• Better debugging performance when dealing with large JavaScript files
• More reliable ‘console’ object for logging
• Alphabetized DOM properties
• Added localizations
• Over 50 bug fixes

After some minor modifications, Widerbug 1.3.0 is ready for use on your widescreen display in its signature 2-up layout, complete with all the changes from above. As usual, head over to the Widerbug page to grab the latest version (please leave comments and note any bugs on that page).

• Cocoa Dev Central and Become an Xcoder are both excellent tutorials for beginners, written in a clear, straightforward manner. They also explain the ins and outs of memory management, which is critical on platforms like the iPhone and iPod touch.
• Stanford’s CS193P lecture notes and examples have proven to be one of the best resources for learning Cocoa, particularly for the iPhone. These notes and tests offer Cocoa Touch in bite-size chunks, with a little bit of “on your own” work to ensure you know your stuff before moving on.
• Google Code Search is a good last resort for examples of how others are using a small bit of code or a particular class. For more accurate results, append “lang:objectivec” to your search string to narrow results to only Objective-C code.

If you already know Cocoa, feel free to share your go-to places for information in the comments!

John Gruber mentioned yesterday that BBEdit 9.1 now ships with Consolas as its default font, so I decided to see if it had the same cursor problem I had experienced in the past. As it turns out, BBEdit’s version of Consolas works just fine, as seen in the image above. However, it doesn’t include the other styles like Consolas Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic.

Through one way or another, the copy of Consolas that ships with BBEdit 9.1 is different than the one that ships with Microsoft Office 2008. To make system-wide use of the working version, download BBEdit 9.1, mount and open the .dmg, and navigate to:

(Control-click BBEdit, and choose “Show Package Contents” to get inside the application bundle)
BBEdit.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/consola.ttf

Copy consola.ttf from BBEdit’s “Fonts” folder to your own Fonts folder at /Users/you/Library/Fonts, or /Library/Fonts if you want to make it available to everyone who has an account on your computer. Then, fire up your favorite editor, set Consolas as your preferred fixed-width font, and get coding!

June 14, 2009 Update:
Bare Bones has apparently changed the version of Consolas that ships with BBEdit versions later than 9.1, and they now have the cursor problem as well. You can still get the 9.1 demo here, which contains the working font.

Why Fling?
To understand the purpose of Fling, imagine a standard three-pane email client (to borrow an example from Seth Dillingham, whose work inspired Fling): When you click on a message you just received, several things happen:

• The mailbox unread count gets decremented
• The message’s unread indicator goes away
• The message row text goes from bold to plain
• The message content appears in the viewer pane

These actions happen with little, if any interaction between each other. All each needs to know is that you clicked on a given unread message. Using jQuery, it’s quite easy to put all four actions inside the same click handler function and be done in minutes. However, when your code base starts to grow, having all that code inside one event handler can make multiple triggers and cascading events cumbersome. There’s a better way to make things happen — Fling your events around.

A Basic Example
Start by including Fling on your page, along with jQuery:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.fling.js"></script>

Then, use jQuery’s handy document ready to set up new Fling subscribers, and finally, publish the event:

// jQuery Document Ready
$(function() {
	// Subscribe to some_event_name
	$.fling('subscribe', 'some_event_name', function() {
		alert('Hello from Fling 1');
	});

	// Subscribe to some_event_name
	$.fling('subscribe', 'some_event_name', function() {
		alert('Hello from Fling 2');
	});

	// Publish some_event_name
	$.fling('publish', 'some_event_name');
});

When run, you should see two alerts pop up in sequence. The only relationship the subscribers have is that they both care about “some_event_name” happening. When publish was called, both did their jobs.

In Depth
$.fling() has four main functions:

• Create sets up an event without publishing it or subscribing any events. This isn’t used too often, as Create happens automatically when Publish or Subscribe is called.

  $.fling('create', 'myEvent');

• Destroy frees the memory occupied by the event and it’s subscribers when you’re done with an event for good.

  $.fling('destroy', 'myEvent');

• Publish notifies all subscribers that a given event happened. It can also pass data to subscribers through a second parameter. Publish can be called at any time, with zero or more subscribers, meaning your event can happen even if no subscribers care about that event.

  $.fling('publish', 'myEvent');

  $.fling('publish', 'myEvent', {my: "data"});

• Subscribe gets called when an event is Published. You can Subscribe to events that have not been Created or Published yet, as the publisher can arrive later via another script, if needed.

  $.fling('subscribe', 'myEvent', function() {
  	/* ...your code... */
  });

  $.fling('subscribe', 'myEvent', someNamedFunction);

  $.fling('subscribe', 'myEvent', function(event, passedData) {
  	alert(passedData);
  });

Give Fling a Try!
So, that’s it to Fling. There’s not a whole lot to it — you might even be surprised to see just how short the code is. Give it a shot, and see how your jQuery code can be better organized, called from multiple places, and even cascade on down the line.

Release History

• jQuery Fling 1.0
  Released on Dec. 4, 2008
  Initial release.

Released under the MIT License. Fling is short, sweet, and yours to hack. Improvements are welcomed!

For some time I’ve been worried that the NDA was going to remain in place indefinitely, silencing those who Apple needs the most, but it appears Apple has finally taken a positive action to help their App Store environment grow further. If you thought there was some cool stuff on the App Store now, just give it time…

Head on over to the Widerbug page to grab the latest version and get coding, widescreen style! (Please leave comments and note any bugs on that page, just to keep things centralized.)

Of particular note is the customizable Display Format option. Using simple tags like [::artist::] and [::image::] intermixed with regular HTML, you can tweak your Last.fm tracks exactly how you like, or however your WordPress theme requires. You have full control!

Requirements

• WordPress 2.5 or later.
• PHP 5 or later (fmTuner uses PHP 5′s SimpleXML for decoding Last.fm data).
• Basic knowledge of PHP, HTML, and WordPress.

Installation

• Upload “fmtuner.php” to a directory inside “/wp-content/plugins/” directory. For example: “/wp-content/plugins/fmtuner/fmtuner.php”
• Ensure “/wp-content/plugins/fmtuner/” is writable by your webserver (chmod 755 fmtuner).
• Activate the plugin through the “Plugins” menu in WordPress.
• Set up options in the “Settings” menu in WordPress.
• Place “if(function_exists(‘fmtuner’)) { fmtuner(); }” in your templates, between PHP tags.

Release History

• fmTuner 1.1
  Released on Feb. 1, 2010
  Added a placeholder image field to the fmTuner Settings page, which will be substituted when tracks have no artwork.
  Tested under WordPress 2.9.1.
• fmTuner 1.0.8
  Released on Nov. 3, 2009
  Fixed a bug with the [::url::] fmTuner tag that caused Last.fm links to appear incorrectly.
• fmTuner 1.0.7
  Released on Apr. 23, 2009
  Tracks with foreign character sets now display more accurately.
• fmTuner 1.0.6
  Released on Mar. 29, 2009
  You can now display more than 10 Recent Tracks, and you should get fewer tracks without artwork.
• fmTuner 1.0.5
  Released on Mar. 22, 2009
  Track information is now properly escaped to handle $ signs, quotes, and other non-alphanumeric characters.
• fmTuner 1.0.4
  Released on Dec. 14, 2008
  Made minor tweaks for fmTuner Settings page under WordPress 2.7.
• fmTuner 1.0.3
  Released on Nov. 15, 2008
  By request, a [::number::] fmTuner tag has been added, which emits a sequential number for each track (starting at 1). This is particularly useful for CSS and JavaScript display purposes.
• fmTuner 1.0.2
  Released on Oct. 5, 2008
  Added a cURL-based alternative to file_get_contents to hopefully resolve “URL file-access is disabled” issues. If allow_url_fopen is disabled in the php.ini, cURL will be used to fetch the Last.fm feed instead.
• fmTuner 1.0.1
  Released on Sept. 9, 2008
  Added better failure checking and informational messages, removed development code, and updated instructions.
• fmTuner 1.0
  Released on Sept. 6, 2008
  Initial release.

Released under the MIT License. Do with fmTuner whatever you wish. Mod it, mash it, hack it. Make it yours.

Along the same line, when developing a web application or just a simple page, HTML forms require that data be typed in and submitted. This process will repeat as the server-side code is refined, and typing the same data over and over gets old as soon as the second iteration. “Don’t Repeat Yourself”, or “DRY”, is a common philosophy for writing better code, and should extend to testing your forms, as well.

Save your typing for code.

Form Jig is a small Firefox extension for replicating HTML form data and server-side code. To use it, fill out a form on a page, click the red Capture button in your Firefox status bar, then submit the form. Upon returning for further testing, click the green Replay triangle to populate the form just as you left it. Form data is kept around until the current Firefox window is closed, and can be used between tabs.

Suggestions are welcomed, and bug reports will be attended to.

6/8/08 Update v1.0.1
Fixed a bug related to checkboxes and radio buttons. The updated plugin should appear on addons.mozilla.org shortly (linked via the above button), but still hasn’t passed Mozilla’s “nomination” for public consumption.

A day ago, I stumbled upon the answer I was looking for on the Learning jQuery blog: a browser-ready jQuery-loading bookmarklet. For the uninitiated, a bookmarklet is a standard bookmark placed in your Bookmarks Bar, except it runs some JavaScript code instead of pointing your browser at a web destination. In this case, the bookmarklet manually fetches and inserts jQuery into the current page. I've modified the following version slightly to flash "jQuery Loaded" on the page when the load is complete, using the just-loaded jQuery, naturally.

To install the tool, just drag the following link to your Bookmarks Bar, and click it to temporarily install jQuery on whatever page you're visiting: jQueryize