I asked a similar question a while ago but didn't get a satisfactory answer, so I was wondering if there was a different approach a guy could take.
What is the format for making a web link that you can deploy with your application? One that might show up in the start menu as a link to said app vendor's website.
It should work in any modern OS and with any reasonably modern browser (i.e. >= IE6, although I'm not sure that's a relevant issue)
There is no cross-platform way to do this.
Freedesktop-compliant systems can use xdg-open
Mac users can use open
Debian derivatives can use sensible-browser (or install xdg-open, usually)
Windows users can use *.url files
Or, of course, you could implement xdg-open and package it with your app on systems that don't have it
Or implement your own util that's completely different and associate it with the right files
The format is different on different platforms.
On Windows, you can use a .url file. Here's a description of the format. You can also create one by just dragging a URL onto the desktop or into a folder. A simple example:
[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://stackoverflow.com/
On the Mac, you can also create a URL file by dragging a URL to the desktop. The format appears to be a file with a .webloc extension, containing a plist containing a dict, mapping the key URL to the URL in question:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>URL</key>
<string>http://stackoverflow.com/</string>
</dict>
</plist>
Related
I was looking for an option to color all unread mails in apple mail and I found the following script
tell application "Mail"
set background color of (messages of inbox whose read status is false) to red --unread
set background color of (messages of inbox whose read status is true) to none --default read
end tell
I added this script to a mail rule, which applies to every message, then it works almost perfect. The only problem is that it works only for one time. So if I get a new message, than the script doesn't notice it (so it is not red, only bold), or if I read an email, then it will be still red.
Please can someone help me, that the script will run in loop, or that the script will run each second.
Just for information, I´m an windows user (mac is really new for me) and I was looking for an scheduled task option, but I didn't found such easy thing on my mac.
You have several options to run scheduled tasks. Apple suggests to use the "launchd" agent. Just google "launchd tutorial" for many examples.
The basics are this... you create a plist file (an xml text file with the .plist file extension) with whatever instructions you want and put that it in the folder ~/Library/LaunchAgents. The tutorials will show you how to create many different kinds of plist files. Once you add your plist to that folder then logout/login to make it take effect. To disable a plist fie from running then remove it from the folder and logout/login. It's that simple.
As an example plist for your specific request, this one will run your applescript every 60 seconds...
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.myName.myProgramName</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>osascript</string>
<string>/path/to/applescript.scpt</string>
</array>
<key>StartInterval</key>
<integer>60</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
So in that plist example you just need to put your values in "com.myName.myProgramName", "/path/to/applescript.scpt", and "60" which is the number of seconds to run the applescript.
NOTE: you should name your plist file the same name as you give for "com.myName.myProgramName" with ".plist" as its file extension.
Good luck.
I noticed that when saving a file from within an iOS App using:
writeToFile:myFile atomically:YES
the resulting file is actually saved in XML format, and always has the following code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<array>
<string>Sentence 1</string>
<string>Sentence 2</string>
<string>Sentence 3</string>
<string>Sentence 4</string>
</array>
</plist>
So its always in an XML/Plist format.
But if I try to import into the App a text file which was NOT created from within an iOS App - it doesn't seem to know how to recognize it.
For example, if I take a plain text file created in TextEdit and drag it into my App's Documents folder and then run the App again, the App sees this new file, but when I try to load its contents using:
initWithContentsOfFile:myFile
the result I get is: (null)
Is this because the default format of files created in TextEdit is ".rtf"? Or should I be using an altogether different method to read plain-text files into the App other than
initWithContentsOfFile:myFile?
Ultimately I'd like for the App to be able to load existing text files - maybe even Microsoft WORD files - and work with them. I'd like for the user to drag their existing files into the App's folder in iTunes, and then sync their device with iTunes - which will then copy these new files onto the device and when they run their App again, the app will see the new files and be able to open them and read their contents.
Any suggestions?
You've mentioned the writeToFile:atomically: method but you haven't told us what class this method is being called on. For example, NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary and other classes have a method with this name and they all behave differently as might expect given teh different types of data structures.
From the above file output, it looks like you're probably calling this on an NSArray which is why it gets written in Plist format. I assure you that strings get written plainly if you using an NSString, eg:
NSString *s = #"A string";
[s writeToFile:path atomically:YES];
will produce a file with:
A String
You may want to convert various other data structures into a string before you write it to a file.
I have a plist file that I used in my app that I can localize so I get two entries in my project, one for English and one for Spanish and when I compile an run the app it works but of course at this stage the contents are identical.
I then in Finder replace the Spanish plist with one that has been translated for me into Spanish and I can in the XCode editor view the content without problem.
However when I try to compile I get an error stating:
.../en.lproj/myData.plist:0: error: reading plist: The data couldn’t be read because it has been corrupted.
But the English one has not been touched?
Surely you can copy a localized file into the project in this manner?
open disk utility repair permissions.
open terminal and run this command:
plutil -s /somewhere/yourfile1.plist
It will make you focus with all details of the problem by showing you the exact error and line. So you'll have to go the reported line & fix it by yourself with a text editor.
One thing that can happen is someone messed up one of your tags.
In Xcode right click on your Spanish plist, select Open AS then Source Code
Then check your plist to ensure all of your opening and closing tags are still there, there are no typos, are there any garbage characters in there, and that you are not trying to use a string in an integer etc:
Example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>1</key>
<dict>
<key>a</key>
<string>a1</string>
<key>b</key>
<string>b1</string>
</dict>
<key>2</key>
<dict>
<key>a</key>
<string>a2</string>
<key>b</key>
<string>b2</string>
</dict>
<key>3</key>
<dict>
<key>a</key>
<string>a3</string>
<key>b</key>
<string>b3</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</plist>
I once had some problems when something was copied and pasted into Xcode from a PDF (some kind of incorrect symbol maybe?) and it worked fine when I just re-entered it. Also its often difficult to generate a valid plist from a word processor.
That can also happen with strings file if you forget the semicolons at the end of the lines. Silly me.
This can also happen if you have an & within a string.
Replace:
<string>SomeText & SomeMoreText</string>
With:
<string>SomeText & SomeMoreText </string>
For benefit of anyone who had my exact problem:
I had the corrupt plist problem too.
My plist had been generated by exporting a spreadsheet in OpenOffice to CSV (in UTF-8 format). Then I'd convert the CSV file to a plist using a simple Python script I'd written. I believe my problem was that there were some cell reference errors in the spreadsheet I saved (i.e. the cells said "Err:511"). The existence of errors was causing the UTF-8 export to fail somehow, hence the corrupt plist.
I have not absolutely verified the above was the case, but I'm pretty sure that was the problem: after I fixed the errors in some cells in OpenOffice, my plist works again.
This answer demonstrates the use of the iconv command to verify a file is correctly encoded -- could be useful in cases like this.
This happened to me because I managed to drop a random quotation mark (") in my plist. Removed it and got it to work.
I opened the file in TextWrangler all used Cmd-F to search for any characters that might be causing the offence.
For me it was a space in the name of localized string:
Instead of this_is_the_string_we_will_translate
I had this_is_the string_we_will_translate.
Tricky one to spot.
A great place to start debugging plists is to use an XML validator such as: http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_validator.asp
This feature is also built into most web development environments.
Happened to me, missed 0:
2012-12-9T06:00:00Z
should be
2012-12-09T06:00:00Z
Can someone please let me know the difference between normal plist and binary plist and how they are different processing wise? Is there anything extra I need to do to process a binary plist?
Binary plists are not stored in human-readable XML like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>SUFeedURL</key>
<string>http://www.hedgewars.org/download/appcast.xml</string>
<key>SUHasLaunchedBefore</key>
<true/>
<key>SULastCheckTime</key>
<date>2010-11-15T22:00:36Z</date>
</dict>
</plist>
Instead, they’re stored using Apple’s private methods, resulting in lower filesize. That example (preferences from Hedgewars) is 378 bytes, but in binary format is 162 bytes.
The good news is that built-in tools, such as NSUserDefaults, will be able to use these formats interchangeably. Using other methods, such as NSArray’s -arrayWithContentsOfFile: method, ought to work as well.
To convert between the two, you can use the plutil app, which is in /usr/bin if installed on your Mac. Here’s an example:
plutil -convert xml1 /path/to/your/plist.plist
That will convert the plist at the given path to XML. Valid formats are (for now) xml1 and binary1.
Be sure to check out the Property List Programming Guide, too.
In my Iphone application i have .plist file in which i am putting all the Input data. I will further use this data in the code: directly from .plist file.
The problem is that when i am going to open the .plist file in a windows machine, it is not showing its original content. It is just showing the Binary characters or junk characters.
Can any body help me out for how to open the .plist file in the Windows machine, so i can do my data entry in the .plist file in a windows machine also.
Any solution would be appreciated.
More likely than not, the plist is stored in a binary format for speed and size purposes (XML is bloated and slow to parse).
You'll need to explicitly save your data in a readable format manually or use NSPropertyListSerialization to serialize the property list into XML.
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSPropertyListSerialization_Class/Reference/Reference.html#//apple_ref/occ/clm/NSPropertyListSerialization/dataFromPropertyList:format:errorDescription:
Probably it's to late.
You can use xml editor,but not all of them can work with *.plist files. I use http://www.donkeydevelopment.com
PS
Apple use this document type definition:
< DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">