Dev blog

Xcode 3: change default company header

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:23:44 +0200

defaults write com.apple.Xcode PBXCustomTemplateMacroDefinitions '{ "ORGANIZATIONNAME" = "by Desk Notes, Inc" ; }'

Leopard: launch MySql manually without headache

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:21:29 +0100

I was looking for an easy way for launching mysql deamon from command line.
I’ve installed one of the latest build from here.

So, after having installed it (without Preference Pane support) create with your editor a plist file equal to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>KeepAlive</key>
<true/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.mysql.mysqld</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe</string>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>mysql</string>
<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
<string>/usr/local/mysql</string>
</dict>
</plist>

and name it com.mysql.mysqld.plist.

Put this file where you want (not inside /System/Library/LaunchDaemon system folder, doing this means that mysqld_safe daemon will start every time you boot the system, I don’t like this behavior) and then add this to lines in .bash_profile (see this post for info about this file):

alias mysqlstop='sudo launchctl unload -w $HOME/Sites/com.mysql.mysqld.plist'
alias mysqlstart='sudo launchctl load -w $HOME/Sites/com.mysql.mysqld.plist'

Now typing:
mysqlstart => will start mysql daemon manually
mysqlstop => will stop mysql daemon manually

Apache2 FollowSymLinks

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:31:16 +0100

As we saw in this post steam tool creates a new empty and full working app providing inside the application path the symbolic links to the latest framework builded from git repository with the ant command.

By default the Apache installation embedded in Leopard does not follow symbolic links, so your app will not work if you launch it inside Apache server, for example:

http://localhost/cp/MyFirstApp

You will get an error like:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">  <html><head>  <title>403 Forbidden</title>  </head><body>  <h1>Forbidden</h1>  <p>You don't have permission to access /cp/MyFirstApp/Frameworks/  Objective-J/Objective-J.js  on this server.</p>  </body></html>

To solve the problem you need to add the FollowSymLinks inside the yourname.conf file you find inside /private/etc/apache2/users/ path.

TextMate head comment shortcut

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:04:16 +0100

If you like the header comment in top of your source files, in TextMate put the caret at the beginning of the file and type:

head + TAB

It will fill the lines with the data you provided inside the Shell Variables preference tab.

Cappuccino Tools

Mon, 9 Mar 2009 20:03:41 +0100

Let’s install git from the link provided in the previous post. Then, after having choosed a right place where to put all our Cappuccino stuff, we launch this command from Terminal:

git clone git://github.com/280north/cappuccino.git cappuccino

It will get the latest source version from the repository server.

On the left you can see the content of the files retrieved by git command.

Now we need to install command line tools first, to do this go in Terminal, reach the Tools folder and type:

sudo Install/install-tools

The procedure it is not finished yet, in fact it tells us to set some environment variables before starting using all that stuff.

If you have TextMate type (you can use any other text editor):

mate $HOME/.bash_profile

This one is my current .bash_profile file, as you can see it contains all the variables needed by cappuccino tools. You can use any path you want. This file is loaded every time you launch Terminal so you have the correct setting every time without rewriting all these lines.

OK...the last thing is building the framework with the java ant tool. Go inside the path where you have downloaded cp from git (the same path where you find build.xml file)

Type (remember to launch a random command before this with sudo to allow ant finish with success, it has a bug still not fixed):

ant boostrap

Great!!! Now we have all at the right place.

To create a new empty Application simply type:

steam create myfirstapp -l

This command builds a good Hello World application based on the latest Cappuccino release (thanx to -l option).

That’s all...next post we’ll see a simple example about using CPURLConnection class.

Links and tools we need

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 22:26:09 +0100

Here is the list of all the tools and links needed:

- github: cappuccino source repository. Here we can stay in touch with core developers and see the latest improvements and fixes.
- git: this is the command line tool to retrieve the cappuccino source from github server
- ant: Java compiler (you do not need it if using Mac OSX Leopard)
- Cappuccino API and dev tools: you can download the Starter package to begin learning the idea...but I recommend to download the entire source from github because it contains many command line tools very useful to manage programming cycle.
- a good editor: yes, it’s important that is good! For me good means lightweight and smart. There are many good editors around for Mac (TextMate, Coda...). If you are a command line lover “vi” if for you. I prefer to write lines without hurt myself, so my decision felt on TextMate (a good compromise between lightweight and smart)
- iTunes....YES! Find the word “cappuccino” and subscribe to podcast! It’s a must have!!! You’ll understand how to use cappuccino tools and API’s. This is a great starting point!
- ATLAS: it’s not available yet, but soon...take a look at http://280atlas.com

In the next post I’ll describe in short how to use the command tools and setting up the environment.

See you!

Starting the learning curve of Cappuccino

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 21:33:02 +0100

It’s some months I’m following this project, and from the first time I was so impressed on its power. I bet on this framework, so I decided to study it and try to do a simple web app.

★ I’m an Apple fan
★ I read some Cocoa technical guides
★ I think that the future of web is Desktop Caliber Applications (see http://280slides.com)

=> maybe it’s time to study hard...and Cappuccino is a great tool...not simple for a C++ developer like me, I need to learn the language, but if a day I will know Objective-J maybe it will be easier building Cocoa apps in the future if I need them.