Helvetireader
Helvetireader icon by Josef Richter
I made a mental note to check out Helvetireader when it was released, but I’m just getting around to it due to ongoing sync issues with NetNewswire. I’ve installed it and created a Fluid app for it.
One small issue, and a fix: the default Helvetireader css highlights list items in the subscriptions list, but not the article list when collapsed into a list of headlines. Because I tend to browse through articles as a headline list and only open items I’m interested in, I changed the location of the css in the userscript to point to Josef Richter’s version here. Richter’s version of the css highlights the current headline in red.
Frustration
Found this today while dusting off an FLA from a very old project (written by someone else, I should add).
Pasta with Escarole and Pancetta
Since we had Amelia we’ve ended up cooking more. Jordan usually picks a recipe, and we tag-team through prep and cooking. Tonight: Pasta with escarole, pancetta, jalapeños and shallots, topped with toasted walnuts/breadcrumbs and shredded parmesan.
FDT 3.5
Finally installed FDT 3.5 yesterday. I don’t write Flex Apps, so the MXML support is nice to see but doesn’t really affect me. I noticed a lot more templates, and today I was pleased to see that the quick fix to rename a class also automatically renames the constructor if it is present. It always annoyed me that this wasn’t the default behavior in FDT 3.2.
I also recommend the three-part online training course on FDT by Alan Klement. More details here. Alan’s blog is also a great resource for FDT tips and also general Flash development topics.
CakePHP and Model File Names
Another example of the little things that you learn when picking up a new framework: filenames for your CakePHP Models should be lowercase. For example, section.php and not Section.php.
I’d been working on a small CMS for a friend’s site, and even though everything worked perfectly on my local MAMP install, when I uploaded it to the production webserver for testing I kept getting an error when retrieving items that had an association with another model:
Notice (8): Undefined index: Section
In this case I had a Section Model that had an association with many Items. Section hasMany Items, in other words. When retrieving the Items listing the respective Sections could not be retrieved.
After I renamed my model files to lowercase and flushed the /app/tmp cache the associations were recognized, and the listing of Items showed the relationship to the associated Section objects.
I think this happened because I hand-coded a few of the Model files before switching to bake to scaffold things.
Oh, and a final note to self: the AMF/SWX CakeSWXPHP plugin appears to require PHP 5. Couldn’t understand why the AMF calls were failing until I checked the PHP version on the remote production server. Sure enough, it was still running PHP 4.
