How to display a directory listing in Google App Engine

Google App Engine is really not meant to serve up a lot of static content; but sometimes you just want to!

If you put a directory full of stuff into your web archive and point your browser at it, AppEngine will tell you there's nothing there. It's possible to change that, though.

The following instructions are for the Java incarnation of AppEngine; I would imagine you can do something equivalent in the Python engine, but I don't know any details.

• Make sure your directory and its children are marked as "static" in appengine-web.xml :
style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-weight: normal;">Map your directory to Jetty's default servlet within web.xml :

<static-files>
      <include path="/*.css"/>
      <include path="/favicon.ico"/>
      <include path="/code/**"/>
   </static-files>

• Next, tell Jetty in web.xml to accept directory requests:
  

  <context-param>
        <param-name>org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Default.dirAllowed</param-name>
        <param-value>true</param-value>
  </context-param>
  

• Finally, define Jetty's "default" servlet in web.xml to accept directory requests:
  

  <servlet>
        <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.DefaultServlet</servlet-class>
        <init-param>
           <param-name>acceptRanges</param-name><param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <init-param>
           <param-name>dirAllowed</param-name><param-value>true</param-value>
        </init-param>
        <load-on-startup>0
     </servlet>
  
     <servlet-mapping>
        <servlet-name>default</servlet-name>
        <url-pattern>/code/*</url-pattern>
     </servlet-mapping>
  

  

... and that's more or less it!

My Eclipse settings

Eclipse is a great Java IDE. There are just a few things I don't like about its default configuration. Fortunately, it's highly configurable.

• Preferences
  • General
    • Ant
      • Editor
        • Formatter
          • Tab size: 3
            
          • Use tab character instead of spaces: uncheck.
            
        
        
    • Editors
      • Displaced tab width: 3
        
      • Insert spaces for tabs: Check.
        
      • Show line numbers: Check.
        
      • Text Editors
        • Spelling
          • Enable spell checking: Uncheck.
            
        
        
    
    
  • Java
    • Code Style
      • Qualify all generated field accesses with 'this.': Check.
        
      • Formatter: new profile "carl"
        
        • Indentation
          • General settings
            • Tab policy: Spaces only
              
            • Indentation size: 3
              
            • Tab size: 3
              
          
          
      
      
    • Compiler
      • Errors/Warnings
        • Potential programming problems
          • Serializable class without serialVersionUID: Ignore
            
        
        
    • Editor
      • Folding
        • Initially fold
          • Imports: uncheck.
            
        
        
    
    

Substring labels in Blogger

Have you ever tried giving your blog post multiple labels, one of which is a substring of the other?

Example: spring security, spring.

Once Google Blogs has latched on to the longer string, it will move heaven and earth to auto-complete the shorter one for you.

One solution is to add a comma immediately after the short string. Auto-completion won't try to overrule you then.