garyhodgson.github.com

Accessing git via git-cvsserver via eclipse

2010-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Accessing git via git-cvsserver via eclipse

Recently I wanted to set up git-cvsserver for some git repositories and a couple of points tripped me up, particularly when trying to access the repositories via eclipse. It all seems obvious with 20:20 hindisight, but i’m posting this in the hope it saves others some time.

One thing I didn’t immediately realise, is that there doesn’t have to be a “git-cvsserver” process running on the server if you plan on accessing the repos over ssh via ext
The git repository has to be bare and have the following entry in the config file:

[gitcvs]
   enabled = 1

You should be able to checkout the git repo using something similar to the following cvs command:

cvs -d ":ext;CVS_SERVER=git \
	cvsserver:username@server/path/to/repo.git" co master

Checking out a repo via eclipse (as detailed in the git-cvsserver manual) didn’t work. The response from the server always timed out. After trying several permutations it transpires I needed to setup ssh key access between my client and the server. So the steps would be:

In eclipse (SSH2 Section), or using ssh-keygen, generate a ssh2 key pair

ssh-keygen -t rsa

Manually copy, or use ssh-copy-id, to copy the public key to server (in the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file)

ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub username@server

In eclipse (Ext Connection Method Section) set the CVS_SERVER parameter to: git cvssserver

To import a project:

Choose import project → Projects from CVS
Create a new repository location
Enter the server details, select Connection type: ext
Either enter the branch name directly (e.g. master) or choose from the list (this will connect to the server and so test whether the connection is valid)
Choose to checkout the project using the New Project Wizard, or directly name the project
Choose a workspace to save the project and click Finish

CaptainCasa with Netbeans and Glassfish v3

2010-03-15T00:00:00-07:00

CaptainCasa with Netbeans and Glassfish v3

Initial Steps

Start CaptainCasa Development Tools
Create Project in CaptainCasa
- Recommended to create project in directory with no spaces, as later the unit test tool has a problem with paths that contain spaces.
- For now leave the server details as default.

Choose project in CaptainCasa Editor

Create JSP File
- Note: When opening the test page an error will display because the server is not running.

Start Netbeans
Create a new Project: Java Web Application with Existing Sources
- Choose the location of the project created by CaptainCasa above

Choose Glassfish v3 server (you may have to install and configure this if you have not already done so)

Netbeans should pick up the correct folder structure

Build and Deploy the app from within Netbeans. This will create the Netbeans build directory structure and ensure the app can be deployed on Glassfish. The build directory should be created, and the application successfully deployed.

Return to CaptainCasa Editor, and open the Project Setup Configuration Options

Set webhostport to the Glassfish host and port
Set webcontentdeploydirectory to the web directory within the Glassfish build directory
Set reloadwebapp to false
Set copywebapp to false

Important: Choose ‘Refresh’ from the Project menu

Reload the JSP file in the CaptainCasa Editor, and the jsp preview should display

Keeping the build environment clean

The CaptainCasa Editor creates a temporary version of each JSP for the preview (indicated by the filename containing ‘ZZZZZZ’ and a timestamp (e.g. testPage_ZZZZZ_1268477933315.jsp). This should be removed from the build directory before packaging the app for distribution.
The CaptainCasa Editor expects to find the classes of ManagedBeans in the following location: TestProject\webcontent\WEB-INF\classes, however Netbeans stores these in the following location: TestProject\build\web\WEB-INF\classes. Therefore we add a task to the Ant build script to copy these files across after each build command.
Sometimes the CaptainCasa Editor classes are out of sync with the state in Netbeans, so add an explicit command to copy across the classes.
Add to build.xml, after <import file="nbproject/build-impl.xml"/>:

	
	
<!-- Removes temporary CaptainCasa JSPs and classes located in the webcontent
     directory before creating the war file for distribution -->
<target name="-pre-dist">
    <delete includeEmptyDirs="true" quiet="true">
        <fileset dir="${build.web.dir}" includes="*_ZZZZZ_*.jsp"/>
    </delete>
    <delete dir="${webinf.dir}/classes"/>
</target>

<!-- Removes temporary CaptainCasa classes -->
<target name="-post-clean">
    <delete dir="${webinf.dir}/classes"/>
</target>

<!-- Copies temporary classes for use by CaptainCasa Editor -->
<target name="-post-run-deploy">
    <copy todir="${webinf.dir}/classes">
        <fileset dir="${build.web.dir}/WEB-INF/classes"/>
    </copy>
</target>

<!-- Explicitely copies temporary classes for use by CaptainCasa Editor -->
<target depends="-init-project" name="sync-captain-casa">
    <copy todir="${webinf.dir}/classes">
        <fileset dir="${build.web.dir}/WEB-INF/classes"/>
    </copy>
</target>

Opening the page in Glassfish

Create some content in the JSP using the Editor (I found I had to add at least one item to the JSP in order for the page to display when deployed on Glassfish in later steps, otherwise it threw a Null Pointer Exception on startup).

Save the project

Create the starter file

Under ‘Tools’ menu of JSP editor, select ‘Create Applet HTML/JNLP’
Give the name index and make any choices as needed by the project. Any name is allowed, but index is usually the default for web servers.
Press ‘Create Applet / JNLP’ to create the file

In Netbeans, clean and redeploy the application (it may also be required to restart the server)

Open the application in a browser

Creating a ManagedBean

Ensure the application is compiled and deployed via Netbeans.
In CaptainCasa Editor open the Bean Browser. A ManagedBean called d of type Dispatcher should be visible. (This helper class allows beans to be added without having to modify face-config.xml, see the developer documentation).

Right-click on the d bean and select Create Bean
Give the bean a name, and press Create Class.

The Code Generator tool is opened and this can be used to create properties and methods.

Properties and methods can be dragged and dropped onto component attributes within the editor.

Note: Explicitly deploy the application in order to copy the class files to the webcontent directory for the CaptainCasa Editor.
When viewing the ManagedBean in Netbeans, the imports have to be added (Shift-Ctrl-O)
ManagedBeans can also be created directly in Netbeans directly

Again, remember to deploy the application to refresh the webcontent classes folder

When created, press the refresh icon in the CaptainCasa Editor to show the bean.

Misc. Notes

Setting the logging level to write to console is useful, but makes the deploy and runtime process slow down considerably.

Reference post for old Ubiquity Commands

2010-03-14T00:00:00-08:00

Reference post for old Ubiquity Commands

Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk – Bookmarklet Version
Amazon Local – Blended Search
Google Bookmarks
Oracle Documentation
TiddlyWiki
Bit.ly

Cessation of RTM Ubiquity development

2009-10-28T00:00:00-07:00

Cessation of RTM Ubiquity development

It’s become painfully obvious that development of Ubiquity RTM has slowed to a trickle. This is largely because I have stopped using Firefox, and also to a lesser extent, RTM. I am also finding that other projects are taking up much more of my time.

Consequently further development of Ubiquity RTM by myself is unlikely. I shall keep the github project available for forking, and I will also endeavor to reply to emails should people have questions about the code and design.

RTM Smart Add accessible through RTM Ubiquity

2009-09-08T00:00:00-07:00

RTM Smart Add accessible through RTM Ubiquity

Smart Add

RTM today announced a new feature called Smart Add.

This allows you to specify the following all on one line:

list
due date
tags
location
priority
url
repeatability
time estimate

This functionality is also available through the API, and RTM Ubiquity will happily process Smart Adds.

For example, the following entry would create a task called “do something” in the Inbox for today, with priority 3, a tag, url and location:

add task do something today !3 #Inbox #tag1 @home http://google.com

The RTM blog post gives full details.

RTM Ubiquity Improvements

This feature from the RTM team is ideally suited for the Ubiquity interface, and it means it is easier to add more task details.

The existing code already handles Smart Add, but I plan on taking some time out from developing the main branch to add some additional features to complement Smart Add, such as hints on which symbols correspond to which attribute, and trying to mirror the autocomplete functionality that is available on the RTM site directly.

Version 0.4.1 of RTM Ubiquity released

2009-08-31T00:00:00-07:00

Version 0.4.1 of RTM Ubiquity released

About

This release fixes issue #13 whereby the browser will hang whilst calls are made to the RTM servers to collect smart list data.

Changes

Issue #13 : Firefox hang when making synchronous calls to collect smart list data
Added names for each command without the hyphens. The original names also remain for backward compatibility.

Status Update

2009-08-04T00:00:00-07:00

Status Update

At the moment there are a few problems with version 0.4 of the RTM Ubiquity command. The most urgent one being that the call to determine tasks belonging to smart lists hangs the browser completely until it is finished. This is detailed in Issue 13). A solution is underway, but this has hit a further problem whereby the smart lists are not fully updated. See this RTM group post for more information.

As soon as I have a working version I will release it.

Version 0.4 of RTM Ubiquity released

2009-07-07T00:00:00-07:00

Version 0.4 of RTM Ubiquity released

About

This release consists of several fixes, plus a pre-emptive modification for the upcoming 0.5 release of Ubiquity.

Changes

Issue #3 : Can’t Complete Tasks with “Every …” Repetitions
Issue #4 : remove scrollbar from view tasks
Issue #9 : Tasks not added when default list is a smart list
Issue #11 : Upcoming Ubiquity 0.5 release will break all RTM commands
I have also refactored some of the code which I belive makes it more robust, and less prone to errors when initially loading tasks and task lists.

Notes

The upcoming release](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity/Ubiquity_0.5_Release_Notes) of Ubiquity makes some pretty major changes and consequently it breaks compatibility with previous commands. You can read more [here) In order to handle this break without having to manage multiple releases of the commands (hey, it’s supposed to be easy to author commands right? I have modified the commands to recognise if the new parser is in effect, and if so to use the new commands, otherwise to use the older version.

For the most part the commands should remain the same, however there is one change in the new parser which directly affects the user: the name of some of the parameters will change with parser 2. For example, “rtm-view-tasks in list” is now “rtm-view-tasks from list”. This is pretty confusing, and frustrating, and I have raised the problem in the ubiquity group, but there seems nothing that can be done about at the moment. And so all I can recommend is to take care with entering commands after the upgrade.

Of course you can decide not to upgrade to the new version of Ubiquity, or upgrade and then turn off the new parser (under ‘settings’ at ), until everything is running smoothly. I have made previous versions of the RTM Ubiquity command available under the ‘releases’](http://garyhodgson.github.com/ubiquity-rtm-api/#Releases) section of the documentation. The last (pre 0.5) version is available [here.

Just to make matters worse I will be on holiday until August (and will be nowhere near a computer), but as the Ubiquity release is imminent, and will definitely break the commands, I wanted to get this out beforehand. I suggest any issues are either tracked via the github page, or via email.

Test Version of RTM Ubiquity 0.3.9 Available

2009-07-01T00:00:00-07:00

Test Version of RTM Ubiquity 0.3.9 Available

A new version of the upcoming RTM Ubiquity command is available for beta testing: here.

The issues addressed are listed here.

The main reason for the release will be to mitigate the breakage that the forthcoming Ubiquity release (0.5) will cause.

Also worth noting, the documentation will be slightly out of date with this release. Fixing that is on the to-do list.