January 2012 - MacRuby-devel - lists.macosforge.org

Document based application template
by Andy Stechishin 31 Jan '12

31 Jan '12

I am trying to make a Document based MacRuby application. I create the new project in Xcode4 (4.0.2) and immediately select build and run. The application starts but there is no "Untitled" window and the File->New and File->Open menu options are greyed out. Following the same sequence of actions except choosing an Objective-C based application, the "Untitled" Window appears and the menu options are active. I have compared the project contents, the xib files (including File Owners and First Responders) and linked frameworks and can find no difference that would explain the different operation. It would seem that there is some problem with NSDocumentController in the MacRuby version. It is either not there or has been added properly to the responder chain. Am I missing something? Or is this a defect? Has anyone else encountered this and found a work around? Andy Stechishin

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Bug with #method.call and blocks
by Gabriel Gilder 25 Jan '12

25 Jan '12

Hi all, I have a feeling this might be a known issue, but I couldn't find any discussion of it. I've put together a simple example: https://gist.github.com/1675279 Basically, if I have a class Foo, with an instance method bar that yields to a block, in MRI I can do this: Foo.new.method(:bar).call() { puts "something" } But in MacRuby, the block is not passed to the method by .call(). Again, sorry if this is a known issue... -Gabriel

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macruby GCD Fibers
by Alan Skipp 23 Jan '12

23 Jan '12

Hi everyone, I've had a go at implementing Fibers using dispatch queues. The code can be found here: https://gist.github.com/1565393 Inspiration was taken from the following ruby 1.8 Fibers implementation: https://gist.github.com/4631 The implementation of Fiber.yield currently relies upon a hash stored as a class variable. This is hopefully just a temporary solution to get things started. The hash is always accessed through a serial queue (so it should be thread safe) and dead fibers are removed after use. There are a couple of GCD functions that look like they could be used to solve this problem: 'dispatch_queue_set_specific' and 'dispatch_set_context'. Though I'm not sure how to use these from Macruby. If anyone has any experience using either of those GCD functions I'd be interested in learning more. The major omission currently is the lack of a 'transfer' method. I've pondered this quite a bit, but I've yet to come up with a solution. It is quite possible that the way I've written the Fiber class prevents a successful implementation of a 'transfer' method - but I've not given up just yet. If anyone has a cunning plan on how to achieve it, that would be great. I've tested all the examples here: http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2007/12/pipelines-using.html and they all seem to work, plus I've included a few tests in the gist. The test which creates a fiber from Fiber.current, causes macruby to crash, but I don't know why - it doesn't cause a crash when invoked normally outside of minitest. From my limited tests, everything other than the 'transfer' method appears to be working, but feedback would be welcome if you discover any problems. Al

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Re: [MacRuby-devel] CNC Machine control using USB to IEEE 1284 Parallel port adapter
by Will Thorne 21 Jan '12

21 Jan '12

Perhaps getting a bit off topic for MacRuby list now... Back when I was doing this Arduino didn't exist, I was programming Microchip PIC 16F877 chips in C, I seem to remember that when you receive an interrupt it disables more interrupts from the same source until you reset the bit in the relevant register. You can just debounce the input in software by sampling the state of the input pin a couple of times with a few ms between them then re-enable the interrupt for that port. There must be a similar mechanism for dealing with this problem on with Arduino/Atmel chips? But yeah, you can find yourself spending days trying to work out why your code stopped working, sometimes with only an LED for feedback! It's good fun working on things that do something immediate and physical though, good luck with your project, W On 20 Jan 2012, at 20:51, macruby-devel-request(a)lists.macosforge.org wrote: > Message: 3 > Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:43:46 -0800 > From: Rich Morin <rdm(a)cfcl.com> > To: "MacRuby development discussions." > <macruby-devel(a)lists.macosforge.org> > Subject: [MacRuby-devel] CNC Machine control using USB to IEEE 1284 > Parallel port adapter > Message-ID: <p06230933cb3f80f6c1e1(a)[192.168.1.205]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Using a general-purpose OS (eg, Mac OS X) for real-time > applications is a bit of a tarpit. So, I like the idea > of using an Arduino (etc) for this sort of thing. > > That said, there are some things that will cause problems > even in an Arduino. For example, taking raw input from a > switch or button may cause the Arduino to see a bunch of > momentary spikes as the mechanical contacts settle. > > So, consider using some sort of hardware input filtering > (eg, a one-shot or some analog filtering). This will be > far easier than trying to make your code handle the extra > interrupts. > > -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] CNC Machine control using USB to IEEE 1284 Parallel port adapter
by Will Thorne 20 Jan '12

20 Jan '12

Hello, Long time lurker making first post here. You could use an Arduino and do the real time pulse generation stuff on that. Then just write a macruby app that serialises the commands and feeds them to the Arduino which interprets them and flips the necessary IO pins on and off. It's years since I looked at this stuff but I seem to remember that CNC commands work such that they could be grouped into a single machining operation. Hypothetical example to cut a slot on a horizontal miller: Start milling cutter, start carriage +z, stop carriage, start carriage +x, stop carriage, start carriage -z, stop carriage, stop cutter. You could load that whole sequence into the Arduino if you break it down into groups like this. Put the arduino in a plastic box with a parallel port on one end and usb cable coming out the other? I don't know for sure that this would work, but in my experience microcontrollers are much simpler to do real time stuff on because they have pretty much no software stack compared to a desktop PC. Will On 18 Jan 2012, at 09:10, macruby-devel-request(a)lists.macosforge.org wrote: > Hi, > > I've become interested in Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machine control. I find there is very little support for the Macintosh platform and many PC programs for the task have a crude user interface so I would like to create a Macintosh CNC application using MacRuby. > > CNC programs and motor drivers generally use the LPT parallel port output from a PC in the basic unidirectional mode. Most PC CNC apps do not support PC laptops due to processor sleep logic interfering with stepper motor timing. I would need a similar fast interface on the Mac. > > I have a Prolific 2305 based USB to IEEE 1284 adapter cable that I would like to use. Mac OS recognizes the device as an "IEEE-1284 Controller" in the USB device tree and I can add a generic print queue for the device, but I don't know how to connect to the device at high speed as the printer controller does. > > Prolific provides documentation for the simple report protocol for the device. I suspect that an appropriate driver already exists for this device but how would I find it? > > Thanks, > Bob Rice

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MacRuby, Control Tower and Sinatra.
by Kevin Poorman 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

Morning all, I'm having a go at setting up a macRuby app that utilizes Control Tower and Sinatra. I've no problem installing the gems for either, but the current versions of each seem to be mutually exclusive, as they require specific versions of Rack that do not match. I poked around and couldn't identify any reasons why a new version of Rack wouldn't work, so I forked/edited/built/installed ControlTower 1.0.me and gave it a go. Control tower by itself seems to be doing Great. However, if I attempt to load sinatra for the never-been-done-before hello world example, I get this: /Users/kpoorman/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ControlTowerTest-gpdchdkfcdvfgdczhlapcihrrkpc/Build/Products/Debug/ControlTowerTest.app/Contents/Resources/rb_main.rb:20:in `block': wrong number of arguments (1 for 0) (ArgumentError) from /Users/kpoorman/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/ControlTowerTest-gpdchdkfcdvfgdczhlapcihrrkpc/Build/Products/Debug/ControlTowerTest.app/Contents/Resources/rb_main.rb:17:in `<main>' Fast forward 30 minutes, and I've narrowed it down to a block of perfectly working MRI-ruby: return super(*args, &block) if respond_to? method_name Specifically, if I start loading Sinatra components in macirb, it works great until you hit a Set or Enable method call, which in turn invokes the Delegator mixing … etc down to line 1601 of sinatra::base (version 1.4.0) which is above. So, I suppose I should use your time wisely and ask a couple of direct questions -- 1: what, if anything, am I doing wrong? 2: Is this version of sinatra incompatible with Control Tower? 2a: what version of sinatra *is* compatible ? 3: is this a Macruby bug? 3a: I like to think of myself as a fairly advanced ruby developer, with excellent knowledge of meta-programming and the sinatra framework, what I don't understand, is what's wrong with that code ? Thank you for your time! -Kevin

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MacRuby Xcode templates DO load
by Jean-Denis MUYS 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

Contrary to what I stated in my earlier message, MacRuby templates did show up within the latest Xcode as soon as I had copied them in their locations (which the MacRuby installer doesn't do correctly). I also checked that I could alternatively copy them to ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/Templates/ I apologize for the confusion. Jean-Denis

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macruby GCD bug?
by Alan Skipp 13 Jan '12

13 Jan '12

I've been continuing with my efforts to implement Fibers using GCD and in the process I think I may have uncovered a Macruby bug - though perhaps it's a bug in my code? Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the code posted below? It consistently results in a EXC_BAD_ACCESS error. Cheers, Al class Fiber def initialize &block @block = block @yield_sem = Dispatch::Semaphore.new(0) @resume_sem = Dispatch::Semaphore.new(0) @fiber_queue = Dispatch::Queue.new "fiber" @fiber_queue.async {(a)yield_sem.wait} # immediately suspend @fiber_queue # the following block will only run after '@yield_sem' is signalled – which happens when 'resume' is called @fiber_queue.async do @block.call @resume_sem.signal # the block has finished - let the caller resume end end def resume @yield_sem.signal @resume_sem.wait # causes the GCD queue of the caller to suspend end end array = [1,2,3] fiber = Fiber.new { array << 4 } # crash when fiber is resumed fiber.resume p array # we don't get this far

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Xcode templates not installed
by Jean-Denis MUYS 12 Jan '12

12 Jan '12

Hi, I updated my Xcode version to the latest I could find, and the good news is that my MacRuby projects continue to build and run. However, there are no Ruby template to be found. I figured that reinstalling MacRuby would fix that. So I downloaded the latest nightly build and installed it. Still no Ruby template to be found. I checked the MacRuby installer list of files, and indeed, it copies templates to /Developer/Library/Xcode/Templates/... However this doesn't work any more with the latest versions of Xcode. In order to better accommodate the MAS, Xcode is now a fully stand alone application, whose bundle contains a Developer directory that replaces /Developer. So it looks like the MacRuby installer doesn't install the templates in the right locations for the latest versions of Xcode. I then copied over all the MacRuby templates that are listed in the installer file list to their corresponding locations in the Xcode bundle. It doesn't work: Still no Ruby template to be found. So I suppose something else must be done to install templates for Xcode to see them. What did I miss? Of course, another explanation might be that MacRuby templates are now incompatible with the latest Xcode. I hope that's not the case. Thanks for any idea. Jean-Denis PS: the Xcode version I am mentioning might still be under NDA, so I stayed intentionally vague about it. Feel free to slap me on the wrist. However, I'm still interested in all the steps required to install new templates to the latest version of Xcode that is not under NDA.

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loading Quicktime Framework
by Arron Mabrey 10 Jan '12

10 Jan '12

Is there a reason I can't load the quicktime framework? Should I try generating Bridge Support files for it first? I saw this warning in matts book about needing to generate new Bridge Support files but it sounds like that's for pre 10.7. Am I right? I can't quite make it out. http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9781449380373/_one_step_deeper.html#_using_o… I'm on 10.7.2 here's the error framework at path `/System/Library/Frameworks/QuickTime.framework' cannot be loaded: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=3585 "The bundle ‚ÄúQuickTime Framework‚Äù couldn‚Äôt be loaded because it doesn‚Äôt contain a version for the current architecture." Thanks guys for any help.

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