Mateusz Stawecki

While I’m really enjoying OS X El Capitan (everything runs smoother and my MacBook is much colder) it has put a large nail into the coffin of my two favourite OS X apps: TotalTerminal and TotalFinder. In my opinion, both apps were essential for developers working on their MacBooks in the field, but could also prove useful for any OS X users.

How it works?

The idea is to simplify access to Finder’s folder view and any active Terminal session, by using a global hot key (like ctrl+` for Terminal and alt+` for Finder). Finder would appear at the bottom of the screen, Terminal at the top. This way, you can easily drag and drop files from Finder to other apps like Xcode or even your active Terminal session without switching desktops. It’s particularly useful when using a single display.

Why it’s broken on El Capitan?

In OS X El Capitan, Apple has introduced SIP – “System Integrity Protection”, which protects your system from being tampered by malicious software like malware. One big step for security, but an unfortunate breaking change for plug-ins and apps that rely on these kind of hacks for non-malicious things.

If you’re willing to live with the risk, you can disable System Integrity Protection as the author of TotalFinder explains here, however he does not recommend it.

Proposed replacement!

• For TotalFinder: Apptivate

Ok, so Apptivate isn’t exactly a replacement for TotalFinder, but I’ve originally started using TotalFinder to gain access to features like tabs and the visor. Since then Finder gained pretty good tab support. The visor was extremely useful, but was always a little laggy. Apptivate allows me to create a show/hide hotkey for Finder. Simply add a hotkey for the Finder application and in the Apptivate’s prefereces tick the “Hide application if it is active” setting. Open Finder and move it to the bottom of the screen. In the dock, ctrl-click Finder, select Options > Assign to: All Desktops.
I’ll miss TotalFinder’s split folder view, but Finder’s performance on El Capitan is fantastic, which makes this solution very responsive.

• For TotalTerminal: iTerm2

While TotalTerminal was a way of adding custom behaviour to the original Terminal, iTerm2 is a complete replacement with many additional features. Here’s a post on how to configure the visor feature.

After constant postponing and many many discussions, we’ve finally changed our name to Tapjet. I’ve secretly hoped that it would happen before our Kickstarter, but we didn’t want to confuse the people who followed our journey since The Loop Magazine or Wonders. However, it’s finally happened. Both our creation tool and our company name (now Tapjet Limited) are fully re-branded. Hours spent on whois’ing domains and browsing synonyms has paid off. The final list had 65 potential names, but to me Tapjet finally brings a meaningful description of what our product is about: “tap” – because we’re focused on touch and simple immersive experiences, “jet” – because we strive for speed, strength, reliability.

Our new logo by @forgottentowel

Checkout our website at tapjet.co

There is much more to come this year, so make sure you follow our new Twitter account: @tapjet

I’ve recently wrote a piece for The Loop Magazine about a subject close to my heart that is kind of a taboo at conferences – anxiety, clash of egos, impostor syndrome. The piece is in form of a collective interview with some interesting individuals: Amy Worrall, Barry (Baz) Scott, Carola Nitz, Casey Liss, Stuff MC and Mark Reynolds.

Check it out here: Behind the Mask – The Loop Magazine

Especially with the recent budget cuts, welfare has been a hot topic in the media. However, it’s pretty clear that there is a bit of confusion around what “welfare” really is.

If you’ve studied in the UK as a UK or EU resident just like me, you’ve received between £10,500 – £30,000 of government welfare in form of subsidised tuition. This is something many students don’t even realise and certainly don’t question their entitlement to.

When thinking about welfare and poverty, let’s be clear – we’re all on the same boat. Some of us are just less lucky and more stigmatised for receiving very basic help. Moreover, the money distribution points at a serious inequality issue.

The following video was created by The #GlobalPOV Project in the context of US welfare, but the concepts apply globally. If you feel like you’re the sort of a person who cares about inequality at least a little, I highly recommend you watch it. With economic inequality getting worse every year, this is not an issue which will just go away on its own.

Spread the word:

UPDATE: This is an old piece, you probably want: phantom.js and casper.js

In this post I’ll show you how to remotely control your Google Chrome browser using JavaScript and scrape some data, even if it’s on an AJAX powered website or behind HTTPS authentication. Nice? I LOVE WebKit and now it got even sweeter. Very recently there was a small buzz about a new feature: WebKit Remote Debugging that allows to use Element Inspector remotely! (since it’s essentially just a web page and some javascript + websockets). What’s the real icing on the cake for me, is the ability to plug-in a different interface. I wrote a simple interface that can execute several pieces of JavaScript and return the values back to you. Here’s how to set it up. Open Terminal and find the Google Chrome executable. To use remote debugging, run it with a special parameter:

If you get:

Try symlinking Versions:

The browser should start normally. Now go to a different browser, e.g. Safari and check out: http://localhost:9222 Select a page and you should see the Inspector. That’s all nice and neat. But let’s see my remote script: http://gist.github.com/972742 – To connect to the debugger, we’re using WebSockets. Change the page number based on the link from http://localhost:9222 . Every “Tab” has a different “Page” number.

	// Set page number!
	var host = "ws://localhost:9222/devtools/page/5";
	socket = new WebSocket(host);

– To execute JavaScript I wrapped a JSON-RPC-like command into a method with callback. More protocol schema here.

function remoteEval(scriptString,callback) {
	seqCallback[seqNo] = callback;
	socket.send('{"seq":'+seqNo+',"domain":"Runtime",'+
	'"command":"evaluate","arguments":{"expression":"'+
	scriptString.replace(/["]/g,'\"')
	+'","objectGroup":"console","includeCommandLineAPI":false}}');
	seqNo++;
}

– And this is how a sample script works:

remoteOnLoad = function(result) {

// We might've ended up on the login page, so let's log in!
if (remoteURL.indexOf("ServiceLogin") > 0 )
remoteEval( " document.getElementById('Email').value = 'username'; "+
	" document.getElementById('Passwd').value = 'password'; "+
	" document.getElementsByTagName('form')[0].submit(); "
	, function(result) { alert(result); } );

	// We're home!
	if (remoteURL.indexOf("mail.google.com/mail/") > 0 )
	remoteEval( " try { document.getElementById('canvas_frame')"+
".contentWindow.document.getElementsByClassName( 'md' )[0].innerText } catch(e) { -1 }"
	, function(result) {  // Waiting for AJAX. Try again in 2 sec.
	if (result == -1) { setTimeout(remoteOnLoad,2000); }
				else { alert(result); } } );
				// This should return scraped information
				// about your data usage on gmail!
				// E.g. You're currently using 150MB out of 7000MB
			} ;

// This happenes first:
remoteEval(" location.href = 'http://gmail.com' ");
//Let's go to Gmail!

Don’t know how about you, but I just wanna wrap it in Node.js, run it somewhere on Linux with a dummy X11 server for Chrome and write lot’s of crazy tasks, so it does it all for me! Imagine e.g. that instead of that alert(result) you make it a WebHook or a service?