Systeme D

14 November 2004

Ming, Mac OS X and Perl

Ming is the smartest piece of technology I've stumbled upon this year. It lets you generate Flash files (SWFs) from within PHP, C++, Perl or Python, roughly in that order of popularity.

Using this, you can generate exceptional quality web mapping. Server-side rasterisation cripples your server and, usually, looks crap. CSS is great for icon placement (cf Geowiki) but can't do much else for maps. SVG is bloated and found on few desktops. Flash solves all these problems.

Installation

During the forthcoming months, I'll be describing some of the work I'm doing with Ming. But the first hurdle is to install it.

Most Ming users seem to be using PHP and Linux. I'm using Perl and Darwin (Mac OS X). I've posted the solutions I eventually found to the Ming wiki, but in essence:

  • export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET="10.3" . This is an omission in Panther and needs fixing before you start installing stuff. (Google it if you like - there are any number of references to this all over the web.)
  • Install libungif and libpng. This might be useful for libungif. Use Fink if you like, though personally, I find it easier to build from source than to install and update Fink. (That's not because I'm l337 in a Gentoo-like way. I just don't understand Fink.)
  • Follow these instructions at SourceForge to install the Ming library.
  • cd into perl_ext, and edit the Perl makefile to expressly specify the library paths, as in SourceForge bug 988705. (Bug 1041018 seems similar, though I haven't tried it.)
  • Now sudo make, sudo make test and sudo make install as per usual.

In use

So far, I've not found much missing from Perl Ming. Most PHP source can be very easily adapted - look here for the general principle. The only serious problem I'm currently having is getting setInterval to work.

It took me a long while to realise that you have to expressly import the constants, as well as the module itself. Thus:

use SWF qw(:ALL);
use SWF::Constants qw(:Button :DisplayItem :Text :Fill :Sound);

Remember to run Perl with warnings on (-w) - not that you wouldn't anyway - as the best way of debugging any Mingery you may come up with.

Resources

Four essential resources for Ming users:

  • Subscribe to the ming-users list at SourceForge. Read everything that comes through, even if it doesn't seem directly relevant.
  • Read the ming-devr list when you have a problem.
  • gazb has produced an excellent set of examples. Learn from them.
  • The best paper guide to Ming appears to be O'Reilly's Perl Graphics Programming, and fortunately, their 'free chapter for download' is the one that deals with Ming. The chat server is rather fun.

More to come...

Comments

And once you've done that, here's how to get it to compile on PHP (if you have to...):

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=8828205

Posted by Richard on 6.1.05 16:26

Hi. I am using OS X Tiger -- I've followed the steps you've provided but...

0) I have to "make static" in order to compile ming
1) perl Makefile.PL says No library found for -lpng (and -lungif), as well as
2) when I run "make test" in the perl_ext/ directory i get 20/20 subtests failed :(

Please help me :-)

Posted by Tzvetan Ivanov on 19.8.05 16:15

Hi there,

I'm searching for a pre-built binary of MING for OS/X, and found your site ( http://www.systemed.net/blog/entry041114172430.html ).

Do you have a pre-compiled version that you could send to me ( which would be very much appreciated ), or do you know where I can download one?

Many thanks...
Mal

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