The Idea Ether

Ruby 1.8.2 in Tiger

Nice...the Apple team included Ruby 1.8.2 in Tiger. Tis a sweet thing indeed. If you want to build extensions for it though you need to install xCode Tools. And then, there is a minor problem with the shipped rbconfig.rb file. The wiki on the rails site here documents the change.

You can also use RubyGems to fix it too thanks to Chad Fowler who already built a Gem (fixrbconfig) to fix the problem. After you install RubyGems you just do this:


% sudo gem install fixrbconfig
Password:
Attempting local installation of 'fixrbconfig'
Local gem file not found: fixrbconfig*.gem
Attempting remote installation of 'fixrbconfig'
Updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
Successfully installed fixrbconfig-1.0


Then run (from another terminal window):


% sudo fixrbconfig
====================
This program will replace your rbconfig.rb , located in /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/powerpc-darwin8.0/rbconfig.rb
Press enter continue or ctrl-c to abort.
Backing up original rbconfig.rb in /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/powerpc-darwin8.0/rbconfig.rb.bak
All Done! You should be able to compile C extensions now!


Its nice when package managers ship fixes to OSes on the same day the OS ships!

Now, full steam ahead with Ruby on Tiger!

[UPDATE] Lucas Carlson posted this very nice script to fix both the rbconfig.rb file and download and install readline support (which gives you command recall in IRB). Very nice indeed! If you have already applied the rbconfig fix, you can just snip out the lines starting with: curl ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline...

Jef Raskin

Jef Raskin passed away yesterday. My heart goes out to his family and to those close to him. I only met Jef two times, but in both instances he was a vibrant and engaging person. At last years O'Reilly FOO Camp Jef brought his small model planes and to the delight of the children flew them around the parking lot. Five years ago when I was working on a prior software project (Roku) we were close to engaging Jef to help us build the user experience. That, unfortunately, fell through but I did get to visit Jef at his house on the coast of California. We spent the afternoon in a dialog about The Humane Interface and his vision for The Humane Environment (THE). His son seems to be carrying on his father's vision at The Raskin Center. The very computer that I type this on owes much of its existence to the creative mind of Jef Raskin and I will always remember him for both his accomplishments and his dreams.

Using Xcode to Edit Ruby Files

This is the first of a series of posts on using Xcode to edit Ruby files.

For those that are familiar with Xcode, this will likely not be very informational, but for those of us that are new to Apple's programming editor, perhaps it will be useful. Xcode ships with Apple's developer tools which can be downloaded here (free/subscription required). A little known fact is that Xcode syntax highlights Ruby source code, so if you aren't a VIM or Emacs disciple, perhaps Xcode is for you.

First things first. If you always want to edit your Ruby files using the Xcode editor, use the Finder to browse to a folder with a Ruby (.rb file) in it. Then single click on the file (to select it) and then chose the File/Get Info menu item. This will present a nice long information panel. In that panel there is an 'Open with:' section that has a drop down in it. Select that then choose 'other'. This will bring up a file browser. The Xcode .app file is located in /Developer/Applications. After you select 'Xcode' make sure and select the 'Always open with' checkbox in the lower left corner, then press the 'Add' button. The drop down should now say 'Xcode' and if you click on the 'Change All...' button the Finder will open all Ruby files with Xcode.

That's it. Now, whenever to double-click on a Ruby (.rb) file in the Finder, it will open the Xcode editor. Also, if you are at a command line and there is a Ruby script you want to edit, you can just type 'open myscript.rb' and it will open the default application for .rb files...which we have now made Xcode!

In my next post I will discuss setting up the editor using the Preferences in Xcode that make editing Ruby extra special (like showing line numbers, indenting, coloring, etc). I will conclude with post on using the project capability of Xcode to edit groups of Ruby files.

Creating Panther Disk Images from the Command Line

Well, its been a while since last post. I've been a bit busy as of late, but will make efforts to keep up the 'good work' of posting regularly. Anyway, I was working on my Alph project and needed a way to create OS X disk images from the command line that contained my source directories. The reason I needed to create a disk image (rather than a tar.gz file or something) was OS X holds data in the 'resource forks' of files. So, if you have directories that have OS X executables in them (not Unix executables, but OS X apps, etc) you need to maintain this data for it to be executable on another OS X machine.

I went round and round, but finally found that this simple command works great:

hdiutil create -fs HFS+ -volname DIR -srcfolder DIR DIR.dmg


Where DIR is the directory you want to create a disk image for. That's it! When the command returns you have a DIR.dmg file sitting in your current directory, and if you...

open DIR.dmg


...the finder will mount it, and you can view it there, or in the Terminal:

cd /Volumes/DIR


Note: You don't have to name the volume the directory name, you can name it anything you want...the same goes for the .dmg filename.

Macromedia's Activation and Panther Woes

Well, its been one of those days. Actually, it started last night when I tried to start my installed copy of Macromedia Flash 2004. First some background.

Last friday (10/24/03) I upgraded to Panther from 10.2.8. When I performed the upgrade I selected the Archive/Install option. The upgrade went great...no worries...all my applications were still there in my dock after the upgrade. The first thing I did (after playing with some new features of Panther) was build Ruby 1.8.1. You can read my instructions on how to do this here. Last night I needed to jump back into a super-secret cool Ruby project I am planning that uses Flash. I will blog that project as I get something to show, but the problem arose when I clicked on the Flash icon. The icon started bouncing, then just stopped. No error messages, no dialog boxes...nothing.

I actually paid $$$ for a Macromedia Devnet subscription so I called the hotline (yeah right!). It was 7:30pm EST (4:30 on the west coast) and their tech support was closed! OK...so...I just started Googling around a bit and discovered that Macromedia now incorporates activation technology into their programs. One listing I found stated that you should deactivate the product prior to installing Panther. Nice suggestion, but too late for me. Suck!

So, I went on a deletion spree and removed all hints of Macromedia stuff from my computer. I removed the folders in the Applications folder, the /Library/Application Support/Macromedia folder and the ~/Library/Application Support/Macromedia folder. I then re-installed the application. I figured this purging would suffice, but lo and behold demons were still present. I double-clicked on the Flash 2004 icon and it bounced around and the quit...just like before. Suck^2!

The next day I called tech support and finally reached a human and told them my problem. They recommended that I remove all the Macromedia folders and try again. I told them I already did, and that threw them off the script a bit...then they told me they would call me back. I got many calls. Each one asking me to try something that I had already done, like installing other Macromedia apps (Dreamweaver, etc). All those apps behaved the exact same way. I did some more searching and stumbled across this page. About half way down you see a section titled Mac OS 10.3 user authentication dialog fail.

Just before reading this I opened up the Console application to see if there were any reported errors there. What I saw was re-enforced by what the release note said. I saw a message "Authentication Service: Started" appear just before the bouncing Flash icon died. Hm...smells like smoke. It seems that there is this creepy little application in this creepy little folder (/Library/Application Support/Macrovision/AuthenticationService). Ah ha! I cried and promptly removed this folder, removed all the Macromedia folders (again) and re-installed. I then clicked on the Flash 2004 application and it bounced a couple of times, then quit...just like before. Suck^3!

Fortunately Macromedia tech support called back and told me to try something. They said to delete this folder named /Library/Application Support/Macrovision. "Been there--done that!", was my reply, and they told me it was time to escalate the problem to the next level of tech support. I was really just pissed at this point. Then something struck me...plists. What if this damned Authentication Service had little plists somewhere. I went to the /Library/Preferences and there I found a Macrovision directory. "Move to trash" was what I said and then double-clicked on the Flash 2004 application and....

Bam! The dialog that said "You need to activate Flash on this computer..."

Yippie. I entered my 10^1000 digit license code and...chorus of angels singing...Flash worked (as did Dreamweaver, etc). So, like a good citizen I called back Macromedia and told them how I fixed their freaking activation service. They were so thankful that they closed the issue and charged me one of my tech support incidents.

A couple of lessons learned:

(1) If Macromedia did not have cool technology, I would never do business with them.

(2) Activation-based software license enforcement sucks^4!

Building Ruby 1.8.1 on Panther

Well, last Friday was my day for Panther. Since I pre-ordered it, my disks arrived early in the afternoon. It was one of the most painless upgrades I have ever performed, while having some really great new features. Of course, shortly after my install, I needed to install the latest version of Ruby. I tried (with a lot of help from James Duncan Davidson) to get Ruby 1.8 in Panther, but it was too late. In order to proceed with with the steps below you need to install the xCode developer's tools that come with Panther.

So, here it goes:

1) Make yourself a directory to build your stuff in (like build) and enter that directory.

2) A great tool that comes with Ruby is irb (Interactive Ruby). One really nice thing in irb is using the up arrow to recall previous lines of typed in Ruby code. The problem is this depends on readline which is not included in Panther. So, we need to install readline prior to installing Ruby. You can do it after, but its more of a PITA.

$ curl -o readline-4.3.tar.gz \
   ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/readline-4.3.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf readline-4.3.tar.gz
$ cd readline-4.3
$ perl -i.bak -p -e \
  "s/SHLIB_LIBS=.*/SHLIB_LIBS='-lSystem -lncurses -lcc_dynamic'/g" \
  support/shobj-conf
$ ./configure 
$ make
$ sudo make install
password: (your password)
$ cd ..

Note: That perl hack was found to fix a linking problem.

3) UPDATED: Now onto my favorite programming language. Ruby 1.8.1 is the current stable release, and it should be the version built. From the command line do the following:

$ curl -o ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz \
   "http://rubyforge.org/download.php/262/ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz"
$ tar -xzf ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz  

4) Build and install Ruby.

$ cd ruby-1.8.1
$ autoconf
$ ./configure

Its worth discussing here that when you run ./configure you can specify the prefix for installation with --prefix. It defaults to /usr/local (which is not included in the default path for Panther's terminal). I leave it in /usr/local even though the Ruby that ships with Panther is in /usr so that I can keep the old version around (for Apple updates, etc). Anyway...

$ make
$ make test
$ sudo make install
password: (your password)

5) Update your path to include /usr/local/bin. I am still running tcsh instead of bash (since the Panther upgrade honored my existing shell...thanks Apple!). Anyway, once you do that test out Ruby and verify its installation:

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.1 (2003-10-24) [powerpc-darwin]

Cool!

BTW: I am going to try and build a .dmg file of this Ruby build for simple installation by folks that don't want to go through these kind of low-level steps.