One Week with a Mac
 

Hello Macophiles,

My name is Chad. First time Mac user. I just thought I would drop a post here detailing some of my experiences.

First of all, i'm a power user. I know my way around *nix fairly well, and can manage apache and mysql. One big reason for conversion is the ability to drop into Terminal (rather than DOS, ouch). I write PHP and Python for web applications, and many people I respect technologically are Mac peeps.

My first week with the Mac has been 90% great, 10% frustrating. I think 10% is pretty darn good, considering I've never used one before.

Things I Love:
1. Terminal
2. It's super shiny.
3. Installing/Uninstalling is so insanely simple I can't even believe it
4. So many built in features/apps.
5. iWork is just as good as office (for me, not for everyone) and it's priced just right.
6. Expose? I think that's what it is - the ability to see all my open windows like that is pretty sweet.
7. Trackpad. I bought a Macbook, and this multi-finger stuff is like something from the future!
8. Multi-screen functionality. I plugged my monitor into my macbook and now I'm multiscreening. It just knew what to do.

Things I'm Still Working On - with a little detail
(please don't see this as a complaint list, just things i'm adjusting to - and maybe someone has some tips)

1. The "command" button. This is just going to take time. Everything is Command-this or Command-that. I really like that it keeps my fingers on the keyboard, but i suck at it right now. End and Home buttons react differently when editing than I expect ... now i have to use command-right/left. I'll get there, just part of the learning curve.

2. Code Editor. Everyone and their brother is howling about the glory of TextMate. So far, it just hasn't suited me. The things it's missing (or I am missing) are: Outline View and FTP built in. I can live without the FTP thing, but i really need an outline view. I use CodeIgniter (php framework) quite a bit, and if you've ever looked at a Model in CodeIgniter it's quite long with many functions. Fishing for the one i'm looking for is a lot easier when the IDE lists them, and makes them selectable. So I'm continuing to use Aptana, which does everything but I feel weird running a Java app on a Mac. It's like i have a new Porsche, but i have to ride it on the back of a flatbed truck. Anyone have any ideas?

3. Browser. This is a tough one. Safari is so fast and slick - and integrates with the multi-finger touchpad commands - but no gestures or firebug. I was a big ol Firefoxer on PC, I love gestures and I need firebug. FF feels kind of clunky on the Mac, i'm not sure why. It doesn't function the same way either... no Ctrl-enter to autocomplete the URL, no bookmark shortcuts in the URL bar (i used to type just "g [search term]" for a google search or "wiki [search term] to only search wikipedia". That is gone from the Mac version. Camino is nice, and has a couple of those but is missing Firebug. So, the search continues.

4. The Dock. I'm still trying to figure out what this is to me. As a guy who used a PC for so long, it seems like a quicklaunch. However, I don't need huge icons for quicklaunch so i tried hiding it. Then i couldn't see what was running. So i'm still not sure how i feel about it. Also, it's kind of weird that I don't know how many instances of a particular thing are going (on PC you'd see "4 Firefox, 2 Microsoft Excel, etc"). Am I missing something there?

5. Image Editor. This is not a big deal, just having trouble finding the right image editor for me. I'm not advanced enough in Adobe (either PS or Illustrator) to use them (nor do I really want to drop the cash). I was using Fireworks for a long time, it's reasonably cheap and does the things I need.

That's it. So, while i was more verbose in my complaints that i am in my praise - don't let that fool you. I am very happy, and I think I'm near full assimilation. :)

-chad

As far as the Dock goes, I don't even use it anymore. I have it set to hide and I removed all the icons off of it. I use the Quicksilver app to launch programs for me instead.

One quick tip - to view all your active applications, simply press Command + Tab (yes, another Command something or other). I've found that once you get used to it, OS X is extremely smooth and fluent once you get all the quick keys down. I rarely use the mouse unless I actually have to click on something.

There is no Ctrl-enter to complete a url because enter/return does the job better! In Safari, begin typing a url that you've been to before and hit enter or return when it completes it to your satisfaction, or use the arrow keys to scroll down the list provided! FF handles this similarly, although not as well, IMHO.

For textediting, scripting and coding I use textwrangler which is free and open source.

I use the dock but I am a heavy stacks user.

For an image editor, Pixelmator or Photoshop Elements are both well under $100. GraphicConverter is a powerful $40 image editor but the UI is less elegant than the other two.

Oh, and try Textwrangler for code editing. It's got FTP capabilities.

thanks much! i'll check out textwrangler.

For FTP get Filezilla, works on Linux, Windows, and of course OS X and is very nice FTP client.

for image editing GIMP is very good and very free.

I use firefox for everything (except for ABC online, whose player doesn't work on FF, at least 3.5b4) and its omniscient bar is one of its best features IMO. Just my two cents

update: someone offline has shown me how to use TextMate to view your methods. It's not obvious when you fire up the program. Command+Shift+T. Works like a charm!

I really appreciate everyone's responses. Thanks so much.

If there are genuinely two instances of a program running, then that program's icon will appear twice in the Dock. However, the Dock does not display at a glance* how many windows a specific instance of a program has open (I believe this is what you mean by the "4 Firefox, 2 Microsoft Excel, etc" bit).

*If you right-click (ctrl-click) or left-click-and-hold an app's icon in the Dock, you will get a pop-up menu that lists each window which that app has open. Clicking on the desired one will then make that window active.

EDIT: just in case you don't already know, the size of the icons in the Dock can be reduced (you may find a smaller Dock acceptable).

Again, I'll recommend TextWrangler.

As for the Dock, I move it to the right hand side, as screens are wider than tall. Particularly on my laptop, it gives me a bit more height on my windows, making pages displayed to fit the window that little bit bigger.

Keep the Dock quite small; magnification at your pleasure; and use Stacks. I have Applications, Utilities, Downloads, and a couple of other folders in the dock, so apps and files are never more than a few clicks away.

You need to get away from the idea that having two windows open in an app represents 2 instances of the app!

Right-clicking on a dock app will show you a list of documents open.

Think of Command like ctrl (it sits in the same spot obviously). cmd/ctrl+tab is the biggie although it doesn't work as well in OSX as it does in Windows which pisses me off from time to time. In FF cmd+t (ctrl+t) new tab, cmd+f (ctrl+f) find, etc.

I wish there was a good IDE, but meh they are so so. I come from Beans/Eclipse/VS (vs ide is free now if you didn't know).

I touched on it above, but substitute ctrl with cmd. Also note that a couple of the features you are talking about are add-ons.

I'm not a big fan of the dock other than a launcher. Even if you have apps running and click the apps icon it will just pull up the running instance so you won't have 50 copies running. The running notification icons on the right are pretty much worthless.

Just get used to Gimp. Cross platform, free, and a beast considering (it also has a million plugs and you can use PS plugs as well with another plug haha).

For the record... I've been using a Mac for 3 weeks and the 2 things that piss me off are cmd+tab and using an external monitor without using the Macbooks lcd. Just to save you grief down the line. If you don't want to use the laptops screen turn off the Macbook, plug-in the external display, power on the Macbook, and shut it quickly. If you don't it constantly goes to sleep or if you hook it up while it's powered up the resolution flakes out. Not sure why they haven't fixed that yet.

At any rate, I've been running RH and CentOS forver (RH since 4.2) so hopping into a Mac was easy especially since I've been using bash for so long. I don't love OSX, but I definitely like it. Being in IT I have to run it all so favorites don't really matter ;)

Great advice from everyone. I think i do like moving the dock to the left. Given that my monitor is 16:9 i certainly have more room to give in the x dimension.

As for browser - perhaps I can become a 2 browser person. Use FF for development and Safari for surfing.

I also added some additional stacks - very cool.

I'm really impressed with this forum, lot's of constructive help. Thanks everyone!

No problem, now go download Filezilla off of sourceforge!

DO IT NOW! :D:)

Seriously though, it is a fantastic product and it works on every platform. So once you get used to it, it will follow you around. I run it on both my Windows boxes and my macs at home and at work.

TextWrangler isn't open source. Perhaps you were thinking of Smultron? http://smultron.sourceforge.net/

Hmm i must have had that confused, thanks

There are some Firefox plugins that I use to make it behave better in OS X. There was a good discussion about FF plugins a while back:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=100369

For a better browser experience, check out Omniweb. It's sometimes slower than Firefox, but its built-in site-specific preferences are just lovely. (Different style sheets for different sites for the win!) It's the oldest Mac OS X browser, since it was The browser for the NeXT platform. So good I paid for it (twice! hey, programmers have to eat!) but it's now free.

Editors:
I personally like Dreamweaver for all of its features and seamless integration with PS and IL, but its expensive (unless you get it for free ;)
If you don't wanna pay, Komodo Edit is the ****! I like it over TextWrangler and Smultron because of the fact that it's a cross between an IDE and Editor, e.g. Project Management. For plain editors, Smultron and TW are both great. Try them all out and pick for yourself.

I'm a lifetime PC user that switched when Vista (just threw up in my mouth) came out. Been using the Mac for about 3 months and phucken love it. The Cmd key is great because it seems to keep a standard across most applications. Oh, and I can't wait until Apple upgrades the firmware for the multi-touch trackpad so it can be customized/tricked out!

Not to hijack the thread, but is there any way to switch between open windows in an application (a la the Alt-tab on Windows)? It seems to be the one thing missing in OS X.

Cheers,
Matt

Cmd Tab switches Applications
Cmd ~ switches Windows within an application
Also see Spaces and Expose.

What have you heard about Apple modifying the multi-touch trackpad? There are already a variety of 3rd party tools for altering it's behavior.

command+` (the one above tab) switches between windows of different apps, but won't bring up a window like command+tab or alt+tab on windows.

That's because Windows does it wrong, treating every window as a separate application.

If the built-in Apple method doesn't completely suit your preferences, you may want to have a look at Witch. In addition to its many other features, it has a customizable window switcher which gives a display of all open windows.

http://manytricks.com/witch/selectorsmall.png

Expose for the win, that is what I use and I assign it to a mouse button. I wish that I could assign it to a mouse gesture, but maybe down the road we will see that?