So, what’s new in 0.3? Well, just about everything. I’ve renamed the bundle (at least its metadata), since webOS is not just limited to the Pre and I’ve modified the shortcuts of existing features to fit TextMate’s styling guidelines a bit better. I’ve also created some snippets which can be used for faster code-writing now and in addition to that, I’ve implemented a very own language for the bundle, which can’t be found in the document type picker named as “Mojo”. “Yeah baby!”, as Austin would say now. Actually, yet it’s just a copy & paste of the JavaScript-language implementation in TextMate, but I’m planning to extend it to fit the Mojo-framework even better.

The TextMate bundle is now also available on GitHub, for everyone who can’t wait for me packaging the releases and releasing them here. If you have any ideas for improvement, feel free to contact me by mail or just leave some lines here on my blog.

Enjoy!

Download: Palm_webOS-Bundle-0.3

Download: Palm_webOS-Bundle-0.3

Palm Pre Development Bundle 0.2

Yes, after not even four hours I’ve already finished building the 0.2-release of my Palm Pre Development Bundle for TextMate. In case you’re wondering what weird stuff I’m talking about, please read my previous post first.

However, this second release includes a lot more features than it had before, plus I’ve made use of the CocoaDialog now. Let me describe the new features from the top to the bottom of the screenshot on the left site.

First of all, there’s “Generate New Project”. This lets you execute a palm-generate with all important attributes and opens the created project afterwards using the “mate” terminal-command, which needs to be available for this to work. All you have to do then is simply to save the TextMate project right into your generated project-directory.

Next, we still have “Generate New Scene”. I’ve enhanced the feature now, so that you’ll get a cocoa dialog asking for the scene’s name. Beware: The generation usually works as it should, the only problem is the TextMate project-drawer, which doesn’t seem to refresh by itself. A workaround: Cmd+H to hide TextMate and then click on its Dock-icon to make it appear again. Then all newly generated files should be visible in its drawer.

The next three features work just as before, no enhancements at all. On the fourth, the “Launch Project in Debugging-Mode” feature, I’ve implemented a palm-launch with debugging options, that can be run on an existing, packaged and installed project.

Next, there are ways to close and remove installed Projects. “Close running project” of course only works, when the App is actually running and “Remove installed Project” removes the App from the device. As device for all those commands the first device found by the Palm toolset will be taken – so if you would like to use the Emulator, better disconnect your real device and vice versa.

I’ve also built-in two features that let you simulate test calls and SMS on your Emulator, if you changed from password authentication to SSH public key authentication. You can do this either manually or try to use the feature at the menu’s bottom named “Auto-install SSH-Pubkey on Emulator”. Depending on your SSH-key-setup it works out or… not.

The other seven features allow you to simulate GPS drives on the Emulator – again only if you’ve set-up SSH-Pubkey authentication.

I hope you enjoy this release of the Palm Pre Development Bundle for TextMate!

Download: Palm-Pre-Bundle-0.2

UPDATE: There’s a newer version available! Get it here. Or use GitHub.

The scene generation works like this: You implement your this.controller.pushScene(“Main”);-statement, select the scene’s name (Main, without the quotes!) and select the scene-generation command from the bundle’s menu. The command will immediately generate you a new scene named just the way you chose to name it.

The other three commands can be ran by pressing the keys Fn+Ctrl+F5/F6/F7. Attention: The bundle only works with TextMate Projects! Generate your Palm Pre project like you always do, by using the following command:

palm-generate -p “{ title:’ProjectName’, id:com.my.ProjectName, version:’1.0.0′ }” ProjectName

Then, create a new TextMate Project and drag&drop the folder palm-generate created for you (“ProjectName”) into the Project’s drawer. Save the project within your Project-directory (“ProjectName”) and then run the commands.

This is the very first version of this bundle and I’ll keep constantly improving it with other features that help me and hopefully others on the development of Palm Pre Web-Apps.

Enjoy!

Download: PalmPre-Bundle-0.1

UPDATE: There’s a newer version available now! Get it here.

WebKit Development Tools

In the past few weeks, I was involved into heavy JavaScript web-development at work and had to work with tools that allow me to debug dynamic web-content in an effortless way. Most people would now say “Use Firefox with FireBug addition!” and I would even agree with them, if I would be using some Windows operating-system instead of my lovely Mac. Everyone who has ever used Firefox on a Linux or a Mac OS X will know, that it’s a pain in the arse. Due to the way Mozilla-developers have taken to make Firefox available on multiple platforms, it lacks of any speed and integration within most implementations.

So what to do on a Mac, where Firefox trying to render a full-blown AJAX-site needs more space and CPU-power than a VMware or Parallels instance of Windows XP, running the IE? Most people don’t really know, that the Mac’s integrated browser already provides a very good toolset for web-development which just got even better with the version 4 (yet, still Beta) of Safari.

The toolset is hidden, on a regular OS X, but it can be unlocked pretty easy. The only thing you gotta do, is quit your Safari, open a Terminal and enter this command:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true


It should quit without any output. After that, you can quit the Terminal and re-start Safari. You might not see any difference to Safari’s appearance before spawning the command, but now just try to do a right-click / command-click within a web-site. You will see, that your popup-menu has just been extended by one new item at its bottom, called “Inspect Element“. By clicking this entrie, Safari either opens a new window or separates your current one with an additional view, depending on what Safari version you’re using. This command works on 3 and 4.

Within that window, you will see a lot of useful information about the page. You can see time and size measurements, script-warnings and -errors and many many more. This extensions to Safari’s WebKit provides you nearly everything you might know from FireFox Add-Ons like FireBug. And besides of that, it allows you to profile your page in a sleek and easy, graphical way.

I’m now working quite some time with those tools, exactly because of all the problems I had with Firefox on my Mac, and I must say that I love them. I love the integration and the way it allows me to debug my sites. The only thing I liked more in FireBug was the precision of its GET/POST/PUT/…-output, but most of the time I don’t need that anyway.

Enjoy!