Integrate Aptana Jaxer and Mac OS X. Starting Jaxer with the OS

I noted in my previous post that there was one drawback I had with integrating Aptana Jaxer and the instance of Apache I run on Mac OS X: Jaxer had to be running in order to use my local development server (since HTM, HTML, and PHP requests filter through Jaxer) but I couldn't get the Jaxer service to start automatically with the OS.

Automator, a utility bundled with OS X turned out to be the answer. I'd always wondered just how useful programs such as Automator are but, admittedly, I've never bothered to play around with it.

Before using Automator, I tried two things. First, I had the Jaxer Launcher application run on Login/Start Up. This was fine. I just clicked the "Start Jaxer" button, quit the program and was running. Still, I hate having to do something extra when I log onto my computer.

Next, I wrote an AppleScript (do shell script) to start the Jaxer server. This worked fine. Sort of. I was able to have the process added to my Login Items in the Accounts Preferences pane. However, whichever method I used to execute the process (either I ran an Application that was saved from Script Editor or I called the AppleScript directly), it would get locked up. Thus, I had to Force Quit the script or application. No harm done but it didn't get past the problem with my first approach: I still had to do something extra after logging onto my computer.

Enter Automator

Being a bit thickheaded, I kept plugging away at trying to get the AppleScript approach to work. Googling, reading forum posts, the usual. At some point in my search, I found a blog post that mentioned Automator. I'd totally forgotten it existed and decided that trying it would probably be a good idea since I wasn't getting anywhere with the AppleScript.

I don't know a lot (barely anything, actually) about Automator and this isn't meant to be a tutorial; rather, the steps I took to get Jaxer running at start up/login without me having to do anything at all.

Quick (and poor) Overview

Automator is a utility program on Mac OS X that creates a native Mac application which carries out a series of processes and/or steps that you lay out. I know that Automator comes "bundled" with Leopard, 10.5.x, and believe the same holds for Tiger, 10.4.x, but no idea about OS versions prior to Tiger.

My Automation Plan

My goal was to have the following steps followed:

1. Start Jaxer Launcher

2. Press the button "Start Jaxer"

3. Press the button "Quit"

My Steps

1. Open Automator and Open Jaxer Launcher (be sure neither Jaxer nor Apache are running)

2. Select "Files and Folders" from the initial dialog

3. Left default options selected (Get Content from: my Mac -- and -- Ask for Files and Folders now)

4. A File System Browse dialog appears

5. Locate the Jaxer Launcher application and select it **this may not actually be required...not sure!

6. Ensure that the Actions panel is showing

7. Open/Expand the Library folder in the Actions panel

8. Select Utilities

9. Select Launch Application in the pane to the right of Utilities (double-click it or drag-and-drop to the right panel)

10. Click on the drop-down and select Other... (way at the bottom)

11. Again locate and select Jaxer Launcher

12. Select Watch Me Do by double-clicking or dragging-and-dropping it under the Launch Application panel (located at the bottom of the pane in which you selected Launch Application)

13. Press the Record button in the Automator Toolbar (you'll see a translucent black window with a stop button and the Automator icon)

14. Flip over to the Jaxer Launcher application you opened in step 1

15. Press the button Start Jaxer

16. Press the button Quit (check in your Jaxer Launcher preferences that all checkboxes under Start/Stop tab are unchecked)

17. Press the stop button in the Automator pop up window (see step 13 for description)

18. Save in Automator

19. In the File Format drop-down, select Application

20. Save the file somewhere on your system

21. Open System Preferences

22. Select Accounts (in the System section)

23. Select the Login Items tab for your account

24. Press the plus (+) button to add a new item

25. Locate and select the application you saved in steps 18-20

The next time you start your Mac, Automator will run this program and Jaxer will be up and running without any problems.

Note

I am sure there are many flaws in my approach and I don't mean this post to be some sort of definitive statement on Jaxer and Apache integration. It's nothing more than a recording of the steps I took to make it all work. If you see things I did that are/were wrong, dumb, idiotic, inefficient, etc., please post a comment and let me know!

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Integrate Aptana Jaxer with Apache on Mac OS X

In a previous post, I explained how to customize the Jaxer+Apache package one can download from Aptana. As I tend to do, I got a bit sick and tired of seeing port numbers in my URLs when developing. So, I took some time yesterday to integrate Jaxer with my local Apache. While this post is about integrating Jaxer with Apache on a Mac, it should apply fairly well to other 'nix flavors -- with some file names and locations being a significant difference between Mac and other 'nix variants. For Windows, you're on your own :).

On my Mac, I use a 32-bit Apache 2.2.8, which I installed via MacPorts. I've disabled the standard or default Apache installation that ships with OS X. I prefer this, as the default Apache install on a Mac isn't nearly as customizable as your own.

To start, download the Jaxer+Apache installer from the link above. Expand the archive (DMG for Macs) and follow the basic instructions to move the expanded folders/files to the appropriate location. For example, on a Mac, running the DMG results in a folder called Aptana_Jaxer that you drag/copy to your Applications folder. This is where Jaxer MUST live on a Mac.

What you've just downloaded is a self-contained Jaxer and Apache installation ("sandboxed", as it were) and you can stop here and just run Jaxer within its sandbox and have a good old time (Aptana has plenty of documents on doing this). There's an application, called Jaxer Launcher, that lets you start and stop your self-contained Jaxer+Apache server (runs on port 8081).

To get started, open Jaxer Launcher and start Jaxer (and Apache). This will create some default folders that Jaxer uses (logs, etc.).

The following are the steps I took so that I could run Jaxer with my regular Apache installation.

Separate Jaxer from its own Apache instance:

Initially, you need a way to divorce the two sandbox servers when running the Jaxer Launcher. In the Aptana_Jaxer folder, there is a subfolder called scripts. Open this folder, locate the file "start.sh", and open it in the editor of your choice (I use TextMate for little edits like this). Simply comment out the last line in the file, like so (adding a pound sign, #, before the declaration):

# $JAXERBASE/scripts/startApache.sh

This will prevent the Jaxer launcher from starting its own instance of Apache.

Instruct Apache to use Jaxer:

This is where I spent a good bit of time dealing with the integration of my preferred instance of Apache and Jaxer. In the end, it came down to adding just a few lines of code to my Apache httpd.conf file.

Start by opening the Apache configuration file, httpd.conf folder (mine is in /opt/local/apache2/conf/) in an editor of your choice.

Locate the Directory element that references your web root folder. For example, mine is:

# ...

</Directory>

Just before this element, add the following line of code:

Include /Applications/Aptana_Jaxer/jaxer/confs/jaxer-mac.httpd.conf

This instructs Apache to include the necessary Jaxer configuration files. You don't need to change anything in this file for Apache.

There are configuration files for each system (Mac, Windows, Linux) in the Aptana_Jaxer/jaxer/confs/ folder. For those of you on Linux or Windows, you would reference an alternate file in the above code.

Next, you need to add a couple lines of code inside the Directory element I noted above. The code is as follows:

JaxerFilter .html .xhtml .htm .php

JaxerFilterContentType text/html application/xhtml+xml

Adding these lines instructs Apache to filter .xhtml, .html, .htm, and .php files with the Jaxer server (i.e., it's how your Jaxer files get processed).

The changes to my Apache httpd.conf file now look like this:

Include /Applications/Aptana_Jaxer/jaxer/confs/jaxer-mac.httpd.conf

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews

AllowOverride All

JaxerFilter .html .xhtml .htm .php
JaxerFilterContentType text/html application/xhtml+xml

Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

The Drawbacks:

1. There is one drawback I found to doing this. If you don't have Jaxer running, you'll get a 500 error when you try to access any of the sites on your server. This is because Apache is trying to filter the pages through the Jaxer server and it's not running.

2. I haven't been able to make Jaxer start on system start-up (all my attempts thus far fail). However, I did tell OS X to start the Jaxer Launcher application on login so I just click the button to start the Jaxer server and I'm good to go. Not too much of a pain in the butt since both the Jaxer server and launcher fire up fast (lightweight). I'm looking for a permanent solution for this and will post as soon as I have it.

NOTES:

1. If you have installed a 64-bit version of Apache, be sure to follow Aptana's instructions to compile the Jaxer connector as a 64-bit connector (good instructions in the setup section of the Jaxer guide for doing this).

2. Check back later today or tomorrow for a post about further customizing this based on Virtual Hosts and not having all requests run through Jaxer.

Integrate Aptana Jaxer and Mac OS X. Starting Jaxer with the OS

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