This is old news by now, but essential. It changes that gratuitous 3D shinny Dock to a more plain and usable 2D version. I learned about this tip here (which also has screenshots).
From Terminal, type:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean true && killall Dock
Ta-Da. To undo change the true to false
Finder has this annoying habit of hiding files and extensions it thinks will confuse you. As if!
By default Finder hides files that start with "." (dot) and perhaps others too. To see all files, in Terminal type this
defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles true && killall Finder
To revert, change the true to false. I originally bumped into this here.
Finder sometimes likes hiding the file extention like ".html" from you. To fix this: go into Finder's preferences, click the Advanced, and then click "Show all file extensions"
Enjoy!
Here's how to add a spelling checker to Emacs on Mac OS X. This will work for both terminal based or GUI based versions.
First, for goodness sake, install MacPorts. After it is installed from terminal do:
$ sudo port -v selfupdate $ sudo port install aspell-dict-en
You can install other languages too. Take a look at "port search aspell" for the list.
Then just add the following line to your .emacs
(setq ispell-program-name "/opt/local/bin/aspell")
Load you your text (or html or xm) file and do M-x ispell
Oh yeah! You can read more on the Emacs commands here
In Mac 10.5, ichat 4.0 has some nerdy fun new features. I'm not sure if the AIM supports these directly and ichat is just enabling them or if they are ichat-proprietary. Either way, it's great. I don't use all the wacky ichat features - audio, video, screen sharing - yet.
Finally! And they work very well. There are vertical "tabs" on a left sidebar. To enable you have to go to ichat preferences, messages, and check "Collect chats into a single window." it rules.
by going invisible, you can see the status of your friends, but they can't see you and you can still send and receive messages. It's like a more aggressive "Away" status.
Oh yeah, I found a super minor "bug" too - ichat menubar icon missing 'invisible' status.
This only works when both parties are using ichat, but if you type /me something it sends a IRC-like status message. The best way to understand is to try it. I first read about it at tuaw.com
I'm not sure how this really works, but it appears that if you are offline and someone sends you a message, the next time you log in, you will get old messages that were sent while you were away (just like cell phone SMS). Yahoo IM has had this for long time.
Anyone got any details on this? Or is this just the sender resending the message. Either way, it's a good addition
Ok I haven't tried this, but you can now invoke applescript in response to messages. So you could "auto-accept" new chats. Even better, if everything is set up correctly, you can make a "poor man's remote control" for your computer.
So I've had leopard for about 24 hours now. The best things are: Finder, TimeMachine, and, uhh, Terminal. heh, I'm a nerd. Spaces is good too.
Hmmm, well, it's a mixed bag. Lots of minor changes that are "fine," with others being good and bad
Good.
bad:
Hey now, it's a lot better. Everything now has a real preview. Coverflow for folders is kinda cool. Hitting "space" on any item opens a fast preview. It's great for source files and pictures.
Wow, this really works. You might want to buy a dedicated external hard drive for this. you plug it in, and it just works. Nothing to configure! Need to free up space? just go into hard drive and delete whatever backup you want. Multiple computers can use the same hard-drive (in fact, you might be able to do something tricky with firefire and have each computer backup each other.)
Real virutal desktops! I have cheap machines that use main memory instead of dedicated graphics memory so I wondered how this work. I have to say switching between 1920x1280 virtual desktops is fast and painless. On my tiny 1024x768 laptop it is a godsend. The only down side is their is no small icon preview of the other desktop like you see in some other OS.
To turn it on, go into system preferences
Safari V3 is a lot better. First I think/hoped they fixed a lot of annoying web-dev bugs. Lots of heavy ajax sites that didn't work or worked strangely in V2 now work. Also SVG is supported and easily 10x faster than firefox (more on this another time). I guess you can download V3 without leopard too.
I don't use these much, but it's a bit odd how you can sync your address book with yahoo, and that yahoo doesn't have POP/IMAP for their email. Google has horrible contact management, but now has free IMAP/POP for email. Go figure.
You can have tabbed conversations, if you go into preferences. The "tabs" are really a sidebar. I don't use any of the fancy stuff so I can't comment.
UPDATE 01-Nov-2007: ichat let's you become "invisible" now. You can send and receive messages, but you don't show up as "online". excellent!
Finally tabs. The font clarity and colors seems improved too.
Leopard turns it off by default. Go into SystemPreferences:Security to turn it back on.
It's still 4.0.1 but the build number is slightly different. boo. The reason is probably because Apple is working on a snazzy gcc replacement!
Include are the latest versions of Python (2.5.1), Ruby (1.8.6), and PHP (5.2.4)!
It works, but only until I deleted my ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox directory. I must of had a bad plugin.
There you go. So far so good.
Did you know emacs finally released a new version?!
If you are using MacPorts, do this for a terminal (non-gui version). Do port variants emacs for other options.
sudo port install -v emacs
We are going to install our lisp code in ~/.emacs.d/site-lisp which I think is more-or-less standard, but you could use any directory.
export SITE_LISP=~/.emacs.d/site-lisp
mkdir -p $SITE_LISP
svn export http://svn.ruby-lang.org/repos/ruby/trunk/misc ${SITE_LISP}/ruby
emacs -batch -f batch-byte-compile ${SITE_LISP}/ruby
Don't forget that last step! That compiles the lisp code, and will make emacs run faster (handy if you re-indent a large file).
.emacs
Add this to your .emacs. This is a complete rip from RubyGardens's Installing Emacs Extensions, with the exception of the first line.
;; ruby
;; based on http://www.rubygarden.org/Ruby/page/show/InstallingEmacsExtensions
;;
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/ruby")
(autoload 'ruby-mode "ruby-mode"
"Mode for editing ruby source files")
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.rb$" . ruby-mode))
(add-to-list 'interpreter-mode-alist '("ruby" . ruby-mode))
(autoload 'run-ruby "inf-ruby"
"Run an inferior Ruby process")
(autoload 'inf-ruby-keys "inf-ruby"
"Set local key defs for inf-ruby in ruby-mode")
(add-hook 'ruby-mode-hook
'(lambda ()
(inf-ruby-keys)))
;; If you have Emacs 19.2x or older, use rubydb2x
(autoload 'rubydb "rubydb3x" "Ruby debugger" t)
;; uncomment the next line if you want syntax highlighting
(add-hook 'ruby-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
If you work with graphic formats, you probably are or will use ImageMagick. And if you are using a pre-built binary, at some point you'll bump into a limitation and will need to compile it yourself.
Normally, one might try and do the ./configure; make; make install cycle using their instructions, but the dependencies are really complicated. You might get a minimally functional version to work, but will be missing fonts and functionality (believe me I tried).
On linux et al, mostly like some type package manager is available and you can use that. On Mac, you have two choices, fink and macports to automate the pain. Personally I've found macports a bit easier to use, and it worked out of box.
However ImageMagick is a complicated program and I found macports needed a few tweeks to make the ultimate binary. Here's what you need to do to install. Advanced users might have already done the first two steps.
Head over to Apple's Developer Connection and download xcode. You might need to create a user id. Anyways, it's a monster download of around one gig.
Open up the file, and click on the XcodeTools.mpkg and go through the install. Then open up the Packages directory and click on X11SDK.pkg and install that.
This is an adbridged version of the official page UsingMacPortsQuickStart. Refer to this page if you run into trouble.
Go to MacPorts.org (note its plural, not MacPort). And find the latest download. Make sure you pick the right version for your OS. Download it and install.
Open up a Terminal and do sudo port -v selfupdate
These are not technically necessary, but they make life better. The change to freetype allows for TrueType font-hinting to be turned. It's turned off since it's patented, but you can turn it on. It makes certain fonts look better
The librsvg is for rastering SVG images. ImageMagick uses it, but it also provides a direct SVG to PNG encoder ('man rsvg').
This takes a a while. Like it's time to get lunch. Somehow most of GTK is being downloaded and linked (although you won't be using much if any of it).
sudo port -v install freetype +bytecode sudo port -v install librsvg
Finally, let's install it with lots of special formats turned on. It doesn't take that long.
sudo port -v install ImageMagick +graphviz +gs +wmf +jbig +jpeg2 +lcms
If all goes well, which identify shoudl return /opt/local/bin/identify and identify -list type should list a lot of fonts.
Now you are ready to get some work done!
Oh you want manpages? Sheesh. Add export MANPATH="/opt/local/man:$MANPATH" to your ~/.profile
as (the assembler, based on GAS 1.3.8) is retarded. Anyways, it's easy to patch up.
Edit the pngcrush Makefile and replace the GAS_VERSION macro as such:
# OLD #GAS_VERSION := $(shell as --version | grep "GNU assembler" | sed -e 's/GNU assembler //' -e 's/ .*//') # MAC OS X GAS_VERSION := $(shell echo "" | as -v 2>&1 | grep "GNU assembler" | sed -e 's/.*GNU assembler version //')
then do make, etc.
And if that doesn't work, change it to GAS_VERSION:= "Apple"
I'm sure this applies to other versions of pngcrush and other versions of OS X
Update 29-Aug-2007: You can use the most excellent macports to install this instead.
sudo ports -v install pngcrush
