Subversion GUIs are not made for Mac users, yet.

I mean, we, Mac users, are used to friendly interfaces, which don’t require more than 10% of knowledge about the system/mechanics behind we are dealing with. That 10% (or less, please!) is what we expect to be in the documentation, and today’s internet-age users would like to be one page long at most.

Unfortunately, SVN apps (clients?) documentation are STILL several pages long, and although I’m sure our issue is user-related, if such documentation is that long, that’s not a user anymore, but a slave.

For all of you, like me, who like Apple-style easy apps, well, there’s no app out there that makes me smile, but here’s the DEFINITE solution to your pain with subversion apps (rapidSVN, svnX, versions, etc).

I UNDERSTAND some of those apps seem to ROCK! for developers and geeks, but for Mac Users, drag-drop and interacting with finder is A MUST.

The biggest problem I found about all those apps is that you are forced to work and call things different than the way you used to. You can’t copy, move, or replace those files in finder, and are told to add, commit… instead. EVERYTHING is freakily controlled.

For that reason, and because their developers are not Adobe nor Apple’s, any attempt to work as a person, not as a geeky developer, will most definitely corrupt your subversioned files and any attempt to upload (commit) them will receive a nasty response from the server.

For first versions you’d probably won’t have any problem. The problem comes when you duplicate an existing version to make changes for the next version in finder.

Skipping more ranting: The solution

Just work with your files any way you want, all in your finder, like a normal person does. Duplicate the previous version or copy files from the trunk if this is not your first version. Then, just before to upload (add) that new version just delete every directory named svn in the new version’s folder.

For example, to create version 1.1, just duplicate folder 1.0 inside tags folder, and delete every hidden folder named svn inside that new copy. DO NOT DELETE svn folders from the already-uploaded versions (already added or committed copies)

How to delete svn hidden folders in Mac

There are apps and preference panels you can install to get that, but installing them and learning to use them will take you the same time that “the Mac” way below.

1. Open the new directory, following the above example namely 1.1, type command-f to reveal the spotlight field at the top right of your finder window if it’s not already there, and type in “svn“.
2. Then, in the new options header row that appears between your window’s content and the window name and tools icons, you’ll see options to choose where to look for your query, e.g. “Search: This Mac  1.1”  and “Contents  Filename” Like the picture below.
3. There, choose “1.1″ and ” Filename”, so you restrict the search to that folder, not your whole Mac, and prevent spotlight to search in file contents, set as default.
4. Below, there is another row with options that you can add or remove with the + or – sign at the right. It defaults to “Kind” and “Any”. Change them to “Visibility” and “Invisible“. The “Visibility” option might not be there if you never used it before, so look for it under “other”. You can choose for it to stay there next time you search.
5. You’ll get all the files or folders named svn inside 1.1 folder. If there’s any file named so, I’m sure it’s nothing related to your WordPress plugin. You can make sure everything is fine by clicking each svn folder and checking the absolute path below in the status bar at the bottom of the window. If it shows a path other than the path to 1.1, you missed something. If everything is ok, just select them all and move them to the trash (command-delete)

In Windows:

Google it for a graphic tutorial or just read it from MS website

Now, the why:

If you are like me, you prefer to “test” everything the intuitive way and then just memorize what’s different from that new system to the new one you are dealing with, like “this is like I’m used to, except this or that sucks”, rather than reading the whole documentation and learning a whole new language for one upload a month.

If you moved and copied svn files in finder like me, you know what happens. If you don’t:

In order to keep track of saved, modified, deleted! files, your “subversioned” (freakly controlled) files need to have the info saved somewhere. Such info (Until a good GUI expert develop a better app) is saved in those invisible folders named svn, so when you copy one of your previous versions, e.g. 1.0 to make version 1.1 (called “tags” by WordPress) you are ALSO copying those invisible directories (After all, they are files, not data in a locked field in some document, and you are human, and your OS have little icons with names to allow you move and rename them).

Those hidden folders contain files that say “the file named xxx in this directory belongs to such version of such date by such author”… Not need to say what WordPress server will reply to an attempt to e.g. upload a file which appears to be already uploaded somewhere else (your original files in folder 1.0)

So until a new app which deals with all the mess OFF our finder and still keep up with NORMAL human behavior like copy, move, renaming icons, just DELETE all those folders before to “add” them as a new version and voilá! no errors.

Now you can still deal with geeky files, the Mac way.

This post should be 3 posts but for lack of time, I’ll give it to you all in one:

1. Why your embedded Prezi presentation looks different than in their servers.
2. How to fix it with the only solution in the market (as of September 2011)
3. How to fix missing files if your Prezi is not in the same folder as your html.

Your embedded presentation looks different than the one hosted at Prezi community

What you embed in your website is not your presentation, but a player, which calls your presentation from Prezi servers. They won’t tell you the player used for presentations hosted externally (your server) is a degraded version, which will show you a low-resolution version until clicked, to save bandwith in their servers, and a GIANT presentation name, so it looks better in their “Explore” page listings. So they have their reasons, and you are stuck with a Prezi presentation in which you invested hours or days and now it doesn’t match your sleek design.

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Here, I’ll be streaming live, the “Twitter and Facebook appications workshop” as much as I can, held at Universidad de Palermo, for the “Social Media week, Buenos Aires” Friday’s event…

Watch live video from socialblogsite on Justin.tv

…if I’m allowed to.

Para hacerle honor al social media week, decidí encontrar los medios para hacerlo con mi teléfono, mas que con equipo profesional. Luego de probar Justin.tv, y su aplicación para iphone, no busqué más, y está probado: funciona. Mañana veremos si me dejan, y aqui debajo vendrá el resumen.

This is the evolution of my previous Photoshop Action for skin retouching. It’s a Photoshop Filter now. Actually, it’s a Filter Forge filter, and you need that app to make it run. It’s being developed as a PS Filter as I write this post, but I couldn’t resist to (more…)

UPDATE:

There’s a photoshop filter to do this in one control panel.

I’ll write about this later. For now, the samples speak for themselves. Below the Action file to download and run.

From first to last, the following samples were made using the action-only to action-plus-manual-retouching.

Later:

Wouldn’t you like to get Photoshop understand orders like “smoot the freckles out, and then re-apply the pores” or “smooth out the dimples but keep the fine wrinkles only” and then getting a Professional Photo Retoucher to guide you through all necessary steps to clean-up  your photo without clicking thousands of times with the stamp tool? – Some wouldn’t, though. I’ve seen tutorials from some photographers showing a cloning-stamp-a-ton video in high speed as an heroic resistance challenge, just to accomplish what you do with this action.

This action, uses a technique similar to the one used by “sharpen mask” filter, to detect detail under a certain ratio, and keeps it in a separate layer, while you smooth out the rest. It’s based in my “perfect skin” action, but adds the needed steps and instructions for you to get it done faster.

Once you finish the automated part, you can go ahead and practice a little with the Dodge and Burn tools, to lighten dark sides and darken light ones of bumps.

Let me know if it doesn’t adhere to your workflow for skin-care and I’ll do my best to help it better.

Click the images to see them in full size. (more…)

What if I told you that this image is the “after” of a skin retouching work? (Let’s leave blemishes for another article)

One of the most difficult effects for amateur retouchers is certainly keeping the pores in dramatic skin retouching works, and the skills on Photoshop needed to figure it out say how pro you are. Well, Today you’ll become a PRO, once you master the process, because I’m bringing you a free tool to do it in seconds, as an Action, ready to download and run.
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Web 2.0 style is taking over the new standards for web development, and complex buttons are difficult to create. When the button has reflections, refraction, shadows, glow, lighting… composing new shapes and rollover states is very time comsuming.

How to streamline the process

The big “how” here is “downloading the native files linked below”.

Fortunately Adobe Illustartor can handle multiple fills and outlines with their mutiple effects for each on them, all for the same path. So you’ve just got to move one node, one path, to change all the fills, all the effects, at the same time.

That, combined with multiple path effects (exclusion, subtraction, etc.) that allow new effects applied on top and so on… makes possible the Siamese button.

Here’s a video that shows you how easy is to change the button’s shape, with one single stroke (I used nudges at first, so you can see it with antialiased rendering. Ai doesn’t refresh the preview while dragging a curve, until it’s released)

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