Issues using VCSCommand with MacVim

I tried to use the VCSCommand-plugin for Vim the other day, but I ran into a strange issue: the plugin tried to use an older version of subversion with my working copy, resulting in “this client is too old” error messages.

The setup

I’ve got two copies of Subversion installed on my system: the default that comes with Mac OS X (1.4.4) and the one I manually installed (1.6.9). I have set my $PATH so that 1.6.9 (in /opt/subversion/bin) gets precedence over 1.4.4 (in /usr/bin). It all works fine from the command line.

The problem

I am using MacVim, which is very nice, but it apparently doesn’t know about my 1.6.9 installation and complains. It appears (from running :!which svn in MacVim) that MacVim (or so it seems any OS X app) ignores my $PATH adjustments in .bash_profile. Hence it is unaware of the /opt/subversion/bin/svn executable.

The fix

I tried adding a file with the extra location to the /etc/paths.d directory, as per this suggestion. That worked but did not help, as it appended rather prepended the new location to MacVim’s $PATH. It gave /usr/bin precedence over /opt/subversion/bin.

I then gave up trying to solve this neatly. Instead I configured the plugin around the issue, which still works rather nicely. I included this line in my .vimrc file:

let VCSCommandSVNExec="/opt/subversion/bin/svn"

This tells the plugin which executable to use. This solution is not very portable (the path to svn may very well be different on other machines), but I have not found another way to solve this. Of course I could mess with my Subversion installations, but down that path madness lies, or so I hear. For now, I’m glad I can get on with it.

Using Postbox

I’ve decided to give Postbox a try as my default e-mail client. I love Mail.app’s simplicity, but it has some quirks and I feel I could do better.

Here’s what I like so far:

  • A sleek interface for tagging (called topics)
  • Quick browsing of attachments in a folder or from a contact
  • Archive message immediately with ‘a’
  • Gmail-style conversation view
  • Pretty good and quick search
  • Plug-in potential, although there’s not much available yet.

Here’s what I dislike so far:

  • No global folders, i.e. one inbox, trash, sent and drafts for all accounts
  • Topics don’t seem to be IMAP-portable, so you have to apply tags both at home and at work
  • Message rules can not filter on content, only on message headers
  • The message composer is bulky
  • Integration with Mac OS X is not as good as Mail.app
  • It’s Mozilla-based, not native.

I’m undecided on:

  • Tabbed interface. I’m not used to it, I don’t need it and I don’t use it. But it might grow on me.
  • Editing messages: not sure why I’d want to do that.
  • Facebook and Twitter integration

Postbox does not come for free, while Mail.app and Thunderbird do. So it should really impress be before I switch. I remain unconvinced but hopeful for now.

Snow Leopard Web Development Configuration

After installing Snow Leopard on my iMac I found I had to tweak some settings before I could continue my daily web development workflow. First, you should note Snow Leopard now comes with PHP 5.3 and it will overwrite your custom Apache configuration.

Here’s what I did to get up and running:

  1. Moved /etc/php.ini.default to /etc/php.ini.
  2. Edited php.ini (using search/replace) so that display_errors = On and mysql.default_port = /tmp/mysql.sock.
  3. I also set a default timezone (search php.ini for ‘timezone’) to suppress warnings about server timezone being unreliable.
  4. Restored my vhosts.conf file from a back-up to bring back my various *.dev virtual hosts.
  5. I replaced all my PHP short tags with their longer equivalents (<?= to <?php echo) as these are deprecated in PHP 5.3.

After these rather simple steps I was back up and running, although they took a a little time and googling. Overall, I was surprised how little installing Snow Leopard messed up my system.