So, you're curious how this application works? You've come to the right place.

First, let me describe how I get and display the data. I created a ColdFusion page that uses cfhttp to screen scrape all of the current cftags, functions, and their descriptions from Macromedia's livedocs. I store all of this data in a series of xml files. When this application is first started, I create some query objects from the xml files. These query objects are then stored as application variables. I do this so that each user to the site gets the data from memory instead of having to wait a few seconds for the query objects to be created.

Now, as far as the mechanics that make the application work. You may have noticed that when you type stuff in the query boxes (or select a category), the data is displayed without a page refresh. This is possible because the page is using ajaxCFC. This works by using JavaScript to make a http post. The http post calls a ColdFusion function in a separate page.

Here is an example.:

<input type="text" id="tagQuery" onKeyup="loadTags()">
This input tag calls the JavaScript function loadTags(): 
function loadTags()
{
	if (document.getElementById("tagQuery").value) {
		var tagQuery = DWRUtil.getValue("tagQuery");
		DWREngine._execute(_cfscriptLocation, null, 'cfTagsLookup', tagQuery, getResult);
	}
}
This just grabs the data from the input box, and sends it to the cfTagsLookup function. This function is in a separate cfm page: 
<cffunction name="cfTagsLookup">
	<cfargument 
		name="cftag" 
		required="yes" 
		type="string"
		hint="This variable is passed in from the JavaScript. It's the characters the user is typing in the 'cf____' field.">

	<!--- Include the file that will initiate the cftagsQuery query object, if necessary --->
	<cfinclude template="init/initXMLQuery.cfm">

	<!--- perform a query of query on the cftagsQuery query object  --->
	<cfquery name="cftagQuery" dbtype="query">
		select tag, category, summary
		from cftagsQuery
		where lower(tag) like '#cftag#%'
		order by tag
	</cfquery>
	
	<!--- Create all the HTML that will be returned to the JavaScript function --->
	<cfset result = "<table><tr><td>Tag</td><td>Category</td><td>Summary</td></tr>">
	<cfoutput query="cftagQuery">
		<cfset result = result & "<tr><td>#tag#</td><td>#category#</td><td>#summary#</td></tr>">
	</cfoutput>
	<cfset result = result & "</table>">
	<cfreturn result>
</cffunction>
The cfTagsLookup function returns its data to the loadTags() JavaScript function, which in turn calls getResult: 
function getResult(result)
{
	document.getElementById("info").innerHTML = result;
}
The only thing going on here is the data getting stuffed into a page element called info:
<div id="info"></div>

My real code is a lot more complex than this (data scrubbing, formatting, etc.), but this gives you an idea of what's going on.