Even though Leopard ships with a fairly recent version of Python (2.5.1), there are several reasons one would want to use an alternative installation. For instance, Python 2.3.5 shipped with Tiger and was growing pretty long in the tooth by the time Leopard arrived; 2.3 was the default installation on Panther.

I've tried a few approaches to installing newer versions on the Mac: several years ago, I played around with Fink, then switched to MacPorts (formerly DarwinPorts). While either of these package managers make it very easy to install various software pacakages on the Mac, they each presented certain problems or limitations with respect to Python and the other web development packages I need.

My current preferred solution is to go with the MacPython distribution found on the Python website. There is also a great SIG (http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig) for getting help.

From http://www.python.org/download/mac/:

Python comes pre-installed on Mac OS X, but due to Apple's release cycle, it's often one or even two years old. The overwhelming recommendation of the "MacPython" community is to upgrade your Python by downloading and installing a newer version.

Listed below are the steps to setting up some of the most common Python packages used to for web development, particularly with respect to Django.

Getting started

Basic assumptions

• Mac OS X Leopard (10.5) - as of the date of this posting, I am on 10.5.3

• Subversion - you can find an installer at http://subversion.tigris.org/

• I use MySQL, so instructions for installing it and the necessary Python bindings (MySQLdb) are shown. If anyone has detailed instructions for Postgres installation, please send them to me at python [at] dakrauth.com

• An installation directory to use for these steps. For instance, here's how I began (from a Terminal window, bash shell):

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  mkdir -p ~/python/install mkdir ~/python/site-packages cd ~/python/install

  I use ~/python/site-packages as an easy way of referencing packages that will change frequently or for creating a pseudo-virtual environment. More on this below.

Installations

Python 2.5.2

• MacPython installation:

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  curl -O http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5.2/python-2.5.2-macosx.dmg open python-2.5.2-macosx.dmg open /Volumes/Universal\ MacPython\ 2.5.2/MacPython.mpkg hdiutil unmount /Volumes/Universal\ MacPython\ 2.5.2/

  This installation will create the site-packages directory at:

  /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.5/site-packages
  

  Additionally, your .profile file will be updated to place the above path at the front of you $PATH environment variable. I usually remove this change, since the only thing I like to have my .profile file a source line to my .bashrc file. However, I ensure that /usr/local/bin is place ahead /usr/bin in my $PATH string.

• Now I set up the ties to the aforementioned local site-packages directory:

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  pushd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.5/site-packages echo /Users/your-username/python/site-packages > my.pth popd

MySQL

• Lines 4, 5, and 6 below are a quick hack around an odd bug in the installer.

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  curl -O http://mirror.services.wisc.edu/mysql/Downloads/MySQL-5.0/mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86.dmg open mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86.dmg open /Volumes/mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86/mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86.pkg/ pushd /usr/local/mysql/lib sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/lib mysql popd

• Add the preference pane to your System Preferences and start the server from the preference pane (I also prefer to select Automatically Start MySQL Server on Startup):

  1 2	open /Volumes/mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86/MySQL.prefPane/ hdiutil unmount /Volumes/mysql-5.0.51b-osx10.5-x86/

• To setup a sample database to use with a Django project, here are the commands I issue from within the mysql shell:

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  CREATE DATABASE spam_db CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON spam_db.* TO 'spam_db_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'spam_db_password';

MySQLdb

• MySQLdb provides the Python bindings to interface with the database.

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  curl -O http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/mysql-python/MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz tar -xvzf MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar.gz cd MySQL-python-1.2.2

• Edit the site.cfg file:

  • Uncomment the line that begins #mysql_config =

  • Edit the path to point to /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config:

    mysql_config = /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
    

• Complete the build and installation:

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  python setup.py build sudo python setup.py install cd ..

PIL

The Python Imaging Library adds image processing capabilities and supports many file formats. Probably on of the most common applications I use it for are resizing and cropping images, and generating thumbnail images. This installation seems to cause many people grief, particularly JPEG handling (which is an optional install that depends upon libjpeg).

• freetype (optional) - a software font engine

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  curl -O http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.3.6.tar.gz tar -xvzf freetype-2.3.6.tar.gz cd freetype-2.3.6 ./configure make sudo make install cd ..

• libjpeg

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  curl -O http://www.ijg.org/files/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz tar -xvzf jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz cd jpeg-6b ./configure make make test sudo make install-lib cd ..

• PIL build

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  curl -O http://effbot.org/media/downloads/Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz tar -xvzf Imaging-1.1.6.tar.gz cd Imaging-1.1.6 python setup.py build_ext -i

  Checking for the following lines near the end of the output from the previous command:

  --- TKINTER support ok
  --- JPEG support ok
  --- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support ok
  --- FREETYPE2 support ok
  

  Complet install and perform a last sanity check:

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  python selftest.py sudo python setup.py install python -c "import Image; Image.open('Images/lena.jpg').show()" cd ..

  You should see a Preview window pop up with the picure of a woman wearing a hat.

Common Packages

• IPython - An enhanced Python shell. You will want it - and be lost without it very quickly. Django will look for IPython when you run the shell command extension.

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  curl -O http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/ipython-0.8.4.tar.gz tar -xvzf ipython-0.8.4.tar.gz cd ipython-0.8.4 python setup.py build sudo python setup.py install python setup.py install_scripts --install-dir=/usr/local/bin cd ..

• docutils

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  curl -O http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/docutils/docutils-0.5.tar.gz tar -xvzf docutils-0.5.tar.gz cd docutils-0.5 python setup.py install sudo cp tools/buildhtml.py tools/rst2html.py /usr/local/bin cd ..

• Markdown

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  curl -O http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/python-markdown/markdown-1.7.tar.gz tar -xvzf markdown-1.7.tar.gz cd markdown-1.7 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

Django

Installation of Django, using either Apache with mod_python, mod_wsgi, or FastCGI has been written about in numerous locations. However, here is my personal strategy for managing Django across various revisions:

• First, I set up a directory to store the revisions of Django that I need across the sites I manage:

  1 2	mkdir ~/python/django pushd ~/python/django

• Next, I have two helper scripts I use to manage my revisions:

  A revision "getter" called djget:

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  #!/bin/bash svn export -r $1 http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk $1 pushd $1/docs buildhtml.py --local mkdir html mv *.html html popd

  Run djget to export your desired revisions (why not just to stick to one revision? I manage a few sites and not all are on the same revision. Also, I like to play around with the trunk tip on my local machine first before deploying it live).

  Example:

  djget 7728
  

  This will export the desired revision into a directory named for the revision number (7728, in this case). It also generates HTML files from the reStructuredText documentation and moves those files into a new html directory

  A revision switcher called switch:

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  #!/bin/bash if [ -e django ]; then rm django; fi if [ -e html ]; then rm html; fi ln -s $1/django ln -s $1/docs/html

  Example:

  switch 7728
  

  This deletes existing symlinks to another revision and recreates them accordingly.

• I add the html symlinked directory to my Bookmarks Bar in Safari

• Finally, I symlink the django symlink in my local site-packages:

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  pushd ~/python/site-pacakges ln -s ~/python/django/django popd

Optional packages

• extensions - a repository for collecting global custom management extensions for the Django Framework. As a contributor to the repository, I would be remiss I neglected to mention it.

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  curl -O http://django-command-extensions.googlecode.com/files/django-command-extensions-0.3.tgz tar -xvzf django-command-extensions-0.3.tgz cd django-command-extensions-0.3 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

  - or -

  An example of how I use symlinks in my local site-packages to handle scenarios where I am frequently updating packages:

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  svn co http://django-command-extensions.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ django-command-extensions pushd ~/python/site-packages/ ln -s ~/python/install/django-command-extensions/extensions popd

  To use in your projects, just add 'extensions' to your INSTALLED_APPS settings.py file (details).

• Pygments - a generic syntax highlighter for general use in all kinds of software such as forum systems, wikis or other applications that need to prettify source code

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  curl -O http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/P/Pygments/Pygments-0.10.tar.gz tar -xvzf Pygments-0.10.tar.gz cd Pygments-0.10 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

• mdx_codehilite - markdown code highlighting extension can be installed as well (requires Pygments):

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  curl -o mdx_codehilite-0.2.tar.gz \ http://gitorious.org/projects/python-markdown-extra/repos/codehilite/\ archive/f30802583958c9f54e8b4390d8dafa8dd4a147fa.tar.gz tar -xvzf mdx_codehilite-0.2.tar.gz cp -v python-markdown-extra-codehilite/mdx_codehilite.py \ /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.5/site-packages

  mdx_codehilite is used to added syntax highlighting markup to this blog

• dateutil - provides powerful extensions to the standard datetime module

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  curl -O http://labix.org/download/python-dateutil/python-dateutil-1.4.tar.bz2 tar -xvjf python-dateutil-1.4.tar.bz2 cd python-dateutil-1.4 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

  
  

• path - provides a class (path) for working with files and directories (less typing than os.path)

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  curl -O http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/path.py/path-2.2.zip unzip path-2.2.zip cd path-2.2 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

  I've used the path package for years, but many people are adopting Unipath

• twill - a scripting system for automating Web browsing. Useful for testing Web pages or grabbing data from password-protected sites automatically.

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  curl -O http://darcs.idyll.org/~t/projects/twill-0.9.tar.gz tar -xvzf twill-0.9.tar.gz cd twill-0.9 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

• feedparser - Parse RSS and Atom feeds in Python

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  curl -O http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/F/FeedParser/feedparser-4.1.tar.gz tar -xvzf feedparser-4.1.tar.gz cd feedparser-4.1 sudo python setup.py install cd ..

Miscellany

• Here are a few aliases I have set in my ~/.bashrc file for developing on Leopard:

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  #!/bin/bash # System helpers # Flush DNS - after making changes to your `/etc/hosts` file: alias flushdns='dscacheutil -flushcache' # List of open ports alias ports='sudo lsof -i -P' # Python helpers: alias site-packages='cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/site-packages/' alias pyclean='find . -name "*.pyc" -exec rm {} \;' # Django helpers: alias runserver='python manage.py runserver' alias runserver0='python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8888' alias djshell='python manage.py shell' # TextMate helpers: export SVN_EDITOR="mate -w" export EDITOR="mate -w"

This may sound like a plug for the Apple "Switch" campaign. If so, I make no apologies.

So, I'm just a bit tardy on the Leopard upgrade, but do have the excuse of a huge push at work during the past week to deliver our first product alpha. Finally, this weekend, I got a chance on Saturday to diligently backup my PPC G5 in preparation for the Leopard upgrade.

I started off Sunday morning ready and eager to install and explore Leopard. After grabbing a cup of joe, I inserted the Leopard install DVD... and nothing. The drive mulled things over for 45-60 seconds then spit out the disk in disgust.

Huh?

Ok, Let's try another DVD to make sure I don't have a bad disc... crap, same thing. Just for kicks I try a CD? That one works just fine, thank you very much.

WTF? I retry all said media in my newer MacBook Pro machine and an older G4 PowerBook. All media works just honkey dory.

So now what? I really want to get Leopard installed today and am not looking to be deterred. I consider driving to our storage facility to ferret out an old external DVD drive which I haven't needed in a couple years. But then I think, "Come on, we're dealing with Macs here, not PC's running Windows". There must be something a bit more creative that can be done, and besides, I'm feeling just too lazy to drive.

The thought of purloining a DVD-ROM drive from another machine briefly crosses my mind at this point, but that solution is as undesirable as rummaging around in the storage unit, and just plain feels so 10-years-ago.

Well, let's see here. I recall being able to hook two Macs together via Firewire to transfer data when upgrading hardware. I have an old G4 Mac mini that's been getting a free ride as of late and it has a DVD drive in it. Perhaps I can get some worthwhile use out of it.

I hook up the Mini's power, a keyboard, and a Firewire connection to the G5 and boot the Mini holding the T on the keyboard attached to it.

Shortly, the firewire external drive icon appears on the G5 desktop. So far, so good - I'm feeling like this might have a chance.

I feed the Mini the Leopard install DVD and... welcome to the installer. The DVD is mounted and the initial installer screen is inviting me to install by clicking the Reboot button. Yes, please, time to see if we can actually boot from the media in the Mini's drive connected via Firewire.

But you know what to expect next, right? Your first clue is, as mentioned already, that we're dealing with Macs here.

Voilà, the Leopard installer has booted and is asking me for my language preference.

A load of laundry later and installation is complete. So while I'm a bit miffed that the DVD component of the G5's SuperDrive is sucking wind, I'm quite pleased by how elegantly the Mac has allowed me to improvise.

Try that on a PC installing Vista. Or rather, don't. Get yourself a real system instead.

The inspiration for these 11 keyboard shortcuts came from a dead battery in a wireless USB mouse. However, a few must be used in conjuction with a mouse click.

11 Keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X worth remembering, in no particular order...

1. c (on boot)

   Boot from CD.

2. mouse down (on boot)

   Eject CD.

3. cmd-opt-esc

   Force quit current app.

   Reminiscent of ctrl-alt-del on that other OS.

4. cmd-`

   Cycle through current application's windows.

   Everyone knows cmd-tab to cycle through applications, but oftentimes one has multiple windows of the same application and needs to cycle through them.

5. opt-cmd-esc

   Force Quit dialog

6. shift-cmd-4 + space + click

   Screen dump highlighted window.

   Everyone knows the shift-cmd-3 and shift-cmd-4 screen shot shortcuts, but this one is slightly different in that it allows you to grab the chrome of a particular application window.

7. cmd-;

   Spell checking.

8. ctrl-F2

   Highlight the Menu.

   Starts with the Apple menu highlighted. Use arrows to navigate.

9. ctrl-F3

   Highlight the Dock.

10. cmd-h

    Hide current application.

    Not that you would have anything incriminating visible in the current application, right?

11. cmd + drag background window title-bar

    Adjust a window partially obscured by the top-most window.