Mac OS X mouse wheel support for ActionScript 3 Flash applications (v.2+)
Posted on April 26, 2008
Filed under ActionScript 3, Flex, Mac, Programming | 3 Comments
So I’ve finally updated the solution I’ve made earlier for enabling Mac OS X mouse wheel support in Flex applications to a second version. I didn’t want to continue adding stuff into the original post, so I decided to write a separate post just for this new version. As you can see from the title, this version should work in any Flash project you’re writing in ActionScript 3, as opposed to just in Flex projects. This change was contributed by Pavel Fljot, and all the other stuff I’ve added since have been added on top of that. Deployment should now be a lot easier and some features that were missing in the first version have also been added.
Automatic, periodic syncing with iSync
Posted on April 17, 2008
Filed under Mac, Scripts | Leave a Comment
The first time I decided I wanted to start synchronizing my cell phone’s calendar and address book with my Mac’s, I noticed how iSync doesn’t have a system of automatically invoking the synchronization procedure between regular intervals. I wanted to have the sync invoked automatically every 30 minutes, so I figured I had to do it myself somehow. I’ve had this script in place and running for, I don’t know, a year and a half now, and I’ve used it with two different phones (the Nokia 3230 and the Nokia N82.) I’m not sure why I haven’t blogged about it before, since this is exactly the kind of stuff I tend to write about here. Probably I’ve just forgotten is all. In any case, here it is.
Going back to the origin of a downloaded file
Posted on March 21, 2008
Filed under Mac, Scripts | Leave a Comment
One of the biggest reasons why I prefer to use Safari as my web browser of choice on OS X is its integration with the rest of the operating system, a quite recent example of which is the tagging of downloaded files with Spotlight metadata about the location where they were downloaded from. In the latest Safari update – version 3.1 – this was extended to also apply to pictures dragged from the browser onto the local filesystem.
This metadata is most frequently used in the dialogs that are shown whenever an executable is being opened for the first time after being downloaded from the web, and it is accessible to users via the “get info” dialog box. If you have a file laying around somewhere, and you’re trying to remember where you got it from, you can always look at the file info, find the “where from:” field, copy the address, switch to your browser, paste the address to the location bar, and press enter in order to get to the origin site. I knew you could read file metadata in OS X with the mdls utility, so I figured it’d be quite simple to make a little “droplet” application for streamlining the task of navigating to the origin web site of a particular file, so that’s exactly what I did.
Fixing the Nokia N82 iSync plug-in
Posted on March 4, 2008
Filed under Mac, Miscallaneous | 3 Comments
I Recently updated my cell phone to a Nokia N82. The most positive points about it are the relative snappiness of the user interface (most Symbian S60 devices are dog slow in that department) and the quite exhaustive feature list. The build quality feels alright and the camera takes excellent pictures for a phone. One of the biggest things that I enjoyed with my previous phone (a Nokia 3230) was the nicely working synchronization with Apple’s iSync, so naturally I made sure that this would also work with the N82. Apple has included built-in support for syncing the 3230 in the iSync that ships with Leopard (it was in the Tiger version as well,) so I didn’t need to install anything extra to get it to work. The N82, on the other hand, is not supported out of the box, so I needed to get an iSync plug-in for it from Nokia.
Keeping AirPort connected to a specific access point
Posted on February 23, 2008
Filed under Mac, Scripts | Leave a Comment
The wireless LAN access point we have at our house is an old Belkin box that only supports the 802.11b standard, which is the slowest of the few “versions” of WiFi. The speed hasn’t been a big issue — we rarely need to move large files over the internal network, and if we do, we plug in an Ethernet cable. Even the fact that it sometimes replaces web pages your browser requests with advertisements of some fantastic parental filter feature it has has not annoyed us enough to take action. What has been an issue, though, is the fact that it frequently drops connections with our Macbooks.
A “Go to parent of current folder” toolbar button for Finder
Posted on January 10, 2008
Filed under Mac, Programming, Scripts | 1 Comment
Although the updated version introduced with Leopard significantly improves upon the one in Tiger, I still think Mac OS’s Finder is lacking in several departments. I Don’t feel “at home” with separate file managers (Path Finder or ForkLift, for example — even though I do own a license to the latter, I only use it as an SFTP client,) so I’ve taken it upon myself to improve the experience of using Finder. The first thing that annoyed me with it was the fact that even though you could use the key combo Command(or Apple key) + Up arrow to go to the parent of the current folder, there was no button in the toolbar for it (which is exactly how I would prefer to invoke this action.) Well, due to the fact that you can drag any application to Finder’s toolbar, it’s quite easy to add your own buttons there.
Update (feb 13, 08): Updated the app to have a much nicer icon (made by Matti Schneider — thanks!)
Collapsible Panel component for Flex
Posted on January 4, 2008
Filed under ActionScript 3, Flex, Programming | 1 Comment
Here’s an another post in the same vein as my previous one: this time, the component I’m sharing is a Panel subclass that allows for collapsing and expanding its contents. What this means is that the user can click on the header of the Panel to make it toggle between an open or closed state, with a smooth animation.
Vertical TabNavigator component for Flex
Posted on January 3, 2008
Filed under ActionScript 3, Flex, Programming | 3 Comments
I Some time ago ran into a situation with a Flex app I was working on where I needed to use a TabNavigator component, but have its TabBar situated on the left or right side of the ViewStack (instead of on the top, where it is in the default TabNavigator.) I Could not find any workable solutions online (the ones I did find could pretty much be described as ugly hacks,) so I made my own by extending the default TabNavigator. I Submitted this component to the flexlib project, but since it has pretty much been ignored in the discussion group, I thought I’d post it here to make it available to the general public.
Update (same day as orig. post): Added simple demo and example code on how to use the component. Added comment about using embedded fonts.
Growlnotify Leopard incompatibility workaround
Posted on January 2, 2008
Filed under Mac, Programming, Scripts | 20 Comments
I Have a bunch of custom shell scripts that I use for various things, and most of them use the growlnotify utility that is distributed with Growl to display messages to the user. Unfortunately, as of this writing, growlnotify has some issues with Leopard and thus messages sent through it will be displayed only intermittently (i.e. approx. one third of all messages sent via growlnotify are not shown at all.) I Found, after a bit of googling, that you can make growlnotify send messages to Growl through the network instead of whatever local mechanism it normally uses, and have it work, even with the current (1.1.2) version. Here’s the workaround I currently have in place:
ActionScript 3 support for jEdit’s SideKick plugin through Exuberant Ctags
Posted on October 9, 2007
Filed under ActionScript 3, Flex, Programming, jEdit | 5 Comments
Today VeryVito made a post on his blog that I had been waiting for a while now: he had just written ActionScript 3 support for Exuberant Ctags, which means proper SideKick plugin support for jEdit when editing AS3 with it. He also made nicer icons for use with the CtagsSideKick, so you should definitely check his stuff out if you use (or plan to use) jEdit for editing AS3.
However, after starting to use the SideKick plugin with the modified, AS3-supported version of Ctags while doing my work, I found a few small rough edges in the ActionScript support he had made: