red conservatory

Concrete 5: custom theme

nicole — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:16:07 +0000

If this line isn’t working for you:

getThemePath()?>

Use this:

getThemePath()?>

Why does this work? If you’re running versions of php earlier than say, 5.4, the shorthand

- won't work for you by default.

Making Eclipse + Android work well on a MAC

nicole — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:32:42 +0000

Lately I’ve started messing around with the Android SDK. The first thing I noticed is that Eclipse is WAY SLOW on my MAC.

This post solved my problem:

-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion = 1.6
-Xms128m
-Xmx1024m

By changing the above lines in my eclipse.ini file (Applications > Eclipse > right-click and show package contents > Contents > MACOS > eclipse.ini) eclipse started running faster and my crashes stopped…

Simple design for mobile

nicole — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:00:35 +0000

After rebuilding a few sites for mobile this weekend I’ve learned a few things about CSS3 media queries and designing for mobile.

1. Include a meta viewport tag

2. Create one design for 768 pixels and up (netbooks, iPads and other screens) and 767 pixels and down (mobile).

@media only screen and (max-width: 767px) {
 // put mobile css here.
}

3. Instead of setting the widths of mobile layouts in pixels, trying using percentages.

There’s a whole explanation of how the viewport works with various mobile resolutions.

The iPhone 4 resolution

The resolution of the iPhone is 960 x 640.

The Google Nexus one resolution

480 x 800

The HTC Desire resolution

800 x 480

The LG Optimus One and older iPhones

320 x 480

As you can see, all of these devices have different reolutions. Doing layouts in pixels will force you to make separate media queries for each device!

As an example – the iPhone 4 and 4s. With the Retina display (326 pixels per inch), displaying a layout in portrait mode means that a design that you created in pixels would require a whole separate layout be created in your stylesheet:

only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) {
 // iPhone 4 uses double the pixels of older devices
}

Don’t try to do this! You can avoid making a separate layout for each mobile device by setting the viewport meta tag and using percentages in your CSS whenever possible. Yes, you can probably set your #wrapper div to be 320 pixels (which would actually work for an iPhone 4 in portrait mode) but you can also set your form inputs and textareas to be 100%.

The other nice thing about setting up the viewport this way, is, you can build your layout in a browser and then just resize your browser to get an idea of how your layout will look on a mobile device – while still having access to things like Firebug, the web inspector on Safari and Chrome, or the Web Developer’s toolbar.

Viewing Flash trace statements in a browser

nicole — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:35:19 +0000

I used to use FlashTracer for Firefox but it stopped working in more recent versions of Firefox.

However, I discovered that it’s even easier to just get Flash to output trace statements to a browers console. If you’re not familiar with the console, it looks like the following in Firefox with Firebug:

And in Safari, you can get to the console by going to Develop > Show Error Console:

Telling Flash to output trace statements to a browser is as easy as importing the External Interface class:

import flash.external.ExternalInterface;

And then using the External Interface call method to output messages to the console

trace("trace a message in Flash");
ExternalInterface.call("console.log", "Trace a message in the browser console");

If you happen to be using bulkloader, you can output your loading messages the following way

bulkLoader = new BulkLoader("main-site");
bulkLoader.logFunction = logConsole;
private function logConsole(msg:String):void {
	trace(msg);
	ExternalInterface.call("console.log",msg);
}

TinyMCE modal window in WordPress

nicole — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:04:57 +0000

(function() {
    tinymce.create('tinymce.plugins.my-plugin-name', {
        init : function(ed, url){
            ed.addButton('my-plugin-name', {
            title : 'my-title',
                onclick : function() {
                    tb_show("", "../wp-content/plugins/my-plugin-name/test.php?");
                    tinymce.DOM.setStyle(["TB_overlay", "TB_window", "TB_load"], "z-index", "999999")
                },
                image: url + "/my-icon.png",
            });
        }
    });
    tinymce.PluginManager.add('my-plugin-name', tinymce.plugins.my-plugin-name);
})();

I’m far from being a TinyMCE expert…so I opened the existing plugins from WordPress and borrowed some code from the WordPress plugin for TinyMCE. It works!

The important thing is to add a question mark (?) after your file name or else you will get a 404 error…

For a more detailed guide on how to add your own TinyMCE buttons to WordPress see Brett Terpstra’s guide.

Vectors: Left and Right handed normals

nicole — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:19:50 +0000

Interactive example of how left normals and right normals are calculated from a vector. A vector is a line with magnitude and direction.

Click and drag on the example above to see how normals follow the vector.

There are different kinds of vectors in Flash.

Vectors as Arrays

One kind of vector is a strictly-typed array which is used to hold lists of stuff.

var vector:Vector. = new [1,2,3,4,5];
trace(vector);

Vectors as visual concept

The other kind of vector is a line with a magnitude and direction. It’s not actually a class in Actionscript (although, you can make your own Vector class…but don’t mix it up with the other Vector class mentioned above).

The simplest way to calculate a vector is to get the difference between point A and point B using the Point class:

var pointA:Point;
pointA = new Point(0,0);
var pointB:Point;
pointB = new Point(1,1);
var myVector = new Point();
myVector.x = pointB.x - pointA.x;
myVector.y = pointB.y - pointA.y;
trace(myVector); // (x=1, y=1)

So, a vector always contains an x value and a y value. Because of this, they are easy to store using the point class.

Keep in mind that, because they are lines, vectors are comprised of two points (point A and point B) but this can be expressed as a single point, which is the difference between them.

myVector.x = pointB.x - pointA.x;
myVector.y = pointB.y - pointA.y;

Vector Normals

Each vector has two normals:

A left normal (sometimes called a left-handed normal

A right normal (sometimes called a right-handed normal

Left Normals

A left normal is a vector that is perpendicular (90 degrees) of the vector on the left-hand side

var left_normal_x:Number;
left_normal_x = vy;
var left_normal_y:Number;
left_normal_y = -vx;

Right Normals

A right normal is a vector that is perpendicular (90 degrees) of the vector on the right-hand side

var right_normal_x:Number;
right_normal_x = vy;
var right_normal_y:Number;
right_normal_y = -vx;

Google Geocode API: Get the latitude and longitude of an address

nicole — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:02:35 +0000

Using the google geocode api, you can get the latitude and longitude of an address. This is useful when building google maps.

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=street_number+street_name,city,country&sensor=false

If you type the above into your browser (with a real address) the result is a json file that contains, among other things, the latitude and longitude.

$http_request .= "address=";
$http_request .= $street_no . '+';
$http_request .= $street_name . ',';
$http_request .= $city . ',';
$http_request .= $province_or_state . ',';
$http_request .= $country;
$http_request .= '&sensor=false';

Replace all the blank spaces that might be in any of the names with ‘%20′ or else you will get an error that looks like this:

failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request

A simple way to replace the spaces with the correct encoding of ‘%20′:

$http_request = str_replace(" ", "%20", $http_request);

Then get the file contents:

$fp = file_get_contents($http_request);

Decode the result just json_decode:

$arr = json_decode($fp, true);

Then print the results:

echo '';
 print_r($arr['results'][0]['geometry']['location']);
 echo '';

Replace the end of every line with…

nicole — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:45:50 +0000

Here’s how to replace the end of every line with anything you want (in this case, a quote mark followed by a comma) using Textmate or any other program that accepts regular expressions for find-and-replace (this includes Dreamweaver and Word):

Just remember to check the box marked, “regular expression”

Switched to Homebrew

nicole — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:38:57 +0000

So today I uninstalled Macports and installed Homebrew.

After a half-hour of using Homebrew to install various packages (wget, memcached, postgres) without a hitch I am pretty pleased. I think I’m going to keep using it. There’s a terrific write up by Andre Arko that explains all the nice things about Homebrew.

The only glitch I noticed after installing Homebrew was that my Preferrence Pane for MySQL stopped working, with the error message:

Warning: The /usr/local/mysql/data directory is not owned by the 'mysql' or '_mysql' user

This can be fixed by running the following:

sudo chown -R _mysql:wheel /usr/local/mysql/data

Django on Apache on Snow Leopard, Part 3: MySQL

nicole — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:28:59 +0000

So, now that mod_wsgi is up and working and django is installed, another thing to get up and running is MySQLdb (now known as MySQL for Python).

This is something that can be a bit of a special hell.

First, as far as I can tell, it seems that MySQL for Python is 64 bit.

So, the version of mysql that you use must be 64 bit, and also, the version of python that you are using must be 64 bit.

I could not get it running with 32 bit versions myself.

Open Terminal. Type:

mysql

This should open mysql. Sometimes you have to type

mysql -u root -p
Password:

And enter your password. This is assuming that you have a username of root, but you might not.

Then, once you are in mysql, type:

SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'version_compile_machine';

Which, hopefully, will give you something like:

+-------------------------+--------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+-------------------------+--------+
| version_compile_machine | x86_64 |
+-------------------------+--------+

If it says:

+-------------------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+-------------------------+-------+
| version_compile_machine | i686 |
+-------------------------+-------+

This is the wrong version for the instructions here.

If you don’t mind losing all of your databases, you can uninstall MySQL and reinstall a 64 bit version.

I only got my install working with a 64 bit version.

Now, if you are running the 64 bit version, exit MySQL by pressing CTRL-D:

mysql>bye

Then, type:

python

This should open python for you. If not, there is something wrong with your path variable.

If python works, type:

import platform

And press Enter. Then type

platform.architecture()

You should see

>>> import platform
>>> platform.architecture()
('64bit', '')

If it says ’32bit’ instead, the instructions here won’t work for you. You need to get a 64 bit version of Python.

By default, Python on Snow Leopard should be a 64 bit version. But I think I might have messed around an installed a newer, 32 bit version instead. At any rate…I had to go an install Python 2.7 which I wouldn’t recommend because the current mod_wsgi only works with 2.6.

Hopefully you are just running the version of Python that came with your computer, so you don’t have this problem.

Next, now that you have verified that:
– your version of MySQL is 64 bit
– your version of Python is 64 bit

Download MySQLdb (now called MySQL for Python)

Download it and copy it to your /Users/yourusername folder.

In Terminal, exit Python by pressing CTRL-D if you haven’t already. Then type:

cd
tar xzvf MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz
cd MySQL-python-1.2.3
ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py clean
ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py build
ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py install

The first issue you might have is your version might not be MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz.

So just enter your version or type

tar xzvf MySQl-(press tab)

And Terminal will figure out the rest for you (it autotypes the rest of the file name, assuming there aren’t files that begin with “MySQL-” in the same folder).

Now, another error you might get when you type:

ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py clean

Is:

ImportError: No module named setuptools

So you have to download setuptools and install it.

You must know what version of Python you are running and download the correct version of setuptools based on that.

Then copy the download to your Users/yourusername folder.

Then, in Terminal:

sh setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg

Your version that you downloaded might be different. It might be 2.6 or 2.5 so don’t just copy and paste the line above.

Then run the commands again:

ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py clean
ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py build
ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py install

The other issue is you might get a “you don’t have the right permissions” error.

If this is the case, use sudo:

sudo ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py clean
sudo ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py build
sudo ARCHFLAGS='-arch x86_64' python setup.py install

The next step is to add some stuff to your .bash_profile file.

Change to your root directory:

cd

Then type:

open .bash_profile

Look around for a line that says something like:

# Setting PATH for Python

Below this should be a line for your Python path. Below that stuff, add:

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/mysql/lib:$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH
export VERSIONER_PYTHON_PREFER_64_BIT=yes
export VERSIONER_PYTHON_PREFER_32_BIT=no

Save the file and close it.

Next, in Terminal, type:

cd /usr/local/mysql/lib/

Then type

ls

To view the files. You should have something that says

libmysqlclient.18.dylib

The number might be different, it might be libmysqlclient.16.dylib. Whatever it is, write this down.

Then type:

cd
sudo install_name_tool -id /usr/local/mysql/lib/libmysqlclient.18.dylib

Now, to test that everything is working, type:

python

You should get the standard python prompt with your version name. Type, after the arrows:

import MySQLdb

And hit enter. If you don’t get a string of error messages, MySQLdb is now installed and working properly.