Thingy Ma jig - Drupal Geek Blog

Homebrew: List packages and what uses them

Nicholas Thompson — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 20:26:49 +0000

Homebrew: List packages and what uses them OS X Homebrew Nicholas Thompson Mon, 22/0926/2014 - 21:26

For anyone that uses Homebrew a lot, its very easy to amasse many casks (installed packaged) and never quite know which ones are still needed. I did some googling and found a really interesting blog post by Mark H. Nichols about listing all brew dependencies.

I then decided to invert that logic; to list all my casks, with each one showing what uses it. Anything that has nothing using it is either an oprhaned cask or is something "standalone" which is not installed as a dependency on something else.

NOTE: The script from Mark's website uses zsh; I do not have that, I use plain old Bash. It is still possible to get colours though!

brew list -1 | while read cask; do echo -ne "\x1B[1;34m $cask \x1B[0m"; brew uses $cask --installed | awk '{printf(" %s ", $0)}'; echo ""; done

And some example output:

 apple-gcc42 
 atk  gtk+  pygtk 
 autoconf  automake  php54-apc  php54-mcrypt  php54-memcache  php54-tidy  tsocks 
 automake 
 axel 
 bison27 
 boot2docker 
 cairo  gtk+  harfbuzz  pango  py2cairo 
 cmake  percona-server55 
...
...

And a screenshot:

Re-ordering the elements of a Drupal Webform Datepicker

Nicholas Thompson — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 09:46:22 +0000

Re-ordering the elements of a Drupal Webform Datepicker Drupal howto Nicholas Thompson Tue, 04/0646/2013 - 10:46

The Date Picker widget, when using webforms, defaultly appears in American form (Month, Day, Year). For UK sites this isn't often desirable. Doing a quick google and I stumbled upon James Davidson's blog post on how to re-theme the element from earlier this year. I thought it was certainly one approach, but felt there must have been a neater alternative. So here is my approach:


/**
 * Implements hook_webform_component_render_alter().
 */
function THEMENAME_webform_component_render_alter(&$element, &$component) {
  if ($element['#type'] == 'date') {
    $element['#process'][] = 'THEMENAME_webform_expand_date';
  }
}

/**
 * Process function to re-order the elements in the date widget.
 */
function THEMENAME_webform_expand_date($element) {
  $element['day']['#weight'] = 0;
  $element['month']['#weight'] = 1;
  $element['year']['#weight'] = 2;
  return $element;
}

Obviously you can replace THEMENAME with what ever theme or module name you like; in my case I put this in the template.php file.

Git: How to run a command on a specific folder

Nicholas Thompson — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Git: How to run a command on a specific folder git howto tips Nicholas Thompson Mon, 15/1030/2012 - 15:30

I recently needed to be able to run a regular git task on a folder and I didn't want to have to CD into that folder first. Annoyingly, there didn't seem to be an optional "path" parameter to git remote update, until I looked at the help file for Git.

It's quite simple! All you need to do, to run a git command on an arbitrary path, is this:

$ git --git-dir=/path/to/the/repository remote update

This makes assigning, say, a cron job to regularly update repository which is being used by a tool such as GitList, very easy indeed!

2D Terrain Maker

Nicholas Thompson — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 16:30:57 +0000

2D Terrain Maker dark basic pro Nicholas Thompson Fri, 12/1030/2012 - 17:30

About

This is a tool + engine for making a simple 2D terrain in Dark Basic Pro.

Details

I made this as an example for a forum topic.

Basically, you have a map file with polygon (ie tile) count, tile sizes (width and depth) and then the data follows.

The data is in the form of numbers representing tile type. You provide a tile template that is a 256x256 image with 32x32 tiles. This provides 64 tiles (0-63) numbered consecutively in rows.

After the map is made, the game loads it and displays it and rotates around. Feel free to use this for a game if you like (you will need Dark Basic Pro).

Instructions

Make or edit the map!!

Files

Attachment	Size
TexturedMapTerrain.sfx.exe	1.5 MB
TexturedMapTerrain Project File.dbpro	1.46 KB
Source Code.dba	4.55 KB
map format.txt	1.04 KB

How to remove Setaga from X-Notifier for Chrome

Nicholas Thompson — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:00:16 +0000

How to remove Setaga from X-Notifier for Chrome tips Nicholas Thompson Thu, 23/0800/2012 - 11:00

I am a huge fan of the X Notifier extension for Chrome, however recently the developer has added an advertising component called Setaga. I don't recall agreeing or opt-ing into this, but its possible I did without thinking. In any case, I hate this and wanted to remove it.

I found a post on their forum, but could not see how to remove it. So I did it myself. Here's how:

Find the extension. For me (on Windows 7) it was in:
```
C:\Users\{USERNAME}\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\apebebenniibdlpbookhgelaghfnaonp\1.0.12_0
```
. Note, that random text is the application ID. You also see it in the URL for the extension on the Webstore site.
Next, open manifest.json in something like Notepad++.

Lines 8-12 look like this. Remove them (ensuring the syntax of the json remains in-tact):

   "content_scripts": [ {
      "js": [ "content/setaga/inject.js" ],
      "matches": [ "http://*/*" ],
      "run_at": "document_start"
   } ],

Save the file.

Go into the Content folder and delete the segata folder.
Restart Chrome

It's possible this "fix" may need to be reapplied when the addon updates. Hence me writing this. So I remember how to do it.

How to run Drush as Apache

Nicholas Thompson — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 11:14:11 +0000

How to run Drush as Apache Drupal linux Nicholas Thompson Fri, 10/0814/2012 - 12:14

It's usually considered best practice to run Drush under the same user account that the webserver runs on. Some modules, such as XML Sitemap, Advanced Aggregator and cTools, often try to alter or generate files. If you run Drush under your own account then these files may get generated as you (and therefore become unwritable by the webserver) or, if the files were generated by the webserver, are usually unwritable by your user which can mean you get errors and being unable to delete/unlink files.

The solution is to run Drush as your webuser, usually Apache. For example:

su -s /bin/sh apache -c "/usr/bin/drush @sites cron -y"

This method also helps get around the problem/error This account is currently not available by running drush under a shell executed as Apache. On most systems, the apache user is secured to not have a shell account associated with it.

Forcing New Relic into Kiosk Mode

Nicholas Thompson — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:05:31 +0000

Forcing New Relic into Kiosk Mode Drupal New Relic GreaseMonkey Nicholas Thompson Fri, 09/0305/2012 - 15:05

New Relic is a great bit of kit - nobody can deny that. I recently needed to configure it on a standalone box so it could be open on a large screen so my colleagues and I could see the current status of our sites. New Relic has a Kiosk Mode which strips out some of the navigation from the page an optimises it for "viewing only". Very handy.

I wanted a setting to force (or at least default) the page into Kiosk mode so that when I opened the bookmark on the browser, I didn't have to scroll to the bottom, click it, scroll back up and then refresh any other relevant tabs. It didn't look like there was a feature for this and the Kiosk Mode link was just a java function call; there was no URL.

So I turned to GreaseMonkey.

Enter GreaseMonkey

GreaseMonkey is a Firefox Addon which allows you to bind custom JS scripts to all (or specific) pages. There is a repository of over 74,000 scripts which let you customize all kinds of sites (Twitter, Gmail, Facebook, etc) including Drupal.

However there was nothing for New Relic.

Until now.

Using GreaseMonkey with New Relic

As it turns out, the script is very simple.

// ==UserScript==
// @name            New Relic Kiosk Mode
// @namespace       http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/
// @icon            http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/sites/thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/files/greasemonkey/NewRelic_inline_small.png
// @description     Force New Relic into Kiosk mode by setting the cookie on page load if ?kiosk is in the URL
// @include         https://rpm.newrelic.com/*?kiosk
// @updateURL       http://www.thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/sites/thingy-ma-jig.co.uk/files/greasemonkey/newrelic-kioskmode.user.js
// @version         1.0
// ==/UserScript==

unsafeWindow.RPM.kioskMode._setCookie();

Once the cookie is set, New Relic handles the rest. All you need to do is append "?kiosk" onto the URL (maybe in your bookmarks?) and the page loads in Kiosk mode.

You can install the script by clicking on this button.

Install Kiosk Mode Script

Find It On UserScripts.org

I have also added the script to UserScripts.org, for those that are interested.

Exporting a Git Repository

Nicholas Thompson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:14:07 +0000

Exporting a Git Repository Drupal git webdev Nicholas Thompson Thu, 15/1214/2011 - 16:14

Have you ever needed or wanted to pull a remote Git Repository on Drupal.org down as a zip or tarball? You know, the way Github does? Most project releases have fairly recently built tarballs which is awesome - but Sandboxes do not (so it seems - please correct me if I'm wrong!).

The following snippet lets you "archive" a remote repository, pull it down as a tarball, and extract it in-place:

git archive --format=tar --prefix=PROJECT/ --remote=USERNAME@git.drupal.org:sandbox/USERNAME/123456789.git BRANCH | tar -xf -

Some important notes:

The prefix is very important - without it, tar extracts to the current folder.
The trailing slash on the prefix is equally important - without it all files have PROJECT at the beginning!
The number (next to .git) references the sandbox Node ID.

I have tried using the "zip" format, however the unzip bash command doesn't accept stdin as a source. It looks like funzip might hold some promise thought…

EDIT: - looks like you can only do this if your user has access to the repository.

Quick Tip: Drupal Hook Commenting Using Vim

Nicholas Thompson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:50:52 +0000

Quick Tip: Drupal Hook Commenting Using Vim vim Drupal programming Nicholas Thompson Mon, 14/1150/2011 - 17:50

According to the Drupal Coding Standards for Documenting Hook Implementations, its considered a good practice to quickly chuck a comment before any function which implements a Drupal hook (eg, hook_menu). This helps someone reading your code quickly see that the function is actually linked with a hook in Drupal and isn't just a function in your module to be called directly.

But… Well… The thing is… Does anyone else get bored of writing the following over and over again? I know do…


/**
 * Implements hook_menu().
 */

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just type in "menu" and Vim could just fill it our for you? Here follows a little Vim script for inserting a "hook implements" comment at the current cursor position.


function! DrupalImplementsComment(hook)
  set paste

  exe "normal! i/**\"
  \          . " * Implements hook_" . a:hook . "()\"
  \          . " */\"

  set nopaste
endfunction

map  :call DrupalImplementsComment(input("Enter Hook name:"))

Wherever your cursor is, press Ctrl+C 3 times, you then get prompted to enter the hook name. When you press enter, a comment gets inserted. Hopefully this will save someone some time - its already saving me time!

To install the script, I just have it in a file called DrupalCommenting.vim inside my ~/.vim/ folder. Then, inside my ~/.vimrc file, I have a line which imports the source file, eg: so ~/.vim/DrupalCommenting.vim.

Any improvements very welcome!

JQuery Table Sorter Bookmarklet

Nicholas Thompson — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:49:04 +0000

JQuery Table Sorter Bookmarklet javascript programming webdev jquery Nicholas Thompson Tue, 25/1049/2011 - 10:49

Christian Bach has made an awesome JQuery plugin to turn any HTML Table into a real-time sortable table using Jquery. I recently needed to turn this into a Bookmarklet so that I could embed it onto a page to sort a large table (I did not have access to the server-side code for this table).

If you drag the following link into the bookmarks toolbar of your browser, you can turn any table on any website into a sortable table!