Installing the Sherlock Tools

Before you can begin developing Sherlock channels, you must make sure your system has the proper tools. Sherlock requires the developer tools available for Mac OS X 10.2 or later. In particular, you must have the Interface Builder application to design your channel’s interface. You must also have the Sherlock palette before you can add path information to the views and controls of your channel.

Install the developer tools for your system using either the Developer Tools CD that came with Mac OS X 10.2 or by downloading the tools from the developer section of Apple’s website. Once you have these tools installed, download the Sherlock SDK from the developer section of Apple’s website and install it. This SDK installs a Sherlock palette, documentation, and channel templates for you to use in creating channels.

Create the Channel Project

The Sherlock SDK installs a Project Builder template you can use to create new Sherlock channels. This template implements a simple Internet channel that lets the user enter a search string and retrieve the results. You should use this template as the starting point for any new channels you want to create.

1. Launch Project Builder.

2. Select New Project from the File menu.

3. From the New Project window, select Sherlock Channel from the Standard Apple Plug-ins section.

4. Click Next.

5. Enter the name and location of your project.

6. Click Finish.

Your new project includes a channel configuration file, a main code file, a default icon, and a nib file with a predefined window. The project also includes a Read Me file with the latest instructions on how to modify and debug your channel. You should read these instructions before deploying your channel for testing.

Loading the Channel

When you are ready to test your channel, you need to post it to a web server and tell Sherlock to load it. The simplest way to do this is to enable Personal Web Sharing on your local machine and place your channel files in the Sites directory of an active user. You can then load the channel from a browser address line.

The following steps show you how to load the default channel project. If you added any files to the project, you may need to copy those files to the Sites folder along with the standard channel files that came with the project:

1. In the Sharing System Preference, enable Personal Web Sharing on your test machine.

2. Copy the SherlockChannel.xml and Channel.icns files and the Channel directory to the Sites directory of your user home directory.

3. Launch Safari.

4. In the browser address bar, enter the path to the SherlockChannel.xml file of your channel. For example, if you put your channel in local user Steve’s Sites directory, your URL might look like the following:

sherlock://localhost/~steve/SherlockChannel.xml

Entering the URL for your channel configuration file launches Sherlock and tells it to load your channel. However, the icon for your channel does not appear in the toolbar until you explicitly add it, either programmatically or from the Sherlock application.

To add a channel to the toolbar from the Sherlock application, you would simply select the Add Channel to Toolbar command from the Channel menu. To add your test channel to the toolbar programmatically, you would use the following URL instead of the one in the preceding step:

sherlock://localhost/~steve/SherlockChannel.xml?action=add

For more information on loading channels using the sherlock scheme, see Accessing Channels.

Debugging Tools

Apple provides several tools to aid you in debugging your trigger code.

sherlock://si.info.apple.com/sherlock3s/

                    developerChannels.xml?action=subscribe

defaults write com.apple.Sherlock SherlockDebug 1