Tag: Apple

Which ProjectPlus do I use?

To go along with my last post, I thought it’d be good to just briefly let people know which ProjectPlus I am using with TextMate now.

For those who don’t know, the original ProjectPlus was a replacement for the project drawer that comes standard with TextMate. It provided an updated style, source control status indications, etc. However, the official version hasn’t been updated in a while.

Luckily, there has been some development on forks over on GitHub. Currently, I use this one by Frankie Dintino. It provides updates for Lion, and even-more-updated, style, some transitions, bug fixes, and a BBEdit-style workspace listing of open files.

Overall, I highly recommend you try it if you are looking for a replacement.

Which GetBundles do I use?

I’ve seen a few search queries coming here asking about GetBundles and Lion. Well, I grabbed the source from Eric Danielson’s fork of GetBundles at GitHub to get it to work properly. Mainly he added a change to the regex that allows https for GitHub, which was failing for me before.

Hope this helps someone.

The Editor that Isn’t

My TextMate license dates back to 2007 and I’ve been using it ever since as my main programming editor. An update for TextMate was announced around the time of Mac OS X Leopard’s release (October 2007 for the record), and it was a huge deal that it was going to be Leopard-only.

TextMate 2 has not been released and only very minor bug fix releases since that time. TextMate 2 has been a running joke for a while now, along the lines of Duke Nukem Forever … but now even that has passed as Duke has launched.

So, this post is dedicated to TextMate 2, the editor that isn’t, and the improvements I still hope to see one day if TextMate 2 is ever released to us unwashed masses.

  • update to 64-bit application
  • split editor window (both side-by-side and top-and-bottom)
  • better undo and redo
  • improved and speedier find and find-and-replace
  • a GetBundles-like system built-in
  • inclusion of Lion features (Resume especially, maybe Versions)
  • available on the Mac App Store

That’s really all I can think of at the moment. General speed improvements would be nice, maybe the inclusion of a Project+-like project window would be cool, but overall I like TextMate just fine the way it is and will continue to use it until the day comes when other editors are so far ahead that I can’t ignore it any longer (BBEdit would be my first choice right now).

I hope to see TextMate 2 some day, but I am prepared to make the plunge if the day comes.

The BBEdit Trial: Month One

It has been over a month since I downloaded BBEdit for the first time and gave it a go as my editor-at-large. It has been a rather crazy month as I’ve been digging deeper and deeper into Plone as I build out a custom theme for Martin Luther College’s website, and it gave me a good chance to put BBEdit through its paces in how I would use it day-to-day.

After a month, I’m of two minds.

Good Mind

Good mind me likes the fact that BBEdit is at version 10, and I’ve already stated that in the past. In the month that I’ve been using it, it has already received an update, been released on the Mac App Store, been updated on the Mac App Store, and I’ve gotten support within a half-hour with the questions I’ve had.

Those are compelling features.

It has handled the number of files I’ve had in my projects very well, I like how it handles the “project drawer”, syntax coloring works well, and the application itself is snappy enough to use as an editor.

Overall, it has been a great editor … but …

Bad Mind

It’s a Carbon app, using old-style borders around the windows and it doesn’t look like a modern Mac application. Now, BBEdit has a deep and long history, and it carries that with it for better or worse. I’m not really going to ding it for that, but it is something to keep in mind.

Because it is a Carbon app, BBEdit is 32-bit only right now. Granted, TextMate is 32-bit only for now as well (along with having a RASH of other small issues), but it is something I was not expecting at first.

I also miss bundles. I know you can script a lot of things, but one of the small examples is creating lists in HTML files. I could type ‘ul’ and have TextMate fill in the tags for an unordered list with a single tab. I could then Command+Enter down to the next line and type “li” and have my first list item. It would great. That is just one example that I miss from TextMate Bundles.

Conclusion

So what am I going to do? Stick with TextMate? Continue on with BBEdit? Go to Vim!?

I don’t really know yet. I’m going to keep bouncing back and forth between TextMate and BBEdit for the time being and see how things go. I’m again thinking of giving Vim a long chance since the BBEdit experiment went well, but that will be for the future.

Overall, I like BBEdit a lot, but I keep holding onto the hope that TextMate 2 will be released within my son’s lifetime.

The “Poor” 13″ MacBook Pro

The 13″ MacBook Pro has been getting beaten up pretty severely by certain commentators recently. Actually, ever since Apple released the re-jiggered MacBook Air in October 2010, that particular portable has received more than its fair share of beatings.

Well, I’m here to toss some love to the poor 13″ MacBook Pro.

First off, I’m extremely biased, having owned two 13″ MacBook Pros, but I’m not blind to the fact that the 13″ MacBook Pro is now, perhaps, the one Apple product that seems the most out of place. While the MacBook Air is receiving almost universal praise and the 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros continue to hold down their positions as the larger-and-higher-end portables offered by Apple, the 13″ MacBook Pro gets stuck between the two by having some higher-end components (faster processors, larger RAM capacity, Firewire 800 port, etc.) coupled with more weight, a poor screen (still at 1280×800), and no standard SSD (while the Airs come with ONLY an SSD).

Because of this, Marco Arment and Ben Brooks have maybe rightfully been beating up on the 13″ Pro. They have a hard time seeing where this machine might fit in for a person choosing a new Apple portable.

It really comes down to a number of factors.

RAM Potential

I can’t speak much because I’m still running at only 4GB in my 2011 13″ MacBook Pro, but I will soon be picking up the full 8GB to max it out. That’s fully double what you can put into a 13″ MacBook Air (or an 11″ Air), and can make a HUGE difference when you are running one or more virtual machines for whatever purpose.

Don’t underestimate what that can mean for a person who wants to be able to run with just a single machine, filling in whatever holes they might have with a dedicated VM for either testing, or that pesky Windows app that you need to have access to for work (I’m looking at you Microsoft Access 2010).

Size

A portable, by its definition, should be easily portable. The 15″ MacBook Pro is too large for me to comfortably take back and forth between work and home. Granted, I do not carry much with me at all other than a light case and the MacBook Pro, and I do use a case meant specifically for 13″ portables, so the extra size of the 15″ would make a difference.

The MacBook Air would be more portable, but the RAM potential above is something that can’t be completely ignored by everyone.

Expansion

An odd thing to think about with a portable, but the ability to purchase off-the-shelf RAM and hard drives to stick into my machine is something that appeals to me. Right now there is a 500GB hard drive in this little guy, but I won’t hesitate to drop a newer drive in here at some point to gain some performance increases or storage capacity … if there would be a need.

Processor Speed

The dual-core Intel Core i7 is a pretty speed processor, not getting hampered by the ultra-low-voltage requirements of a machine the size of the Air. The Air is mighty fast and impressive, but if you need processing power in a small package, the 13″ MacBook Pro is pretty attractive.

Conclusion

Even with all of that above, the 13″ MacBook Pro, sadly, is not long for this world unless some major changes happen. I think that the first thing that needs to change is the screen. Having a 1280×800 screen on this while the 13″ MacBook Air has a 1440×900 screen seems almost criminal, and it will need to change. I have to think that if this single change happened (along with maybe the option for quad-core Core i5 or i7 processors) that some people would be appeased.

However, Apple is probably going to drop the 13″ MacBook Pro completely, maybe the next major redesign of the MacBook Pro line. With that, the portable lineup from Apple becomes crystal clear: 11″ and 13″ MacBook Airs and 15″ and 17″ MacBook Pros. That’s a decidedly less-confusing lineup than what they have.

However, I will miss the 13″ MacBook Pro. That line has served me well.