November 2011 - MacRuby-devel - lists.macosforge.org

MacRuby promise
by Jean-Denis MUYS 14 Nov '11

14 Nov '11

Reading from many messages on this list, I get the impression that MacRuby users are more often than not Ruby programmers coming to Mac programming. I come from the opposite side: I am an experienced Cocoa developer and Ruby newbie. I came to MacRuby for one major reason (and perhaps a few secondary reasons): to speed up development of my Mac applications. My vision of speeding up Mac development is basically to finally reach again what I had almost 20 years ago when I was programming in Macintosh Common Lisp on the Mac for the Mac: developing within a running application, without having to quit it, dynamically adding or modifying classes or methods through a read-eval-print loop. Yet, after having read through Matt's book, this is not what I got. On the contrary, my workflow is at the opposite end of the spectrum: built-run-test-quit loop, similar to what I'm used to with Objective-C. Except it's even worse: at least, typos are caught early with Objective-C. With MacRuby, they aren't, and quite often, I spend a considerable time reaching the point I'm working on before I get an exception from my typo. Since MacRuby *does* have a REPL in the macirb terminal program, I really hope I missed something (that unfortunately is not described in Matt's book): what would be an efficient workflow developing a MacRuby Macintosh application with Xcode? For example, I see that all Ruby code is loaded in rb_main.rb by walking through the app bundle resource directory and calling require(path) on all found ruby files. Would it be possible to require again those files after they have been modified, without quitting the application? Yes it would still require building the app after each change in order to copy the changed ruby files back into the app bundle, but at least Xcode is happy to do so without requiring the app to quit (just don't ask it to "Run"). Even better, would it be possible to optionally require the ruby files from the source directory rather than from the app bundle (during development) based on some scheme or configuration dependent symbol? Then building the app would not even be necessary after changes limited to Ruby source code. I would envision MacRuby Xcode templates to include such improvements in rb_main.rb, and also to add a "Debug" menu of some sort to the built app from which the developer could select a command to reload any/all changed Ruby file. This could even be automated using File System events. The workflow loop would then become: 1- test some app action 2- notice a bug. Don't quit. Switch to Xcode. 3- change the relevant Ruby file 4- save 5- there is no step 5 I can't see any reason why this would not possible, and even easy, Ruby newbie as I may be. To me, this is the major MacRuby promise, and that promise is not kept yet. Am I out of my mind? Thanks. Jean-Denis (and add a Ruby console/listener to the built app too, in which the REPL is working in the context of the running app).

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] MacRuby promise
by Jean-Denis MUYS 14 Nov '11

14 Nov '11

On 14 nov. 2011, at 17:54, <macruby-devel-request(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel-request@lists.macosforge.org>> wrote: Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:53:14 -0800 From: Nat Brown <natbro(a)gmail.com<mailto:natbro@gmail.com>> To: "MacRuby development discussions." <macruby-devel(a)lists.macosforge.org<mailto:macruby-devel@lists.macosforge.org>> Subject: Re: [MacRuby-devel] MacRuby promise Message-ID: <CAG9EKxucdh03nX8NumZZrDB2C9A7yHTNwaguzRF0oVoWHCev_A(a)mail.gmail.com<mailto:CAG9EKxucdh03nX8NumZZrDB2C9A7yHTNwaguzRF0oVoWHCev_A@mail.gmail.com>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" this would certainly be useful, but frankly i think that having proper debugger-integration support in xcode (see http://www.macruby.org/trac/ticket/1208 and issue 3037631 in http://bugreporter.apple.com<http://bugreporter.apple.com/>) would go dramatically farther towards making macruby useful. edit-and-continue would be great, but setting a breakpoint: priceless. thx, n@ This is a false dichotomy: my suggestion and yours are orthogonal (except perhaps for resource allocation consideration). You are right of course that proper debugging is desirable (MCL also had that 20 years ago), perhaps more so than what I am suggesting, but I'm going for the low-hanging fruits here. Moreover, adding Ruby debugging to Xcode would require Apple willingness to evolve Xcode which, given the glacial pace of Xcode 4 bug fixing and almost total deafness to developer requests, is far too much to ask. What I describe on the other hand, require no such cooperation. I probably even could implement a rough bare bone version. Jean-Denis

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anyone using WebKit to generate dialogs?
by Rich Morin 14 Nov '11

14 Nov '11

Google SketchUp's WebDialog class allows Ruby plugins to generate, launch, and support interactive dialogs, using HTML and JavaScript. Basically, the plugin: * sets up some callback code * generates some HTML (etc) code * points SketchUp at the HTML SketchUp then puts up a window whose layout is specified by the HTML (etc) code. User actions may be handled by JavaScript and/or callbacks to the Ruby plugin. Although there are some awkward aspects to this approach, I like the ability to generate dynamic content, use CSS and jQuery, etc. It looks like WebKit could provide similar capabilities, using MacRuby as the "back end". I'm curious whether anyone has been playing with this approach, possibly using HotCocoa magic to tidy things up. -r -- http://www.cfcl.com/rdm Rich Morin http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume rdm(a)cfcl.com http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog +1 650-873-7841 Software system design, development, and documentation

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] Create new Core Data Instances
by Sven A. Schmidt 14 Nov '11

14 Nov '11

Hi Timo, > a) Is it really THAT complicated to create an instance of MyEntity and set the attribute? I'm coming from the Rails/ActiveRecord world where this could easily be done with a single line of code (including saving the instantiated object): MyEntity.new(:attribute1 => "Test").save ) > > b) How can I save this fresh instance and update my NSTableView? After you have modeled your entity in the Xcode core data modeling view, you can use instance = NSEntityDescription.insertNewObjectForEntityForName( "MyEntity", inManagedObjectContext:managedObjectContext ) to instantiate an instance. You can save it calling error = Pointer.new_with_type("@") managedObjectContext.save(error) To save attributes, simply assign to them: instance.attribute1 = 'Test' This assumes you've added that attribute to your model. The managedObjectContext can be created or, if you're using a core data project like the document one, you'll have a managedObjectContext accessible from your NSDocument subclass: self. managedObjectContext If you have bound your NSTableView to the model object, changes will be picked up automatically. You'll only need to call save to actually persist to disk. I hope this helps somewhat, there's much more detail to it and the following links explain more of those: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/Core… and some MacRuby specific ones that I've found useful in the past http://www.springenwerk.com/2008/10/macruby-and-core-data-tutorial.html http://cyberfox.com/blog/120-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-about-core-data… http://reborg.tumblr.com/post/263347770/macruby-coredata-tutorial Cheers, Sven

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Create new Core Data Instances
by Timo Springmann 14 Nov '11

14 Nov '11

Hi List, I've successfully created a core data entity with some attributes. I'm displaying object in a NSTableView and I was able to add new instances by calling the entities array controller add: action. The last hour I tried to figure out how to add/create a core data entity in ruby code without using the interface builder. I tried to instantiate a new object like this: MyEntity.new but I always get the following error: Failed to call designated initializer on NSManagedObject class 'MyEntity' What's the proper way of doing this? For rails-devs: I'm looking for something like: a = MyARObject.new a.attribute1 = "test" a.attribute2 = "test2 a.save Regards, Timo -- twitter.com/orangeorb

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Some general MacRuby/Cocoa questions
by Timo Springmann 13 Nov '11

13 Nov '11

Hi List, I'm new to the list and currently I'm struggling with MacRuby (or better: Cocoa). I've done some Ruby development (mostly Rails) in the past and think my knowledge about ruby is okay. But I've no idea about Cocoa and all I know about C are a few fragments C++ back from university... Currently I try to teach me some MacRuby/Cocoa with hacking together a small desktop application. Matt Aimonetti's book is already ordered and I hope it will arrive next week. I did some reading back when it was available for free on the net. So I already know some (small) things but actually I've some questions and I hope I'll find some answers on the list. If this is the wrong place to ask such questions, please let me know. At the moment my application mostly consists of a NSTableView bound to a CoreData Entity. Works like expected. In a next step I would like to extend my application to open another window to enter the details for adding content. I've designed the window in the interface builder (Another.xib) and added another ruby file to my project with the following content: class AnotherController < NSWindowController def windowNibName() return "Another" end end I added a NSObject in IB and set it's class to AnotherController. In my AppDelegate.rb I've added a method which gets called when selecting a menuitem: def addItem(sender) newWindow = AnotherController.alloc.init newWindow.window.makeKeyAndOrderFront(self) end Now I can select the menu entry, which is calling addItem, which then opens the other window. This is working, but it doesn't feel right. Especially the AnotherController things seems a little bit odd to me. Is there a better way to do this? What are the next steps? What would be the best way to add another record to my CoreData based on the form values of my second window? I find it generally hard to imagine how to arrange a files in a larger MacRuby/Cocoa project. Is there some good reading on this topic? Regards, Timo -- twitter.com/orangeorb

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Other private frameworks
by Rob Ista 13 Nov '11

13 Nov '11

Hi, does anyone have experience embedding other frameworks or dylibs in an employed app? The "build for archive" runs fine but "archive" itself crashes complaint that "the application bundle was not found" but i assume that the other frameworks were not found or embedded. The app runs fine without the deploy and deploying the app without the other frameworks (just by removing them from the "linked framework list") is ok too. The only solution i have now is to create and archive a "fake app" --> " "build for archive" with the real one --> do a lot post-processing work in the app like including frameworks and dylibs manually --> manual code signing of all .rbo's and other executables --> overwrite the fake app with the real one --> validate --> upload --> pfffff …. I think macruby_deploy needs an update :) cheers, Rob

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BridgeSupport (objC header file) simple parser
by Matt Aimonetti 11 Nov '11

11 Nov '11

On my way down to RubyConf Argentina I wrote these few lines of code to parse the Objective-C header generated by the sdef/sdp commands into a Ruby object that I then dump to JSON. https://gist.github.com/1349038 Usage: $ ./bridgesupport_doc_parser.rb ~/tmp/inDesign.h Feel free to build whatever you want with this (very basic) code, in theory, it shouldn't be hard to write a small app showing the API provided by a 3rd party app. - Matt

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MacRuby: The Definitive Guide
by Matt Aimonetti 09 Nov '11

09 Nov '11

Hey guys, if you pre ordered the hard copy of my book, it should arrive in a few days (just got mine). Otherwise you can buy from O'Reilly: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920000723.do or Amazon: http://amzn.to/tVx4ng (cheaper) Digital versions are available on the iBooks and Kindle marketplaces and available in a all included format package on the O'Reilly website. I would sincerely appreciate if some of you could leave reviews on Amazon or O'Reilly, especially if my writing managed to help you out in the past. </infomercial> Thanks, - Matt

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NSTimer.timerWithTimeInterval ?
by Robert Feldt 08 Nov '11

08 Nov '11

Hi, Noob to both MacRuby and Cocoa/Objective-C here (but not Ruby) so please forgive is this is obvious but when I try to call timer = NSTimer.timerWithTimeInterval(60, self, 'recheckAndUpdateTitle:', nil, true) NSRunLoop.currentRunLoop.addTimer(timer) I get: undefined method `timerWithTimeInterval' for NSTimer:Class (NoMethodError) which is very confusing given: http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Found… and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1449035/how-do-i-use-nstimer What am I missing here? Any advice appreciated!? -- Thanks in advance, /Robert Feldt

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