coldfusion flash integration: I could be wrong but it seems to me that coldfusion 8 never displays flash
charts when the name is specified, making it impossible to use charts within
cfforms.

ie - won't display:

<cfchart format="flash" show3d="yes" pieslicestyle="sliced"
labelformat="currency" name="testChart" title="Summary of Revenue">
<cfchartseries type="pie">
<cfchartdata item="a" value="50">
<cfchartdata item="b" value="100">
<cfchartdata item="c" value="100">
</cfchartseries>
</cfchart>

but will:

<cfchart format="flash" show3d="yes" pieslicestyle="sliced"
labelformat="currency" showmarkers="no" title="Summary of Revenue">
<cfchartseries type="pie">
<cfchartdata item="a" value="50">
<cfchartdata item="b" value="100">
<cfchartdata item="c" value="100">
</cfchartseries>
</cfchart>

[i]it seems to me that coldfusion 8 never displays flash charts when the name
is specified[/i]

Neither did Coldfusion MX7, perhaps not even earlier MX versions, either. It
is so by design. Paraphrasing the
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/coldfusion/7/htmldocs/00000226.htm,

[i]"[When you specify the name attribute, cfchart] generates the graph as
binary data and assigns it to the specified variable. [Specifying a name]
suppresses chart display. You can use the name value in the cffile tag to write
the chart to a file."[/i]

You could therefore simply extend your code, thus


<cftry>
<cfchart format="flash" show3d="yes" pieslicestyle="sliced"
labelformat="currency" name="testChart" title="Summary of Revenue">
<cfchartseries type="pie">
<cfchartdata item="a" value="50">
<cfchartdata item="b" value="100">
<cfchartdata item="c" value="100">
</cfchartseries>
</cfchart>
<!--- create directory if necessary --->
<cfif NOT directoryExists("c:\temp\test\")>
<cfdirectory action="CREATE" directory="c:\temp\test\">
</cfif>
<!--- write chart to file --->
<cffile action = "write" file = "c:\temp\test\test_chart.swf" output =
"#testChart#">
Chart has been written to c:\temp\test\test_chart.swf
<cfcatch type="Application">
error occurred: <cfoutput>#cfcatch.message#</cfoutput>
</cfcatch>
</cftry>

!