Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Ich habe vor einiger Zeit angefangen Cocoa zu lernen und bin dabei auf CocoaDevCentral gestoßen. CocoaDevCentral bietet eine Vielzahl von Qualitativ hochwertigen Tutorials die einfach super geschrieben und einfach zu verstehen sind.

Mit einen Account im Apple Developer Center hab ich mir die WWDC 2006 Session Videos über Leopard angeschaut. Und ich war einfach hin und weg!

Ich komm aus der Web-Entwickler Welt und kein Pro wenn es um Desktop Applications geht. Aber was Apple den Developern bietet und zur Verfügung ist wirklich beeindruckend. CoreImage, CoreAudo, CoreVideo, CoreAnimation und CoreData - hab ich was vergessen?.

Ich als Anfänger hab mit dem CoreData Tutorial von CocoaDevCentral und dem Undo-Manager etwas rumgespielt. Ich konnte alle Inhalte die ich in CoreData geschrieben hab, ganz einfach wieder rückgängig machen. Klingt vielleicht banal aber als PHP-Entwickler und arbeiten mit Datenbanken wie MYSQL ist das ziemlich faszinierend und nicht selbstverständlich.
Ich kenne keine Möglichkeit in PHP/Mysql womit ich DB Queries einfach “Rückgängig” machen kann. Ich mein jetzt mit ein paar simplen Funktionen mit der Datenbank oder PHP Funktionen. Jetzt mal ausgenommen dem Wiki Prinzip.

Genug gefachsimpelt..! Es geht hier im Cocoa und wie toll es ist.
noch einen schönen Samstag!

So its now 3 month ago when i got my first mac. It was a macbook. The first moments with my macbook felt like a big step forward. I dont forget the day when the UPS van stopped at my home and brought me the package. I was excited like a young kid on chrismas.

Today i wanna show you how i develop a PHP application on a mac.

Webserver - LAMP, WAMP ehm MAMP?

For my Windows PC i use WAMP from apachefriends.org (XAMPP) and also LAMP for my lokal linux server. So i thought maybe there is a package same as xampp for my mac. First search: MAMP. First result: MAMP.info Bingo.

Generally it is possible, cause OSX based on unix, to install all the components for a mamp system separately. You can even compile your apache on your mac. But i want it easy and fast.

The installation of mamp is very easy. Just drag MAMP in your Application Folder. Start MAMP and you are ready.

MAMP brings beside the necessary components PHPMyAdmin and eAccelerator to your webserver.

Configuration - Vhost and host.ini ?

Personally i always create for a new project a virtual host ( eg. http://testprojekt.localhost or http://myblog ). Under Windows you edit the httpd.conf and then the host.ini in WINDOWS/system32/drivers…etc. But how does it work on OS X? Edit your httpd.conf in /Applications/MAMP/conf/apache add following lines -> Apache VirtualHost.
Now you need to link “project1″ to your local IP: 127.0.0.1

• Hit Apple+Space for Spotlight and search: Netinfo and start the application
• Select the category maschines
• Select localhost click on copy/duplicate. When you cant do that. You have to unlock the configuration with your password. ( I have the german version of Mac OSX so i dont know how exactly the buttons and texts are)
  
• Edit the name to project1
• 

• Save it.
• Restart your MAMP and try in your browser http://project1
• If this dont work you have to edit the host file in /etc/host
• Open the Terminal (Apple+Space Spotlight: Terminal)
• sudo pico /etc/hosts
  
• add a line: 127.0.0.1 project1
• Save and Exit with Ctrl+X
• Try in your browser http://project1

The development environment

For the mac you have the following editors

• Eclipse
• Dreamweaver
• Komodo
• Zend Studio
• Textmate
• BBEdit

Zend Studio

Im using Zend Studio on my Windows PC and at work. Zend Studio is a Java Application and so it works on OS X too. Great! The current version 5.5 is very fast and stable on my macbook with 1GB ram.

With a integrated Debugger you cant debug your php application.

Beside the File view you have a project view, SQL view and a Class view where you can browse your written classes and functions. You can document your methods ,classes, parameter and zend add these in the auto completion list with the documentation for the parameter. Overall the auto completion is very helpful and saves time!

All in all my favorite PHP IDE.

Textmate

A tiny but very powerful editor for OS X. I use Textmate for HTML, CSS and Javascript. For those languages it works great and the shortcuts and auto completion are awesome! For fast PHP editing i use Textmate too. But i miss the Debugger and the Class/SQL View.

The other Editors are still on my testing list.

I hope this was helpful and maybe a bit interesting!
When you have questions, other opinions or corrections. Please make a comment!

You know the nice photo reflections thats often used in mac software eg. Itunes?

I love this effect! And I wanna use this effect in a web application too!

Well i could do this easily with photoshop but every photo manualy? But im too lazy!

So i found a addon for mootools called Reflection.js

It is very easy to use and works perfectly with mootools together. Another important point is the performance of the reflection.js. It is much faster than the known script.aculo.us Reflector script.

Usage:

Just include the mootools.js framework and the reflection.js in the html head and add: class=”reflect” to the image tag. This will use the default reflection parameters. You can apply multiple classes to an image (separated by spaces), the script will detect if “reflect” is one of them.

more detailed usage can be you found on the website.

PS: Anyone know a good Wordpress plugin for Code Highlighting in a blog post? Javascript, PHP, HTML and so on?