Install Vala with GTK+ 3 in Windows

As you may know, vala have binary release for windows maintain by communities.
https://code.google.com/p/vala-win32/downloads/list
But the binary release are not up to date now, their last release is for vala v0.12.0 on April 2011.

But if you really want to develop an Application with this awesome cross platform programming language in Windows, you still have a way, "build from source".

For build Vala from source in Windows, you can follow my step-by-step guide bellow to install:
- Vala v0.25.4 (latest version when i write this post) with
- GTK+ 3 v3.6.4-20130921 (latest version when i write this post).

Here's the guide to follow:
1. Download MinGW-builds from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/
2. Run "mingw-builds-install.exe", select :

• Architecture = "x32"
• Threads = "win32"
• Exception = "sjlj"

like picture below:

3. Continue installation wizard, then choose directory where to install MinGW to:

C:\mingw-builds

4. After installation finish, download the latest "external-binary-packages" from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/external-binary-packages/ then copy/extract the "msys" directory to:

C:\mingw-builds\mingw32

5. Open "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys\etc\fstab" with Notepad++ and add this line:

C:\mingw-builds\mingw32 /mingw

in it then save.

6. Download the Win32 GTK+ v3 "all-in-one bundle" from http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php and then copy/extract it's content to "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32".

7. In order to get a nice shell, create a new shortcut, e.g. on the Desktop and set shortcut location to:

C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys\bin\mintty.exe /bin/bash -l

then leave shortcut name to "mintty.exe" or "mintty" or "MinGW-Console".

8. Create "home" folder inside "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys" folder then create folder with the name same as your windows login name inside "home" folder.

You can get your windows login name simply with opening "command prompt".

9. Download the latest source tarball from https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/Release and then copy/extract it's content to "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys\home\{Your Username}"

10. Add Vala Directory path to your System Variable Path.
Open "Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings > Environment Variables ..."
Add New System Variable with :

• Variable name = "ValaPath"
• Variable value = "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys\build\bin"

Then add "ValaPath" to System Variable Path

;%ValaPath%

11. Run the Mintty shortcut you created in step 7 and switch with "cd" to the vala source directory then execute command below:

cd vala-0.25.4/
./configure --prefix=/build
make
make install

If no error found, then your step to install Vala is complete. You can try to execute syntax below to check Vala is Ready:

gcc --version
valac --version

it will return versions for each compiler.

If no error found again, then you may try to create a GUI Application using Vala and GTK+ in windows. For express, you can try sample code from https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Vala/GTKSample eg, like below:

Create new File inside "C:\mingw-builds\mingw32\msys\home\{Your Username}" with "gtk-hello.vala" as filename. Then type code below as it's content:

using Gtk;

int main (string[] args) {
    Gtk.init (ref args);

    var window = new Window ();
    window.title = "First GTK+ Program";
    window.border_width = 10;
    window.window_position = WindowPosition.CENTER;
    window.set_default_size (350, 70);
    window.destroy.connect (Gtk.main_quit);

    var button = new Button.with_label ("Click me!");
    button.clicked.connect (() => {
        button.label = "Thank you";
    });

    window.add (button);
    window.show_all ();

    Gtk.main ();
    return 0;
}

then compile that source code using Vala Compiler:

valac --pkg gtk+-3.0 --cc=gcc gtk-hello.vala

if no error found when compile, you can execute the result application with call it:

gtk-hello.exe

it will show window like below:

Ok, Thanks for Reading. If you have problem when following my guide, drop me a comment below.

In other post i will show you how to:
- Run Created Application outside MinGW.
- Remove Empty Command Prompt behind Created Application if run outside MinGW.
- Publish application created using Vala & GTK+ in Windows for Windows OS

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Free Download ExtJS 4.2.2

If you are an ExtJs Developer, you should know that ExtJs v4.2.2 only available for subscriber-only release. So if you wanna get that but you're not support subscriber then, here's the trick:

Download the extjs 4.2.2 full documentation:
http://cdn.sencha.com/downloads/docs/extjs-docs-4.2.2.zip
then extjs v4.2.2 sources are in: extjs-docs-4.2.2\extjs-build

See You.. :D

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Free Photo Pack For your Application

Here some list of free Photo Pack that you can used in your Application.

1. Kaboom Pics or Free Photo Pack

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Appcelerator/Titanium Error Message "failed to create java virtual machine"

Just now i wanna try to develop test application using Appcelerator/Titanium Framework, after installing then running, i get error message when try to run the IDE with message "failed to create java virtual machine".

If you get same error like me, you can fix that with bellow changes:
- Open "TitaniumStudio.ini" in Appcelerator/Titanium installation directory.
- Make changes as below:

Change:
launcher.XXMaxPermSize to 128m

So it will be like this:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20130327-1440.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.1.200.v20140116-2212
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
--launcher.defaultAction
openFile
-name
Titanium Studio
-vmargs
-Xms128m
-Xmx1024m
-XX:MaxPermSize=128m
-Xverify:none
-Declipse.p2.unsignedPolicy=allow
-Declipse.log.size.max=10000
-Declipse.log.backup.max=5
-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
-Djava.awt.headless=true

It Should run normally now.. :D

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Free Font Set For Programming

If you are developer like me, you will need icons to beautify your application. Here some Free Font Set for your Application Development.

1. PixsHub

2. Devicon or Devicon

3. Pavel Kozlov Free Icons

4. Fatcow Free Icons Set

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Multilevel Sub Menu for Twitter Bootstrap Project

As you may know, with twitter bootstrap release version 3.x, there is no support Multilevel Sub Menu anymore in navbar and dropdown. So as an alternative which is better than you tweak twitter bootstrap by your hand, you can use "SmartMenus for JQuery" which can use side by side with twitter bootstrap and it is Responsive and also Free too.
Check out SmartMenus in it homepage http://www.smartmenus.org/

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Install PHP-FPM 5.4 in Ubuntu 12.04.4 + Nginx

For the startup i'm following https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-linux-nginx-mysql-php-lemp-stack-on-ubuntu-12-04 tutorial to installing LEMP (Linux, nginx, MySQL, PHP) in my VPS. The server Run perfectly. But then for my project i used Laravel 4.2 which required PHP 5.4 for minimal requirement. So then i upgrade the PHP by following http://www.dev-metal.com/how-to-install-latest-php-5-4-x-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts-precise-pangolin/:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-oldstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5-fpm

After that when i try to view page that contain php code, the server going error.
I view Nginx error from "/var/log/nginx/error.log"

2014/06/10 06:37:18 [crit] 481#0: *1 connect() to unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock:", host: "yourdomain.com"

Then found some solution from http://www.queryadmin.com/921/connect-unix-var-run-php5-fpm-sock-failed/:
Edit the pool file "/etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf" and change:

listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock

to this:

listen = 127.0.0.1:9000

Edit the Nginx vHost file "/etc/nginx/sites-available/default" and change:

location ~ \.php$
{
    ...
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
    ...
}

to this:

location ~ \.php$
{
    ...
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    ...
}

** If you wrote the fastcgi_pass on /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params file, edit it too.

Restart PHP5-FPM service:

/etc/init.d/php5-fpm restart

Restart Nginx service:

/etc/init.d/nginx restart

That's it, you may solved the issue now. Have Fun.

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