Mac

Subversion, OS X and the elusive folder merge

2008-08-15T19:56:33-05:00

Lo and behold, this past Wednesday, after waiting all day for the Drupal 6.4 update that was rumored to be coming out, it finally was released at around 6:30pm MDT. We saw it at the DBUG Meetup during setup, and I knew that once again it was time to do some updating. At pingVision, we have an entire dev/test/production process for all of our clients' and our own sites. But when it comes to my own sites, I prefer to do it myself as much as possible so that I can keep my fingers in code and configuration, even while my more official presidential responsibilities tend to pull me in other directions.

And yet my own sites are still under Subversion, so it's not just a matter of uploading the new code and being done with it. No, I have to do it through SVN.

Now if you are like me (and unlike our developers), and have a general preference for a good GUI over using the command line, and are working on OS X and using version control like Subversion, then you likely have run into the problem that the architects of Finder have not deigned to solve: You cannot "merge" folders in OS X using Finder. No, Finder will overwrite folders completely.

Why is this a problem? Anyone who uses Subversion (or other version controller) will know what I'm talking about: If you try to just overwrite wholesale a folder that's under version control, you end up deleting the hidden .svn folder, which has the versioning information. And that leads to Dante's SVN Inferno, where all sorts of error demons torment you while you wail with pangs of regret: Oh, why didn't I merge that folder instead of replacing it?

Using Unix command line, you can of course use mv -v to merge folders, but that forces you to use command line. Since OS X is built upon Unix, I and many others wonder why Finder does not offer this option, not even with contorting combinations of control, option, command and shift.

It's ridiculous. –Especially when you consider that your basic (s)ftp applications can merge folders without a problem. This isn't rocket science.

A trick to merge folders on Mac I figured out a couple of years ago (when I was first introduced to SVN workflows) is this: ftp from your computer to your computer, using your favorite ftp application.

That's right, rather than copy or drag files from folder to folder using Finder, you drag files from folder to folder using ftp. (I use Transmit, but this will work with any ftp app that can merge folders. A free one I can recommend is Cyberduck.)

To enable this approach, all you need to do is turn on ftp access in OS X.

You do this in Preferences -> Sharing.

Click the checkbox to enable "file sharing".

Then, with the file sharing option highlighted, as pictured, click on the Options button down in the lower right-hand area of the window.

This reveals the kinds of file sharing you want to enable, and one of them is ftp. Enable that.

Underneath you will now see a message that provides the IP address where your computer can be reached. You just enter that IP address into your ftp app as the remote server. You may need to enter your username and password for your Mac.

That's it. Now just drag folders over from your desktop into the appropriate area on your ftp app and the merge will happen.

Note: Depending upon the ftp app, you may need to set appropriate preferences to merge folders. Here are the settings I use in Transmit:

This way you can maintain your website in a dev environment on your Mac desktop or laptop, and manage updating tasks easily without having to do SVN gymnastics or work in Terminal.

I welcome your comments.

Dead Computer!

2007-03-28T11:12:12-05:00

I had a fantastic time meeting everyone last week at OSCMS2007.

I know that some are still waiting for our notes from the discussion on community websites, as well as my source code from the theming presentation. Unfortunately, while coding away on my idea for the upcoming Last.fm module (and squeezing the last drop out of the conference with Greg, Dries, CHX and the Lullabot crew at the Sheraton) my hard drive bit the dust.

I'll re-write the theming demonstration module as soon as possible. In the meantime, I've got to try to recover from the lost productivity of being a web developer without a dedicated computer. I can feel the contrast between being at the conference, plugged into various related RSS feeds, and now being completely out in the cold.

For now, I've recreated the node table from a standard Drupal installation using graph paper, or 'PMySQL,' so that I can continue my development work.

You can find community notes on the whole event at http://drupal.org/events/oscms2007.

iPod, Therefore I am - "Vanity Fair"

2006-03-17T08:03:23-06:00

Michael Wolff has written a piece on Steve Jobs for the April 2006 issue of "Vanity Fair."

This impressionistic piece is good. Wolff writes of Jobs

... it turns out that Jobs is not marginal, or eccentric, or even fanciful at all. His is the at-one-with-the-American-consumer golden gut.

Calling Jobs the "ultimate media guy," who has outdone Bill Gates at every turn, Wolff declares Jobs the real winner.

The reader wonders if the claim is valid - at least I wondered. Isn't Microsoft far and away more commercially successful than Mac?

Well, Wolff has that covered.

... one day in the near recent past everybody woke up and found out that while all the geniuses were blathering on about content this and content that, the media culture had, in fact, come to be dominated by machines. It's Steve's gadget-centric world which we just live in.

iPods, Razr phones, BlackBerrys, plasma screens, Xboxes, TiVos, laptops. Machines are the habituating, behavior-changing things. Machines themselves are fascinating, life-changing, cool, sexy.

The medium is the message.

I can't reprint the article here, but it is worthwhile reading.

Things I'm liking

2005-10-15T23:20:22-05:00

I don't often write about gadgets and tools, so I thought I'd share some of my faves right here on my own computer.

Cyberduck -- A freeware ftp program for Mac that stands right up there with shareware Fetch. My only complaint is that it has one or two quirks in how it interfaces with Textwrangler (below). But nothing I can't live with. In fact, I find the interface a bit more intuitive than Fetch, so even though the dog has my 50 bucks ($25 each for two seats), I think I'll be working with the duck.

Textwrangler -- My favorite coding toy. It's easy to navigate, what with its document drawer, can open and save files directly via sftp/ftp, color codes program code, and does nice diff work. And best of all it's free. (But I may take advantage of a short-term sale to upgrade to BBEdit, which has all of these features plus the CVS capabilities I've been needing.)

OfficeTime -- You can download this for a 60-day trial, but it only took me a few hours to get hooked on this program. You can set up projects and tasks, with preconfigured rates. You track time by clicking on icons in the toolbar. Billing amounts are automatically calculated. It's also a handy way to keep track of your non-billable hours. (For example, how much time do you really spend reading blogs every day?) You can also have each project's and task's hours posted to your iCal, in the appropriate category you designate. There seem to be quite a few shortcuts and non-obvious features as well. This is $24.95 (special rate for a short time) that I will have no qualms spending.

OmniGraffle -- I was first introduced to this program when it was bundled with my PowerBook. I used it until the PowerBook's hard drive went through that agonizing click of death. I ended up picking up OmniGraffle for my iMac because I love how easy it makes to draw flow charts and menu diagrams for DVDs. (You'll see some of these charts here in the future.) A couple of days ago the iMac's power unit suddenly quit on me, so I'm back on the rehabilitated PowerBook ... and missing OmniGraffle a lot.

ecto -- This is what I use to post most of my blog posts. It's affordable, works on Mac and Windows, and is under active development, so it's always getting better. I hardly ever see the create-a-new-post form on this site any more.

And my latest fun with Drupal....

tagadelic -- Ber Kessels' module creates a tag cloud out of one's folksonomy-enhanced taxonomy. With Drupal 4.7 tagging is going to expand in Drupal, but it's nice to have this navigation tool now (and visible in the left sidebar here).

I'm also very intrigued by the new iMac. It has a lot of nice new features and a streamlined design, but they managed to keep it at the same price level. Let's just hope they managed to fix the problems with the midplane assembly that have been haunting the iMac G5s sold early this year ... including mine (which has gone through 4 midplane assemblies so far). I love my Macs, but I do recommend getting the AppleCare extended warranty coverage.

For the record: I have no business or personal affiliation with any of these products or their developers. I'm just liking them a lot.