OSWD (open-source web design) has been a favorite resource of mine for years now but appears to be gone (and maybe for good). In case you never heard of it, it offered free, downloadable open-source designs submitted by the community (this site uses a modified OSWD design). Now, back when I first found the site, the quality of the designs was often not so great, but over time this improved substantially (especially when they started having design contests) and it became a first stop for me (especially as I am not a designer) when I needed to create CSS-based, XHTML-compliant designs.

This is part of my continuing Open-Source Review. The support I received regarding the cf open-source list was outstanding. The other aspect of the open-source review was to create articles covering some of the open source projects on that list. These articles will cover: 1) What is the intent of the project; what does it do? 2) How do you implement the project? 3) Where to get more help/contribute?

The first project I will cover is Barney Boisvert's TreeManager.cfc. In case you are wondering, the reason this is first is simply a matter of that I was already building an application that uses it. TreeManager.cfc can be downloaded at: http://www.barneyb.com/web/static/treemanager.zip.

IMPORTANT: Please visit the new list URL at http://www.remotesynthesis.com/cfopensourcelist. This list is no longer going to be maintained at this URL

As I discussed in the comments of a previous post regarding starting a ColdFusion Open-Source Review (tentative name), I am publishing my list of ColdFusion open-source projects. Some disclaimers first: First, while I think the list is extensive, I am by no means implying it is complete, so feel free to post additions in the comments section. Second, I have used only a handful of these myself, so I have no idea about the quality or production status of most of them (that is kinda the goal of starting this review). Third, the descriptions for the most part are taken straight off the site...feel free to help me out with better descriptions for any project you may be more familiar with than I. Fourth (sorry, last one), I have included free but not open-source projects below, if I have misclassified any of these projects (i.e. its on my open-source list but isn't actually open-source), please let me know. In closing, I hope to find a better home to maintain this list with any updates in the near future, so please share any relevant information you may have that will assist me in building a more complete and informative list.