It is written in XML so that it is machine readable. This is long overdue and hopefully will address issues with Fusedocs that have come up in the past.

The Fusedoc specification that is currently available was created around the time of Fusebox 3.0 and ColdFusion 5. It does not take into consideration any of the more advanced data types such as objects.

The group is hosted at http://groups.google.com/group/fusedocs3

Goals of this group include:

• Creation of a DTD or Schema Representation of Fusedocs Version 3.0
• Documentation of both the Representation and Usage.
• Possibility of Tool creation for Fusedocs within other Editors, specifically Eclipse.

• Articles and Tutorials on Fusedocs would also be welcome.

We have a volunteer Philippe Back who has started work on converting Fusebox 5.5 CF to PHP together with team fusebox member Mike Richie. If you want to help with Fusebox let me know.

Currently Fusebox PHP is on version 5.0 and Fusebox CF is on version 5.5

A new beta of the Fusebox Scaffolding has been released at http://www.fusebox.org/go/fusebox-downloads/core-files. This Fusebox extension was written by Kevin Roche and it automatically generates Fusebox code for Add/Edit/Delete pages based on the database tables that you give it. Normally you would use this during the building of your app and replace the scaffolding with custom build pages. Why do scaffolding? It greatly speeds up OO application development and lets you add in test data values at the project start.

Fusebox 5.5 to release 12/1/07

That means you have just 3 days left to download the Public Beta and take it for a test drive! Please help us make Fusebox 5.5 to be the greatest release ever of Fusebox by testing it on your app and logging any issues you find on the Bug Tracker on the Fusebox website. Since the Public Beta release on October 1st and only a few minor bugs have been found so we're fairly confident that Fusebox 5.5 is ready to go but we'd really like some more folks to help test it!

There are two primary themes to Fusebox 5.5:

1. Simplify. Remove barriers. Make it easier for newbies. Make building
applications faster by favoring convention over configuration.

2. Extend through extensibility. Provide new functionality outside the core.
Add plugins, lexicons, even standardized circuits.

In addition, backward compatibility is of paramount importance so all
Fusebox 4.x and Fusebox 5.x applications should run, unchanged, on Fusebox
5.5. In theory, you can just unzip the new core files over the top of your
existing core files and everything should just work. (However we suggest
you backup your files before trying any beta software including Fusebox
5.5!)

Download at
http://www.fusebox.org/go/fusebox-downloads/beta-program

Check out the Fusebox 5.5 beta that Sean Corfield released the other week.

There are two primary themes to Fusebox 5.5:

1. Simplify. Remove barriers. Make it easier for newbies. Make building
applications faster by favoring convention over configuration.

2. Extend through extensibility. Provide new functionality outside the core.
Add plugins, lexicons, even standardized circuits.

In addition, backward compatibility is of paramount importance so all
Fusebox 4.x and Fusebox 5.x applications should run, unchanged, on Fusebox
5.5. In theory, you can just unzip the new core files over the top of your
existing core files and everything should just work. (However we suggest
you backup your files before trying any beta software including Fusebox
5.5!)

Download at
http://www.fusebox.org/go/fusebox-downloads/beta-program

Nick has some Fusebox 101 tips at http://www.succor.co.uk/index.cfm/Fusebox-101

 The first one is on XFAs, I am looking forward to more!

Sean Corfield blogged about which Fuseboxers will be at MAX and I suggest we get together there. And if you have your Got Fusebox t-shirt wear it so other Fuseboxers can find you!

Whether you are a Fuseboxer or not please take our MAX and training survey to say what events and training you like. One luck person will win a free ticket to CFUNITED. Thanks!

I hear from Sean that about 50 people have voted in the mailing list poll and about 40 in the version number poll.

If the next version is Fusebox 6, should we have a new mailing list, keep it on the Fusebox 5 list or rename the list to something more generic:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/fusebox5/surveys?id=2198304

(current results indicate an overwhelming preference for renaming the fusebox5 list to something more generic and keeping future discussion on this list)

Although Fusebox 6 has been publicly advertised, it is not a rewrite of the core files - is it really an all-new version or is it just an upgrade?

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/fusebox5/surveys?id=2198326

(current results show a fairly even split between "6.0" and "5.5" with "5.2" trailing way behind)