ColdFusion Browser Launcher

Open .cfm files against your local Adobe ColdFusion server, in a browser of your choice — without touching your operating system's default browser.

This solves a specific gap in the Adobe ColdFusion Builder extension for VS Code: its "Run As ColdFusion Application" command always opens your OS default browser, with no way to pick a different one. That's inconvenient if your main browser is full of saved sessions, cookies, and passwords you don't want to clear constantly during development.

Features

Right-click any .cfm file in the Visual Studio Code Explorer panel to get two new options:

• Run CFM File in Default Browser — instantly opens the file's URL. Uses your operating system's default browser out of the box; you can point it at a specific browser instead (see Configuration below).
• Run CFM File in... — shows a picker to choose which configured browser to use, just for that one run.

The extension automatically builds the correct URL for the file you clicked, detecting which CF project it belongs to from your open workspace folder — no need to type the URL by hand every time.

It doesn't modify or depend on the Adobe ColdFusion Builder extension; it's fully independent and works alongside it.

Usage

1. Make sure your ColdFusion server is running locally (e.g. http://localhost:8500).
2. Open your CF project folder in VS Code.
3. Right-click any .cfm file → Run CFM File in Default Browser or Run CFM File in....

Extension Settings

Go to Settings (Ctrl+,) and search for ColdFusion Browser Launcher, or edit your settings.json directly:

{
  "cfBrowserLauncher.serverHost": "http://localhost:8500",
  "cfBrowserLauncher.documentRoot": "", // empty = auto-detect from the workspace folder
  "cfBrowserLauncher.projectName": "", // empty = auto-detect from the folder name
  "cfBrowserLauncher.defaultBrowser": "", // empty = use the OS default browser
  "cfBrowserLauncher.browsers": {
    "chrome": "C:\\Program Files\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe",
    "edge": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft\\Edge\\Application\\msedge.exe",
    "firefox": "C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla Firefox\\firefox.exe",
    "chromium": "C:\\Program Files\\Chromium\\Application\\chrome.exe"
  }
}

Setting	Default	Description
serverHost	http://localhost:8500	Your ColdFusion server's host and port, without the project name.
documentRoot	(empty)	Absolute path to a specific CF project's root. Leave empty to auto-detect it from the workspace folder that contains the file you clicked.
projectName	(empty)	The URL segment right after serverHost. Leave empty to auto-detect it from the resolved document root's folder name.
defaultBrowser	(empty)	Which entry in browsers to use for "Run CFM File in Default Browser". Leave empty to use your OS default browser instead of a specific one.
browsers	Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Chromium	Map of browser name → absolute path to its executable. Add, edit, or remove entries from the Settings UI (a table with an "Add Item" button), or edit settings.json directly.

About auto-detection (documentRoot and projectName)

By default (both left empty), the extension:

1. Finds the workspace folder that contains the .cfm file you right-clicked, and uses it as documentRoot.
2. Uses that folder's own name as projectName.
3. Builds the URL as serverHost/projectName/relativePathToFile.

This works out of the box whenever your local folder name matches the project name your CF server uses (the common case), and it also works correctly in multi-root workspaces — each root folder is resolved independently, so you can have several CF projects open at once and each .cfm resolves to its own project's URL.

Override when needed:

• Set projectName if your local folder name doesn't match the URL segment the CF server expects (e.g. folder is my-project-dev but the server maps it as myproject).
• Set documentRoot if the actual CF project root is a subfolder of your open workspace, rather than the workspace root itself.

Requirements

• A locally running Adobe ColdFusion server.
• The browser(s) you want to use already installed, with their executable paths configured in browsers.

Known Limitations

• Right-click menu labels are static — they can't show the file name or the selected browser's name (a VS Code platform limitation), only the run notification and the "Run CFM File in..." picker do.
• URL building assumes the CF convention where the URL path mirrors the file's path on disk. It isn't meant for frameworks with client-side or code-based routing (Blazor, Angular, and similar).
• Assumes the standard single-webroot layout (serverHost/projectName/...). If your ColdFusion server uses Virtual Host settings (a project mapped to its own domain or port, with no project name in the URL), set serverHost to that project's full domain/port and projectName to whatever segment (if any) its URLs actually use — there's currently no way to omit the project segment entirely.

Author

FrameCode Inc.