briefs-caster 0.1

What is it?

Rob Rhyne developed Briefs, an iPhone application for creating wireframes for Cocoa touch applications.

This is an insanely cool app, and much props go to Digital Arch.

So check it out first, http://getabrief.com. Ignore briefs-caster if you don’t fall in sappy love with Briefs, this will do you no good.

At some point, while going through the documentation, you will see some XML. I want to warn you about this, because no one warned me and I still have that bile taste in my mouth from the shock of it. This XML is used in constructing a Briefcast.

Briefcasts and briefs-caster

Within Briefs, you can add a URL that points to a list of briefs. In the app, it’s called My Briefcasts.

briefs-caster serves up any .brieflist file it finds in a directory you specify and can be entered into the Briefcasts section.

Installation

briefs-caster uses Python. To install it open a terminal and type the following

easy_install briefs-caster

If you use Pip (recommended), alternatively run this

pip install briefs-caster

Note you may need to sudo these commands on your system.

Usage

We’re going to assume that you’ve installed Briefs and have started using it. You should be to the point that you have a *.brieflist file that you’ve created by first using the bs script and then the compact-briefs script.

Let’s pretend it’s in a directory called ~/my_briefs.

Run the briefs-caster from the directory

cd ~/my_briefs
briefs-caster

Alternatively you can tell briefs-caster where to serve from

briefs-caster ~/my_briefs

You should see the following output

briefs-caster - Serving up some fine briefs for you

Open http://<IP_ADDRESS>:5000 from the Briefs app

CTRL-C to exit the server
* Running on http://0.0.0.0:5000/

In the Briefs app do the following:

1. Touch My Briefcasts

2. Touch Edit in the top right

3. Touch +

4. Enter Name Briefs-caster example

5. Enter URL http://127.0.0.1:5000 or if you are not using the same computer this IP may be different (we run the iPhone Simulator with Briefs inside it)

6. Touch Save

7. Touch Done

Now you are ready to try it out:

1. Touch Briefs-caster example cell

If everything went as expected, you should see your list of Briefs.