Issue 27

10 July 2019

by Lori M Olson

#OPED

Last week I mentioned that my husband and I and our dogs had been off camping. It’s been a bit of a process, from tenting to RV rentals, to buying an antique RV to our current 1 year old compact trailer that we can haul with our Jeep. Getting a trailer has been interesting. All sorts of stuff to learn about how it all works.

One of the first things I learned is that using a manual jack to raise and lower it onto the hitch on the Jeep is a huge PITA. So we went ahead and ordered a shiny new electric jack. While waiting for it to be delivered, I looked up a couple of videos on YouTube, and watched how to install one. Seemed simple enough, and it took these guys about 15 minutes.

I had high expectations when our electric jack arrived, and we took it out to the trailer to install. Do you think it took 15 minutes? Nope. It was more like 3 hours of frustration and cursing and buying new tools, but eventually we got it installed.

Pretty much any time you do something the first time, it’s not going to go easy. There will be problems and frustrations. You might not have all the tools you need to get the job done. But if you apply some patience and persistence, you can still get it done. And then the next time you have to do that thing, it will be easier.

That’s how I felt about testing mobile apps. It just didn’t feel natural when I first started doing testing. But after I put together a decent set of tools, and got some practice using them, it got easier. I hope you will find our new testing course a bit more helpful than those YouTube videos I watched ;-) – wndxlori

#FITS: Featured in the School

Last week we mentioned we were nose down, arse up getting ready for the official launch of RubyMotion Testing In Depth. Well, we’re thrilled to announce the first version has been posted. The curriculum features MacBacon (mmmmm!), RSpec, Appium, Cucumber (yuck) and much more. If that wasn’t enough, it’s been specially priced just for readers of the #RMW newsletter! All you need to do is provide the promo code JULY1915OFF at checkout and you will get 15% off the total. That deal is certain not to last, and we would know that for sure. Here’s that link, just one more time: https://wndx.school/p/rubymotion-testing-in-depth/

Oh, and there’s the possibility of an entirely FREE enrollment in the course buried somewhere else in this week’s #RMW. You’ll just have to read (or at least skim) the rest of this tome.

#DRGTK: DragonRuby Game Toolkit

World famous screencaster Dave Kimura over at Kimura Innovations, LLC has just posted an excellent Introduction to DragonRuby video. If Dave’s name is not immediately familiar to you, you may recognize his website Drifting Ruby which is one of the places the cool kids go to stay on top of Ruby development. Dave’s video clocks in at just over 26 minutes which is exactly the same time it takes to eat that food court lunch at your desk. Which you really shouldn’t do, right? In any event, you can use that otherwise unproductive time to watch Dave’s nicely engineered tutorial. Oh, yes, for those of you who actually read to the end of this section, Dave has five FREE DragonRuby licenses to give away as part of the bargain. How can you beat that?!

Oh, and in case you wondering if the ‘Drifting’ in ‘Drifting Ruby’ is an ubercool reference to late night JDM high jinx, which is what we assumed, you’ll want to check out Dave’s pinned tweet. So, sort of, yes.

#MSH: Motioneers Slack Highlights

OK, we get it, how is it that the one and only item in the #MSH this week is not actually a link to the Motioneers Slack. Are we not clear on the concept which we came up with ourselves? Guilty as charged. But this actually came to us via a 6 Pack Apps question which was triggered by a question in the WNDX Slack for 6 Pack Apps. So there’s that. Anywho…

From the Apple Developer Forums we have an answer to the problem Cannot locate iOS 12.3 device support files. The fix is provided by XSDCode.
Turns out it’s very simple. Much simpler than you’d think.

Next week, we’re back to Slack links, we promise.

#GOTW: Gem of the Week

We thank Edmonton-based Andy Stechishin for this week’s #GOTW motion-ios-simplesplash. As you might be able to guess from the name, it generates a simple splash page in a storyboard file for RubyMotion projects. Thanks again, Andy, it looks like a real timesaver.

Feeling ripped-off because we haven’t featured your gem as the #GOTW? We’re game if you’re game, but you’ll have to let us know about it. We’ll be happy to tell the world in an upcoming edition of #RMW. Your greatness awaits.

#COMM: Community

We’re giving the nod to Keith Bennett out of Reston, Virginia for this week’s #COMM contribution: Boost Your Shell Scripting with Ruby and Rexe. Don’t be put off by Keith’s cautionary note about the length of the article. He adds that sections mostly stand on their own, so you can pick and choose that which works for you.

For those who are not familiar with Rexe—we weren’t—it’s a configurable Ruby command line filter and executor also from Keith. It’s covered in-depth in his article. It looks like a very powerful and helpful tool. Thanks, Keith.

Have you joined the Community Forum yet? If not, you’re FOMO is entirely justified. You really are MO.

#AHOTW: App Highlight of the Week

Crickets

#TWIL: This Week I Learned

You know what the sign is of having truly arrived? You’re known by one name, like this week’s #TWIL personage Simeon. No, that’s not we #TWIL’ed this W, but we are looking to bulk up this rather lazy summer edition of the #RWM. Simeon also bears a striking resemblance to a certain much loved/hated Canadian rock star. See you if you can guess which one, and there’s a FREE enrollment in RubyMotion Testing In Depth for the first tweet to @WNDXschool with the right answer. But just the first. We’re not cranking these things out for the practice.

Oh, right, what did we #TWIL from Simeon? The hidden utility of Stationary Pad. Simeon introduces the topic with “macOS will always open a copy of the document so you never edit the template”. Cool. And thank you for that, Simeon, we really appreciate it!

That’s a Wrap

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Until next time, enjoy your summer (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere) and in the words of the immortal Baz Luhrmann, “everybody’s free to wear sunscreen”.

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