Code snippets, tech tricks and other bits and bobs

 

[OS X] Set up DiffMerge for Dreamweaver file comparison

I've just started in a new office and we are all Mac'ed up, which changes the development process a bit. For one thing, I have SO much pixelated real estate I have had to put ghosts of standard window sizes on my desktop background, as it's easy to lose touch with real users' screen resolution. 1024x768 just gets lost in the corner!

One of my first productivity priorities was getting a decent visual diff tool hooked up to Dreamweaver - a colleague recommended TextWrangler but it doesn't highlight differences in clearly, so after a little research I settled on DiffMerge, a utility available for Mac, PC and *nix.

It takes a tiny bit of setting up however, a little knowledge of OS X file system, and the instructions contained a slight discrepancy in my version, so here's how if you find yourself in the same situation:

First download the DiffMerge DMG, mount the DMG (simply by double clicking the downloaded DMG) and drag DiffMerge.app to your applications.

All standard stuff so far, and any Mac user should be able to do that.

Now, launch Terminal (search for it with Finder if you need it).

Log in with your system password.

change into the mounted DMG:

$ cd /Volumes/DiffMerge\ {version number}/

For n00bs, once you have got as far as typing 'Diff' you can press [TAB] to autocomplete.

sudo copy (copy as a superuser) the shell script to /usr/bin:

$ sudo cp Extras/diffmerge.sh /usr/bin/diffmerge
 
You will be prompted for your system password

Set the permissions on the script:

$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/diffmerge

Copy the man (manual file) to your system. This is where the instructions were in error as they listed the file as diffmerge.1, and my copy was diffmerge.man1:

$ sudo cp Extras/diffmerge.man1 /usr/share/man/man1/diffmerge.man1
 

Set permissions for the man file:

$ sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/man/man1/diffmerge.man1

Open Dreamweaver, and go to preferences (⌘ + U), select the 'File Compare' category and enter '{your drive}:usr:bin:diffmerge' where {your drive} is the name of your... drive... Yeh. For example: 'Macintosh HD:usr:bin:diffmerge' and click [OK]

Now you can start diffing files - when uploading and DW asks if you want to compare, click the button and DiffMerge will open automatically.

Alternatively [Ctrl] + Click on any file in choose 'Compare with {Remote Server} / {Local Server}' from the context menu as appropriate.

Filed under  //   Diff   DiffMerge   DreamWeaver   OS X   utilities  
Posted August 16, 2011
// 3 Comments
 

Oops, I did it again... Outlook 2010 attachment and account check

We've all done it - please see attached.... DOH!

And with multiple email accounts, and forwarding to your main address, it's easy to send from your default account when you meant to use another...

But there are solutions to hand!

FAD (Forgotten Attachment Detection) from MS Office Labs solves problem 1:

http://www.officelabs.com/projects/forgottenattachmentdetector/Pages/default....

It requires Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office V3 which is only 2mb:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23656

I believe .NET is required too.

 

For account selection, a small registry modification will prompt you to choose the account each time - essentially removing the 'default account' functionality.

http://www.msoutlook.info/question/477

Filed under  //   MS Office   MS Windows   Outlook 2010   utilities  
Posted July 28, 2011
// 0 Comments
 

Collaborative web page snapshots with annotation: SharedCopy

One of the biggest headaches in working remotely is not being able to see exactly what your collaborators see, and then having to interpret what may unfortunately be difficult to understand descriptions (or just plain f#*!ing nonsense as the case may be...)

NO MORE!

SharedCopy could put an end to this. Add annotations, highlight text, draw shapes to highlight areas, take a snapshot of the page as you are seeing it and share with your team.

For developers, you can easily and visually point out areas that need tweaking.

For support providers, if you can get the client to use it, they can at last show you exactly what the hell they are banging on about! And you can send them a snapshot with that button (that they can't seem to find with both hands) highlighted.

Watch out the demo video to get the idea:

One particularly handy way to utilise it is to make your bookmarks far more valuable - open your links and have the crucial information highlighted with your own notes or corrections.

With email, Blogger, Twitter, Del.icio.us, Basecamp, Backpack, Trac and Bugzilla integration, auto trackbacks - all from a bookmarklet with no sign-up necessary - this is a tool with incredible potential. It's been around for years apparently, and I had no idea. They even have Posterous integration!

I started using Diigo for similar purposes recently, but SharedCopy may well have it beat.

If this all sounds like an advert, well I guess I just write good copy. Mainly I wanted to save a note for myself in my blog, but I thought I might as well make it useful to others.

Check it out:

 

Filed under  //   annotation   collaboration   screen capture   utilities  
Posted October 20, 2010
// 0 Comments