Customizing an Application at the Site Level

Overview

Most ADF Applications contain Application Components which control a lot of the functionality for the Application. In most cases, the Application Components control everything from storing/retrieving data from a Custom Element to rendering data on a page.

While building an ADF Application it can be difficult to think about all of the ways your application will be used and what customizations will be needed for each site that uses your applications. Luckily, customizing (or extending, overriding) applications at the site level is very easy.

The general concept: You download an application from the [CommonSpot Community Site and there is a change in one of the components that you need to make. Instead of modifying the component (for example /ADF/apps/pt_profile/components/profileService.cfc) directly within the /ADF/apps/appName/components/ directory - you would make a copy of that file and make the modification within the copy

Step by Step

Using the example from above:

1. In the site where you will make the modification create a directory within the sites /_cs_apps/ directory that mimics the name of the Application you will be customizing (for example: /mySite/_cs_apps/pt_profile/)

Note: it is important to name the directory the SAME as the original app directory

1. Create a /components/ directory in the newly created Site Level Application Directory (e.g. /mySite/_cs_apps/pt_profile/components/)
2. Copy the component you would like to customize/override/extend from the applications /components directory/ (e.g. /ADF/pt_profile/components/) and place it into the Site Level Application Directory (e.g. /mySite/_cs_apps/pt_profile/components/)
3. Make the newly copied component extend the original:

  <cfcomponent extends="ADF.apps.pt_profile.components.profileService">...</components>

1. Remove any of the functions within the component that you are not going to modify. Components that you do not modify at this level will use the main apps components code.
2. Make the modifications to the component that you would like
3. Reset the ADF

Best Practices

• It is a good idea to keep the arguments and return variables the same in the method you modify. The goal of the override should be to change the internals of the function, not the function itself