Export Safari Reading List Items

stevetranby Technology, Uncategorized , , ,

This is something I should have done a while ago, but recently I started using my reading list for managing more items than in the past. After finally searching I found they’re stored within Safari’s bookmarks data (~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist).

Using the plist library the reading list item urls can be extracted using python.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import plistlib

# load bookmarks plist into dict
relpath = 'Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist'
fullpath = os.path.join(os.environ['HOME'], relpath)
plist = plistlib.readPlist(fullpath)

# get the reading list node
for child in plist['Children']:
  if child.get('Title', None) == 'com.apple.ReadingList':
    bookmarks = child['Children']

# extract urls from each
urls = (bookmark['URLString'] for bookmark in bookmarks)
print('\n'.join(urls))

Then the urls can, for example, be opened in a different browser.

open /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app $(~/bin/readinglist-urls.py)

Why bother, use Pocket or Instapaper?

It’s a more universal “save url for later” because often the iPhone will open a share sheet with only a few options that includes saving to the reading list.

Pocket for me is for longer posts or articles that I save for times where I can lounge in a comfy chair or when travelling. My workflow with Safari’s reading list is odd, but its a temporary bookmark list that I can save links from any webview in any app I use on my iPhone and then I can take action when I’m back on my MacBook.

Resize Window Using GLFW3

stevetranby Game Development

When porting our game from mobile to desktop we wanted to add a few desktop specific interface enhancements. Things like using the keyboard, mouse, or managing the Window. By default games are setup to run full screen instead of within a window on desktop platforms, but since our game is pixel art full screen is a bit large on modern 24″+ monitors. So we’re sticking with running inside a window for now.

Ideally we’d allow players to resize the window. In order to support resizing a running scene we would need support to dynamically update every single UI element. Each scene or menu does size, scale, and position UI widgets on the current device (or now window) size, so we will allow changing resolution from a menu and then we will just reload that menu with replaceScene() after the changing the window frame size. We could build in support for this and attempt to unify the changes into a base class or small set of resize methods, but it would be better done at the first design and creation phase of a game’s development.


/// glview - the cocos2d-x platform OpenGL view reference 
/// frameSize - the desired window size
void OptionsResolutionMenu::static_changeResolution(GLViewImpl* glview, Size frameSize)
{
#if ((CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_WIN32) || (CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_MAC) || (CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_LINUX))
    auto glfwindow = glview->getWindow();
    auto fsize = glview->getFrameSize();
    auto screenSize = glview->getMonitorSize();
   
    int sw = screenSize.width > 0 ? (int)screenSize.width : 800;
    int sh = screenSize.height > 0 ? (int)screenSize.height : 480;
  
    // win position
    int winx = 0, winy = 0;
    glfwGetWindowPos(glfwindow, &winx, &winy);

    Rect viewport = glview->getViewPortRect();
    Vec2 viewcenter = Vec2(viewport.getMidX(), viewport.getMidY());

    // update the cocos2d view frame
    glview->setFrameSize(frameSize.width, frameSize.height);

    int x = int(sw - frameSize.width)/2;
    int y = int(sh - frameSize.height)/2;
    glfwSetWindowPos(glfwindow, x, y);
#endif
}

// call method with desired size (we get this from user options menu)
float resWidth = 800;
float resHeight = 600; 
OptionsResolutionMenu::static_changeResolution(glviewImpl, Size(resWidth, resHeight));
GameManager::getInstance()->runSceneWithID(kSceneOptionsResolution, 0);

Adding OS X Menu Bar with cocos2d-x 3.3

stevetranby Game Development

Update 2015-01-17: I’ve posted up an example project using cocos2d-x 3.3

I’ll post discussion topics here discussing adding or changing the Menu, but I found out adding MainMenu.xib didn’t work correctly as I have thought during the discussions over on the forum.

Looking into where the menu is created I found out that GLFW3 actually creates its own default menu with only two Menus services(App menu) and Window. The code where it sets this menu up is found in cocoa_window.m over on github.

Once I figured this out I had to investigate how to edit the app or window menu. Looking over the window code, and searching through the various header files from within XCode I was able to add an item to the Window menu.


void STDeviceMac::addMainMenu(GLViewImpl* glview)
{
    NSWindow * appWindow = (NSWindow *)glfwGetCocoaWindow(glview->getWindow());
    if(appWindow)
    {
        // make your obj-c calls here
        NSMenu* menu = [NSApp windowsMenu];
        {
            NSMenuItem* menuItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Check for Updates"
                                                              action:@selector(checkForUpdates:)
                                                       keyEquivalent:@""];
            [menuItem setTarget:[SUUpdater sharedUpdater]];
            [menu addItem:menuItem];
        }
        {
            NSMenuItem* menuItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"Steve's Test"
                                                              action:@selector(test:)
                                                       keyEquivalent:@""];
            [menuItem setTarget:_deviceImpl];
            [menu addItem:menuItem];
        }
    }
}