rake VERSION=2.2.2 rails:freeze:gems

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;

//OK, that part I understand.

class MyDrawPanel extends JPanel {

//JPanel is a widget that can be added to a frame just like the button in a previous example in the book.

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {

//Here’s what I’m guessing this means. We’re overriding the paintComponent method in JPanel, and we’re passing it a Graphics method as an argument. Where this comes from, I don’t know, somewhere in java.awt.* or javax.swing.*

g.setColor(Color.orange);
g.fillRect(20,50,100,100);

}

}

So that will compile as javac MyDrawPanel.java.

But, what the book doesn’t explain in big red crayon so an idiot like me can understand is that you have to create another class to make the window that contains the frame that you’ll stick this widget into. The authors assume that if they explain something once, hell, you ought to be able to figure it all out by now, and the lack of explanation in cases like this makes me wish I could take a course in Java in a real school where I could ask my stupid questions to a real live brainy (but patient) person and get answers.

To get the above code to do anything useful, you have to create this other class too, as a separate file:

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class SimpleGuiRectangle {

//You can call this class anything you want. It’s not part of the Java library, you’re creating it using bits and pieces from awt and swing.

public static void main (String[] args) {

//You know what, either they never explain what that (String[] args) means or I was sleeping when I read it. It’s so that you can call arguments when you run the class like “java SimpleGuiRectangle -v -h –chuckyoufarley”

MyDrawPanel rectangle;

// You’re setting up the variable that will contain an instance of the MyDrawPanel class you made up there.

SimpleGuiRectangle gui = new SimpleGuiRectangle();

// This is a recursive thing? Inside the class you’re making, you’re creatubg a instance of it. Confuses the heck out of me still.

JFrame frame = new JFrame();

// The JFrame is the outer part of a Java window. The actual guts are in the contentPane that’s inside the JFrame.

rectangle = new MyDrawPanel();

//OK, this is an instance of that class you copied from page 364 and complied. Now you’re actually going to do something useful with it.

frame.getContentPane().add(rectangle);

//What this means (I think) is getContentPane is a method in the JFrame class. It has a method called “add” which takes an object and adds it to the pane. So instead of adding a bigass button like they showed in the book, you’re adding an instance of thar rectangle class you made.

frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

//You have to put that in so you’ll be able to actually close the damn window

frame.setSize(300,300);
frame.setVisible(true);

}

}

So you compile “javac SimpleGuiRectangle.java” then run “java SimpleGuiRectangle and for all your trouble you get a 300 x 300 window with an orange square in it. Seems like a lot of frikkin’ work to do something so simple, and it makes me wonder why Java is described as being supposedly so quick and easy. Or maybe I’m just a really slow learner.

To be able to translate the categories, download the JoomFish extension and

copy the file to /administrator/components/com_joomfish/contentelements/

1. Japanese translated text that I inputted was displaying properly, but when I viewed the source of the page I could see that it was actually encoded in escape characters, like #1234#4758#2847.
2. Every single, goddamn time I entered a new translation via the administrator interface, the administrator session would be lost and I’d have to log back in again.

Here’s the solution to the first problem:

http://www.joomfish.net/how-to-…/joom-fish-encodings-and-utf-8.html

Namely, to set the charset meta tag in the HTML header.

The second problem was caused by a bugfix in version 1.0.13 apparently causing some problems with backwards compatibility. I found the solution in this thread:

http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomfish/forum/?action=ForumBrowse&forum_id=755&_forum_action=ForumMessageBrowse&thread_id=6282

In that forum thread there’s a link to a new administrator/index2.php file to replace the broken one in the core.

require ‘date’
next_year = Date.today >> 12

http://convergentarts.com/pages/fastcgi

There’s also this but I didn’t use it.

http://work.alexyoung.org/archives/102/dreamhost-and-rails-500-errors

rake log:clear Truncates all *.log files in log/ to zero bytes

There’s an excellent cheat sheet here:

http://blog.nanorails.com/pages/rails_1.1_cheat_sheet

Here is a sample of application.rb:

require 'gettext/rails'
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  prepend_before_filter :default_locale
  def default_locale
    if (cookies["lang"].nil? or cookies["lang"].empty?)
      GetText.locale = "zh_CN"
    else
      GetText.locale = cookies["lang"]
    end
  end
  init_gettext "yourapp"
end

1. Schools: In the school table I’ll keep track of:

• what languages taught (language_id)
• what kinds of courses taught (course_type_id)

These two columns will actually be join tables, since each school will not have a set number of languages or course types they teach, and also because the total number of languages and course types across all schools will change. By using join tables it’ll be easier to add new languages and course types.

A second benefit will be that the it’ll become easier to implement the pull-down search menus that are giving me so much trouble, since now all the data needed to create the pull-down menus will be in only one table instead of being spread between the schools & courses tables.

The drawback will be that the meta-information about what languages and types of courses each school offers will not be directly linked to the actual courses the school offers. For example, it might be possible for a school to say they offer courses in, say, Chinese and/or business conversation, but not actually offer any such courses. But the chances of that happening are slim. I’ll make sure that when school administrators log in, they’ll see an overview of their school’s info, and hopefully they’ll notice anything outdated.

2. Courses table will have:

• id
• school_id
• language_id
• title_en
• title_ja
• description_en
• description_ja