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COLA Benefits
COLA offers the following benefits:

• A wide range of features for developing Central applications.
• A Rich Internet Application (RIA) for managing COLA licenses on the server side. The RIA unifies all the server features into a single location. This enables developers to view, create, or delete licenses and installations from the server. The RIA also enables you to create a license without requiring payment for testing, promotional, or other needs.
• Integration with third-party payment providers. The reference application ships with support for PayPal through Instant Payment Notification (IPN). When a payment is processed, IPN calls a URL. COLA supplies a working example of an IPN application that can create a license and installation, and then e-mail customers their licenses.

COLA License and Installation
COLA is an unsupported product (see disclaimer). It is provided in source format for your own use within development projects. COLA is free and you can extend it to suit your needs. In general, COLA facilitates the creation of commercial applications in Central while providing a rich set of features.

Installing COLA
To try COLA for yourself, follow these steps:

• Download cola1.0.zip if you haven't done so already. This source distribution contains implementations for ColdFusion and PHP in the COLA_CF and COLA_PHP subdirectories, respectively.
• Copy the appropriate implementation to your hosting server. The directory tree should be posted to the directory from which you will deliver your application.
• In the "try" directory, place the trial version of your application. Modify the product.xml file to install your application.
• In the "buy" directory, place the licensed version of your application. Modify the product.xml file to install correctly.
• If you are installing COLA_CF implementation, create the "cfcola" data source on your ColdFusion server, using the cola.mdb Access database provided (or create an equivalent data source for your database of choice).
• Edit cola.cfm or manager.php to reflect your install location, and to change the default value for the admin key (used to view the admin panel and manage licenses and installations).
• Consult readme.html for further instructions.
• Navigate to the admin panel (Figure 1) in a browser. If you installed COLA for an application hosted at http://mydomain.com/myapp, and your admin key is admin (not recommended!), the proper URL would be as follows:

  COLA_PHP: http://mydomain.com/myapp/admin/
  COLA_CF: http://mydomain.com/myapp/cola.cfm?admin=admin

Summary
COLA is free, server-side software that assists developers in creating secure commercial Central applications. It offers a solid foundation on which to start development. After having written several commercial Central applications myself, I can confirm that COLA provides a balance of features to support most commercial development. Because it is distributed as an an example of open-source software, it allows for deeper integration and tighter security.

This article originally appeared on www.macromedia.com/devnet. Reprinted with permission.

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