Creating a new file

It’s a reasonable question, but I think I may have an answer/solution for you. Not a perfect one, but I hope better than nothing.

First, CFB does indeed (like most Eclipse-based products) rely on “projects”, as opposed to just working with the file system directly. That’s a bit different from DW, but only a bit. It’s similar in concept to a “site”. But of course, DW did not force you to pick the “site” in which a new file would exist.

That said, you are not ENTIRELY forced to use projects in CFB. For one thing, rather than use the Navigator view (which is by far most commonly used in CFB and Eclipse-based editors), you can also use the File view (Windows>Show View>File).

Now, with respect to creating a file, that is very much geared toward projects, whether with File>New>ColdFusion Page, or File>New File. But notice there is File>New>Other. There you can choose Untitled Files, and within that choose among HTML file, Text file, and others. This is a set of functionality provided in CFB by its inclusion of the Aptana plug-in, whose developers also wanted to stop people being forced to use projects.

Opening one of those does indeed just open a new editor tab ready for your typing, without requiring to name the file location. And after entering some text, you can even then save the file (ctrl-s, like normal) and it will offer to save it to the file system, not a project.

As for shortcuts to open the file, well, you had noticed that ctrl-n opened a “wizard”, as you put it. It is in fact this File>New>Other dialog I mention above, from which you can select the Untitled Files section and these other ‘types”. But while it may seem annoying to have to then select the “Untitled Files” section and then the “type” you want, notice that it remembers from one ctrl-n to another. So it’s a step in the right direction.

I’ll note that you can also set your own shortcut if you want, using Window>Preferences>General>Keys, then type “untitled html”, for instance, in the “filter” box, then click on the “bindings” field and type a keystroke that you may want to use, like ctrl-shift-n. And click “ok”. Now you have your single-keystroke “new file” back.

Let us know if that helps. I appreciate it’s not a perfect solution. CFB doesn’t offer all the sexy different “new page” layout choices that DW does, and I doubt it ever will. DW is geared toward HTML development. CFB is geared toward CFML development. I don’t know that the twain shall ever meet, even with the Aptana plugin that’s embedded within CFB.

/charlie