Even More improvements for Mockups

Balsamiq just released their newest version of Mockups, which includes some things that I've wanted, but didn't tell them I wanted. Somebody else told them though:
- Move dock ui library left, right, top
- dock the properties inspector (it gets in the way sometimes)

The one I think is the most useful is
- Stretchable Geometric Shapes

Seems dumb, but when I was making some more general purpose projects for cards night, I wanted some shapes, but I didn't want them to look so blocky. Now my shapes will look more natural. Way to go Balsamiq!

Coming up, they have a feature to fix an annoyance I encountered today... moveable document tabs.

Now, if I could just get them to make a really nice way to do UML. I alway feel like I'm piecing things together.

I realize of course that they made Mockups for screens, but I love to use it for my class diagrams, sequence diagrams and general flow diagrams as well.

in reference to: Balsamiq Company Blog (view on Google Sidewiki)

A DSL for processing Web Service Results

My latest project included the requirement to process web service results in a generic way. I thought to myself... This is a job for Groovy Script!

But it became somewhat troublesome as these scripts would be written by non engineers, and it also opened up some security risks.

So, now the question remains, how would I then secure these results processing scripts, while also making them easier to write from 'services' types of folks?

in reference to: A Domain-Specific Language for unit manipulations | Groovy Zone (view on Google Sidewiki)

Follow the blog

I just added the follow my blog functionality. Why not follow my blog. I post on lots of stuff to make your development more productive. Just click on the follow link on the side. Then when I post something new, you'll be notified, and maybe you can put something great into your project too.

Design Mockups, realtime, real easy

A few months ago, I introduced Balsamiq mockups into my project because using Excel spreadsheets to design my screens was just stupid. I couldn't really 'communicate' with the rest of the team in India.

I still remember the night when I pulled this out. I remember Amit from Intelligrape in India happily exclaimed, with hope in his timbre, "Oh Brent, this is going to be so much better for us. Thank you."

He was right. It has increased the team velocity tremendously. We are able to work through the screens in realtime over YuuGuu, drilling down to the finest points of the design.

Here are a couple of the screen shots. We even use it for some class diagrams and sequence diagrams.

in reference to: Balsamiq Mockups Home | Balsamiq (view on Google Sidewiki)

Getting a signed in user in Grails tests

I found this to be helpful. I just needed one more piece of information.

def subject = [
isAuthenticated: true,
principal: "admin"
] as Subject

SecurityUtils.metaClass.static.getSubject = {-> return subject }
Subject.metaClass.getPrincipal = {-> return "admin" }

This way, when I needed the user later on in the code, when I called getPrincipal, I got it. E.g.

JsecUser currentUser = JsecUser.findByUsername(SecurityUtils.getSubject()?.getPrincipal());

in reference to:

"void setUp() {       def subject = [           isAuthenticated: false,           ...       ] as Subject       SecurityUtils.metaClass.static.getSubject = {-> return subject }       ...   }"
- Nabble - grails - user - JSecurity-Plugin and Integration-Tests (view on Google Sidewiki)

Class Diagram needs class groups selector

I love this plugin, but it really needs a way to graphically select some domain classes and delegate them to a diagram I could select from a menu or pick list or something.

in reference to:

"You may change diagram preferences defaults in your projects configuration file (Config.groovy)."
- Grails Plugin - Class diagram plugin (view on Google Sidewiki)

Seems pretty cool.

I think I like this Side Wiki. Now, if it would only let me highlight stuff for context, etc, I would love that.

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)