Git Setup

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Mongrel Rails on Windows 7

I’ve been having a bit of trouble getting Webrick running properly on Ubuntu and Windows; and the resolution… ??? I don’t know, but the suggestions are to try Mongrel, which though a solution is a bit annoying as Webrick is there ready to go…

Installing Mongrel on Windows 7 was rather easy though; it involved

gem install mongrel

Then just navigating to the directory with the rails application in it and typing:

mongrel_rails start

CTRL-C stops the process.

The instructions here for installing the win32-service didn’t work, but this did help… So i ran the following command:

gem install win32-service –platform x86-mswin32

… and it installed. Now we need to install mongrel_service

gem install mongrel_service

… which fails… and i still need to resolve this 😦

ASP.NET MVC: Constructing UrlHelper

I needed to have a class external to the controller’s and views that could generate a correctly formed Url using the UrlHelper.

I found this question on Stackoverflow which helped me with a solution. The solution was as follows:

HttpContextWrapper httpContextWrapper =
    new HttpContextWrapper(HttpContext.Current);

UrlHelper urlHelper = new UrlHelper(
    new RequestContext(
        httpContextWrapper, 
        new RouteData()));

I previously got confused about the RouteData object, but it seems (unless I’m mistaken) to essentially be route values, which in this case i don’t need… Not sure on that though!

As constructed above, the UrlHelper is able to take the RequestContext and get all the registered routes and therefore generate a correctly structured url when you call Action etc.

JavaScript: calling a method and changing what “this” means

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jQuery.ui dialog: adding classe to buttons

Had this question come up at work and found a good answer on stackoverflow here. It basically involves handling the open event, finding the buttons and applying a style to them.

Firstly a simple bit of html:

<a id="to_dialog_a" href="javascript:void(0);">click me</a>
<div id="to_dialog" style="border: 1px solid gold; background-color: #336699"></div>

And here is some javascript to wire it up. In the example below I have done things a little differently as the application we are developing needs to be localized; so i used the button index.

Note: This example doesn’t have any jquery.ui css to deal with.

A whole example html file is located here

        $(document).ready(function() {
            $("#to_dialog_a").click(function() {
                $("#to_dialog").dialog("open");
            });
            $("#to_dialog").dialog({
                autoOpen: false,
                buttons : {
                    ok: function() {
                        alert("you clicked me!");
                    },
                    what: function() {
                        alert("you clicked me!");
                    },
                    cancel: function() {
                        alert("you clicked me!");
                    }
                }
                ,
                open: function(event, ui) {
                    // Get the dialog
                    var dialog = $(event.target).parents(".ui-dialog.ui-widget");

                    // Get the buttons
                    var buttons = dialog.find(".ui-dialog-buttonpane").find("button");

                    var okButton = buttons[0];
                    var whatButton = buttons[1];
                    var cancelButton = buttons[2];

                    // Add class to the buttons
                    // Add class to the buttons
                    $(okButton).addClass("primary");
                    $(whatButton).addClass("secondary");
                    $(cancelButton).addClass("thirdary");
                }
            });
        });

Send Secure Email Via Gmail in Ruby 1.8.7

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Disabling selection of a section

Found this little gem while trying to prevent selection behind the jQuery.treeview controll.

onselectstart="return false;" style="-moz-user-select: none;"

This worked for me on Chrome, IE 8, and FireFox 3.6.

Found this tidbit here.

Update: 2010-07-05 – Found this interesting extension to jQuery also. Note the replies also as they may be of use.

Turn TextArea Resize off on Google Chrome

Very simple… To turn this off just go:

textarea {resize: none}

Easily Edit Grub files in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

System > Administration > StartUp-Manager gives you a GUI for editing the Grub configuration

Open gedit or other program on remote computer using ssh in Ubuntu/Linux

Login to server using “ssh -X” … ( not with a made up ip address though :o) )

ssh -X 196.139.12.32

Open the application on the remote computer. For example

DISPLAY=:0.0 gedit junk.txt

Source