Ioanna's digital perch

Installing PyObjC XCode templates in Snow Leopard

Ioanna — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:02:21 +0000

If you’ve tried to create a cocoa-python XCode project in Snow Leopard, you’ve probably realised that the templates for creating Python projects in XCode have not been included. The reason given for removing the Python (and Ruby) project templates from XCode was that the templates were changing faster than XCode updated, therefore they would become quickly outdated. The Cocoa-Python bridge however, is still fully supported, despite the missing templates. Python developers are now expected to obtain the templates directly from the PyObjC project site (pyobjc.sourceforge.net) and install them themselves. Having done that myself, so I thought I’d write a quick step by step guide that anybody can follow.

First, you need to download a copy of the templates. The most current version can be found in the subversion repository. The easiest way to obtain it is to open Terminal.app and type:

svn co http://svn.red-bean.com/pyobjc/trunk/pyobjc/pyobjc-xcode

You should now have a directory called pyobjc-xcode in your working directory. Type the following to change into the directory with the project templates:

cd pyobjc-xcode/Project\ Templates/

The project-tool.py script will assist with the installation of the templates. The README file contains the necessary commands to install the XCode project templates in the library folder of the current user (make sure they are written on a single line):

./project-tool.py -k -v --template Cocoa-Python\ Application/CocoaApp.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist Cocoa-Python\ Application ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project\ Templates/CocoaPython/Cocoa-Python\ Application
./project-tool.py -k -v --template Cocoa-Python\ Document-based\ Application/CocoaDocApp.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist Cocoa-Python\ Document-based\ Application/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project\ Templates/CocoaPython/Cocoa-Python\ Document-based\ Application
./project-tool.py -k -v --template Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Application/CocoaApp.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Application/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project\ Templates/CocoaPython/Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Application
./project-tool.py -k -v --template Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Document-based\ Application/CocoaDocApp.xcodeproj/TemplateInfo.plist Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Document-based\ Application/ ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/Project\ Templates/CocoaPython/Cocoa-Python\ Core\ Data\ Document-based\ Application

Once you restart XCode, you should see the four Cocoa-Python templates appear under “User Templates” like this:

XCode Python project templates

The last step is to install the templates for creating individual Cocoa-Python files in XCode. The file templates are found in the same pyobjc-xcode directory we checked out of the svn repository earlier. In Terminal, go to the directory with the file templates (assuming you are still in the directory with the project templates as per the previous steps):

cd ../File\ Templates/Cocoa/

If it doesn’t already exist, create a File Templates directory in the current user’s library folder as follows:

mkdir ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/File\ Templates

Copy all the file templates into that directory:

cp -r * ~/Library/Application\ Support/Developer/Shared/Xcode/File\ Templates/.

That’s it, now you should be able to create new Python files in XCode (see below). Enjoy PyObjC programming :-)

WWDC 2009

Ioanna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 12:08:29 +0000

Last week I returned from the USA where I attended the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco followed by a 3 day trip to Phoenix, Arizona and the Grand Canyon.

The whole trip was an amazing experience. I’ve been sort of dreaming of attending WWDC for years and never thought I would make it while being a struggling student with little money. But thanks to the Apple University Consortium and their student scholarships, I got to go to this ultimate mac geek event! It was great to live and breathe mac for a week :D.

The week got off to a rough start with my old powerbook’s hard disk dying on the Monday morning before the keynote, which was very unfortunate timing! However, I had been planning to get a new laptop for a while (the 5yo powerbook was getting a little *too* old) so I took advantage of the favourable exchange rate and cheaper US prices and got myself a shiny new 15” Macbook Pro. I’m now running the Snow Leopard developer preview I got from the conference on it and absolutely loving it.

I’m quite excited about some of the new under-the-hood features in Snow Leopard but I can’t talk about them until Snow Leopard is released due to the non-disclosure agreement that covers the entire conference apart from the keynote. Since I can’t really share much about what I learned at the conference, I’ll instead share some photos. The following photos were taken mostly by me except one or two which were taken by other members of the AUC delegation and kindly shared. Speaking of which, it was really great meeting all the other AUC people; everybody was very friendly and interesting.

Outside the convention centre.

On the morning of the keynote.

During the keynote. I was quite happy to get a seat in the second row behind the VIPs.

The App wall, showing the 20000 most popular iPhone apps arranged as a rainbow and rippling whenever an app is downloaded in the app store.

Coincidentally, the JavaOne conference was also taking place at the same time at another part of the huge Moscone complex. Things were much quieter on that side though ;).

Simulator video

Ioanna — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:09:20 +0000

Today I uploaded a screen capture from our early prototype virtual reality maxillofacial surgery simulator. See the video at the Research page.

Ubuntu Jaunty partitioning

Ioanna — Thu, 14 May 2009 04:59:45 +0000

It seems that Jaunty doesn’t deal very well with automatically partitioning a disk that already has another linux installation on it. I tried installing it on a PC with Windows and Fedora under the assumption that it would wipe Fedora and install itself in its place. Instead what it did was to resize the Windows partition without asking me and create its partitions with a total of about 3GB available. By the time it finished installing there were only 87mb left free. I’m not exactly sure what it was trying to do by doing that! If it was trying to preserve the Fedora partitions by doing that, well it certainly failed because all the Fedora partitions were wiped and appeared as one big completely unused partition. Bizarre…

Going to WWDC09

Ioanna — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:01:09 +0000

I’ve just found that I have been awarded an AUC (Apple University Consortium) student scholarship to attend WWDC in June! I’ve been watching the WWDC keynotes for many years now wishing I was there and now I will actually get to go finally. I can’t wait! I also have never been to the US before, so it should be a very interesting trip.

linux.conf.au 2008

Ioanna — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:51:02 +0000

I managed

/dev/world/2008

Ioanna — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:56:15 +0000

I was at AUC’s /dev/world conference at the start of this week and I loved it. The speakers were all great and the content was very useful. I particularly enjoyed the Objective-C introductory talks. They were excellent and provided me with a solid basis to start learning the language.

I’ll be looking forward to /dev/world/2009 :)