Category: apple

Tabbed Editors for OS X?

Ashley Bischoff28 Comments

Though I’m thoroughly enjoying my PowerBook, I’m not yet as productive on it as on my Windows box. It’s just a few niggling apps for which I haven’t yet found equivalents. And, at the top of the list is an editor.

I don’t need much in an editor — one with a tabbed interface along with syntax highlighting for HTML/CSS would be fine. Multiple undo/redo would be even better. But, I can’t find such an editor for OS X. Sure, on Windows, there would be several from which to choose — TextPad is probably the benchmark editor in this category and Crimson Editor (what I use) is freeware but just as good.

I’ve used tabbed editors on Windows for years and I’ve found them very handy. I often have four or five documents open at once — a couple CSS files, perhaps a JavaScript file or two, and a few HTML documents — and having a separate window for each document just feels clumsy to me. They invariably overlap and the filenames in their titlebars end up underneath each other. With tabs, I can see each filename easily and switch between files quickly.

When I first started looking for software for my PowerBook (before it even arrived, even), I penciled-in SubEthaEdit (formerly Hydra) as an interim editor. SubEthaEdit is a freeware editor with syntax highlighting and (as a bonus) Rendezvous support. But, it still didn’t have tabs for multiple documents.

Since finding SubEthaEdit, I’ve searched for other suitable editors, but I couldn’t find even one freeware editor with a tabbed interface. So, for a lack of other options, I figured that I may need to consider shareware/commercial editors as well. In that vein, I went to VersionTracker to peruse their HTML Tools section. I checked every app — shareware or otherwise — I couldn’t find even one with a tabbed interface :-/.

Some may claim that tabs are against Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, but even Safari supports tabs (however, Apple does frown upon MDI interfaces). So, are tabbed interfaces a new thing to the Mac world or is there some mystical tabbed-editor that’s just been eluding me?

Camino — Almost Had It

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

When computing, I like a consistent user interface. When on Windows, I want Windows-widgets and when on Mac I want Mac-widgets :). And, for the most part, I haven’t had problems of that nature. But, Mozilla Firebird on Mac OS has always bugged me a little bit. It’s a great browser, of course, but it has its own widget set. For example, select pulldowns (as you might find for a State on a form) have a pull-down arrow and scrollbars — just as you’d find on Windows.

So, at a New Years get-together last night, Ru whipped out his 12" PowerBook to show us one of his favorite Flash movies (Cow Bondage, FWIW) and I noticed that his browser had all the native Mac widgets! After a quick glance to the menubar, I noticed that he was running Camino. I had heard of Camino before — a browser with the Gecko rendering engine along with a Mac-tastic interface — but I had assumed that development dwindled once Firebird came about.

As it turns out, the Camino project is alive and well. So, I downloaded the latest Camino nightly and gave it a try just now. I loaded it up and it was like putting on an old pair of shoes that fit in all the right places. I had all my familiar widgets and I was ready to make the browser transition from Firebird. But, trouble soon began to seep in…

I first checked the Windows menu for the DOM Inspector but I couldn’t find it. Not that regular web surfers have much need for such a tool, but I find it an indespensible resource for web development. So, I can perhaps understand why the Camino team omitted it from their project, but I was still a bit bummed about that.

I checked for tabbed-browsing and, sure enough, it has there (Apple-T opened a new tab, just like Firebird). And, all the familiar keyboard shortcuts worked as well (such as Apple-L to load the URL bar). But, Camino didn’t react to the right mouse button as I expected. I right-cliked on the Back button and only got a context menu for configuring the toolbar (not a list of sites that I could go back to).

I really wanted to like Camino, but it just didn’t feel right to me. Sure, maybe I could find some work-around to the Back-button right-click bit, but there’d still be the DOM Inspector issue. And, now that Firebird has DOM Inspector built-in, there’s not much of an incentive for anyone to create a DOM Inspector browser extension either.

My best bet may be a matter of getting native widgets into Firebird instead of trying to get all of Firebird’s functionality into Camino :-/. But, I don’t have my hopes up about that either; a quick search of Bugzilla for “widget” bugs on Mac OS didn't come up with anything useful. Perhaps there’re no plans to make use of native Mac widgets on Firebird — maybe the Firebird developers perceive that Camino has filled that role.

MacOS 10.3.2 and Battery Update Released

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

I saw from MacRumors that Apple released MacOS 10.3.2 along with a battery update yesterday. I didn’t mind the OS update is a good thing, of course, as it included new ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers along with various bugfixes and security updates.

However, what really excited me was the battery update. Going by Apple’s description, it didn't seem like much at first — “The Battery Update enhances the performance of the battery to ensure that full capacity is available for your PowerBook or iBook”. But the forum comments attached to that posting give a different perspective:

AmigoMac: “I guess I won’t get it until my next flight … but hope it will help me a bit more… ;), it's reaching 3:00, full speed, and itunes on!”

coumerelli: “well, it’s later now and am SUPER thrilled to report that it looks like the battery has more than DOUBLED its life. I always look at the percentage (and compare to the ‘time’ the menubar gives me) and it’s now draining NEARLY as quickly. Hallelujah! woo-hoo! — That translates into 3.5 hours! Go Apple!”

I’ve already installed the battery update, though I haven’t had a chance to test it yet (I’m just running off wall-power at the moment). And the battery update isn’t even that big — just around 800k IIRC — though the OS update is over 30 MB. In any case, those power improvements look like good news for me, especially while I travel with my PowerBook over Christmas.

Mac Progress — 1 Week

Ashley Bischoff8 Comments

I’ve had my PowerBook for about a week now and it’s working out well (I’m typing this entry on the PowerBook now). Considering that I had to call my brother on that first day to ask him what the colored circles in the titlebar were, I’d say that I’ve made some good progress (for what it’s worth, the red circle is “close”, the yellow circle is “minimize” and the green circle is “change-shape”).

Of the apps I initially surveyed, most are working out fine — Mozilla Firebird and Thunderbird are working as expected, Fire is dandy, and Chicken of the VNC works just as I thought it would. But, they’re not all working out so well…

The biggest disappointment, perhaps, is the ftp client. I had Fugu earmarked for that slot, but I can’t get it to do normal ftp (only sftp et al). And, Fugu’s runner-up, Cyberduck, didn’t work out either — sure, it can do normal ftp, but it doesn’t even have such basic feaures as automatic binary/ASCII switching (at least, not as far as I could tell).

Since neither Fugu nor Cyberduck met my needs, I turned to Transit (which Jon Gales recommended in one of the comments from my last entry). Transit does all that I want it to (not that an ftp client needs much, really), but it’s also $25. Now, $25 isn’t necessarily a bad price for software, but it seems a bit excessive for an ftp client. Another ftp client that I’ve heard of is Fetch but that one’s also $25 :(. I really don’t want to pay that kind of money for an ftp client; but, I suppose I will if I have no other option.

If Fugu & Cyberduck were my biggest disappointment, then OpenOffice.org was the most disheartening. I really wanted to like it (after all, I use the Windows version on that OS exclusively), but the Mac OS X version left me wanting more. Really, it’s hardly a port at all — it’s just the Unix version running under X11 for OS X. So, it has the Unix interface and doesn’t have the usual Mac OS niceties such as the Aqua look or even the nifty Finder-ized open/save dialogs.

All the same, I’m between a bit of a rock and a hard place. Normally, when presented with an unappetizing option, I’d look for others. But, if I didn’t go with OpenOffice.org… is Microsoft Office my only option? Not only is Microsoft unappealing (after all, that’s one reason I bought the Mac), but it’s also on the expensive side as well — it’s about $250 for the full version (I don’t qualify for an upgrade and I’m not going to cheat with an Academic license)

So, I figure that I can either: (1) learn to live with OpenOffice.org, (2) Find a 3rd office suite for OS X or (3) find MS Office cheaply somehow. Though auctions can often be more trouble than they’re worth, I haven’t ruled out eBay. But, other than that, I’m open to suggestions.

As for virtual desktops, I had Space.app on the top of my list (especially since it’s free). I gave it a try but it just didn’t have the features I was looking for. When I use such an app, I like to treat my multiple screens as one giant desktop including desktop-switching by mousing off the edge of the screen. And, Space.app doesn’t have that feature :-/.

So, I turned to my second choice, VirtualDesktop from CodeTek. Sure, it's not free ($30, as it turns out), but it has all the features I’m looking for (mouse-switching and then some). Yeah, $30 might be a bit high for such an app, but I can respect that the developers must have had to do some low-level digging into the OS to achieve the functionality. And — ooh! — I see that they’re running a year-end 25%-off sale. I might just have to get that one.

PowerBook Ahoy!

Ashley Bischoff7 Comments

For years, Apple had always been that “other computer” for me. And, over those years, I didn’t have much respect for it since used cooperative multitasking and lacked a command line interface. But, Mac OS X changed all that.

Since its release, I’ve been keeping OSX in the back of my mind. “As a whole,” I thought, “would it be a useful computing platform for me?” But, still, I largely dismissed it since I had no compelling reason to switch from my current hardware. After all, Windows did what I needed it to do and I was used to it.

But over time, my Athlon 700 just didn’t seem as fast as it used to. Sure, it was pretty chipper back when I built it in ’99, but it just seems dwarfed by today’s 3 Gz monsters. So, even a year ago, I knew that a new machine was on the horizon.

Since I was going to buy new hardware anyway, a Mac once again came into consideration. Sure, I was well versed with Win2k and a virtual newbie to Mac OS, but Microsoft’s evil-factor pushed me to look for alternatives (I saw no need to pay money to a dishonest company).

The real turning point for me was SXSW 2003. The conference halls were WiFi-enabled and, being geeks anyway, many of the participants had laptops. What surprised me, though, was that about nine out of ten laptops were Macs — and these were people that I trusted within my field.

Ben and Mena Trott, Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric A Meyer — all Macs. If a good buying decision is founded on advice from people you trust, then my choice was clear. At that moment, I knew that — as a web developer — a Mac would be suitable for me.

My next step was getting the timing right. As a hardware buyer, nothing feels dumber than buying a model and having its successor come out the following week ;). In that regard, I found Mac Rumors’ Buyer’s Guide very helpful — it lists statistics such as the average number of days between a product’s updates and the number of days since the last update. So, that at least allows buyers to make a fairly well-timed purchase.

But statistics aren’t very comforting when a product surpasses its average-update-interval by days and then weeks —. July dragged into August which dragged into September. And, PowerBooks were nowhere in sight. But, my Athlon 700 wasn’t a complete paperweight yet, so I decided to just wait it out. Sure enough, new PowerBooks were released in mid-September. So, I set aside some of the proceeds from a freelance gig at the time for a PowerBook.

Since it would be my first Mac, I didn’t want to rush into anything. Interestingly enough, choosing the PowerBook model was the easy part — I needed more than 1024x768 (which crosses-out the 12”) and the 17” was just too big. So, I settled on the 15” with SuperDrive.

I next had to decide on the store, which at first seemed a bit tough (since there’re about a dozen online Mac retailers). But, MacPrices made quick work of that. Their site lists the prices for all online dealers and, even better, they also offer weekly best-picks for each model.

So, after confirming their reliability with ResellerRatings, I went with the weekly best-pick, MacConnection. For the standard $2600 price, MacConnection offered the 15” 1.25 GHz PowerBook with a carrying case and an upgrade to 1 GB RAM. Not that the carrying case would be that useful, but the RAM upgrade was rather tempting (especially since upgrading the RAM on my own would mean having the two stock 256 MB chips go to waste).

So, I ordered the PowerBook from MacConnection, along with a spare battery and a travel-sized mouse. Thanks to 2-Day Air, it should be here shortly :).

Now, the hard part is to find all of my usual applications (web browser, word processor, ftp client) all over again — keep in mind that my Mac exposure has largely been limited to testing websites on a Mac far off in one corner of the office. I’ve done some research ahead of time and I’ve filled some of the slots, but I could use some help on a few of these. And, though I have no qualms about paying for software when there’s no free app available, I consider that a last resort. So, if there’s a freeware app out there, I’ll give it preference.

  • Web Browser: Mozilla Firebird. That was easy ;). I already use Mozilla Suite at home and Mozilla Firebird at work, so this should be a smooth transition.

  • Mail Client: Mozilla Thunderbird. This was virtually a shoo-in as well, but then I got to thinking, “What about Apple Mail?” Not having used Apple Mail, I dunno if it’s any good. To its credit, it has Bayesian filtering (like Thunderbird), but I don't know much more about it. My one concern with Apple Mail is that, unlike Thunderbird, Apple Mail’s updates are largely tied to OS-updates and non-free (AFAIK).

  • Word Processor: OpenOffice.org. I already use OpenOffice.org exclusively on my PC, so this should have been a slam-dunk. But, OpenOffice.org still seems a bit clunky on OSX, from what I hear. Thankfully, Panther now includes an X Server by default (which OOo/Mac requires).

  • AIM/ICQ: Fire. Sure, I could try to install the various vendors’ client apps, but it just seems to much easier to have them all in one window. Besides, it’s GPLed — what’s not to like?

  • IRC: This took a bit of hunting, but it looks like the XChat port for OSX may be my best bet. Sure, Fire may come with IRC support, but I’d rather have the capabilities of a full-blown IRC client for when I'm actually using IRC.

  • FTP: This was a bit of a toss-up. Fugu looks good so far; it supports SFTP and SCP and it’s even won an Apple Design Award for Best Mac OS X Use of Open Source. However, I seem to recall reading somewhere that it might not support normal ftp (yeah, that does sound a bit absurd, but I can’t discount that).

    As a backup, I’m also considering Cyberduck. It’s also open source and it definitely supports regular FTP, but it just doesn’t seem as full-featured as Fugu.

  • Text Editor: This is probably the hardest one. Really, all I’m really looking for is a tabbed interface, syntax highlighting for HTML/CSS, and multiple undo-redo. And, SubEthaEdit (formerly called Hydra) appears to be in the lead. Yeah, I don't see a tabbed interface in the screenshots, but it looks like the best option at the moment. And, considering the free editors out there, I’m not going to spend the money on BBEdit ;).

  • Virtual Desktops: CodeTek fills this slot at the moment. Yeah, it’s $30, but there’s virtually no competition in this area. And, I haven’t forgotten about Expose, but it’s known to act up with Mozilla anyway (yeah, it’s Mozilla’s fault).

    In fairness, there’s also Space.app which is an open source virtual desktop manager. Considering that it's free, I won’t hesitate to try it, but my understanding is that CodeTek’s VirtualDesktop may be the more mature product.

  • Remote Viewing: VNC to the rescue :). Finding an VNC server for OSX was easy enough, but the only VNC client that I’ve been able to find for OSX is the dubiously named Chicken of the VNC. Then again, maybe its name is all in jest — in which case I won’t hold it against them ;).

  • Image Viewer: I already have an image editor in mind (Adobe Photoshop Elements), but sometimes I just need a small app to flip through some sliced web images. This is one category where I haven’t done much looking-around, but I’m sure there must be something. For the most part, I’d like an app which auto-sizes to the current image (instead of taking up the whole screen) and allows me to flip through files in the current directory with PgUp/PgDn (or similar).

  • Clipboard Manager: On the PC, I use the excellent Yankee Clipper which auto-saves all clipboard entries. To load one, I just recall the app with a hotkey and select an entry with the arrow keys (or the mouse). I’m not sure if a similar app exists for OSX :-/.

  • SMTP Server: Granted, this one is a bit obscure, but I thought I’d ask. Since my mail provider doesn’t include access to an SMTP server as part of their service, I have to provide my own (yeah, sometimes the local ISP’s SMTP can be used, but they often block mail that’s not From their domain). Postfix Enabler currently holds this spot (it simply enables the built-in SMTP capabilities in Panther’s Postfix), but it is shareware and I wouldn’t mind finding a free alternative if one exists.

Well, if you have any suggestions for some of the software above or there’re other utilities you consider a must-have, leave a comment. And, if you want to follow along with my progress, I’ll use this category (Apple) as I write more about my Mac experiences.