Mac tools I use (off-topic?)

[Kim Slawson]

Hey all,

Long time no talk. I thought I'd mention some Mac tools I use, in case they were of use to anyone else. I realized I have a very customized editing/terminal suite. I can't live without the following four fairly esoteric items:

• Visor - terminal hotkey pops up Terminal whenever you need it (like the Quake terminal) - http://visor.binaryage.com/
• Solarized - balanced light and dark color palette, good for editing in your favorite terminal/editor - http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized
• D-Term - popup context-aware commandline sheet for most apps. The developer lives in Maine, btw - http://decimus.net/DTerm
• Cathode - Fun (and useful)! A modern "vintage terminal emulator", compare to James McCombe's GLTerminal (which is now finally dead, in the latest update to 10.6). Free to try (but degrades in quality like an old VT until you purchase a license for $20) - http://www.secretgeometry.com/apps/cathode/

I no longer use these. They are both SIMBL (inputmanager plugin) hacks last touched in the Tiger era and have not been updated for a while; I'm unsure of their functionality under 10.5 / 10.6 / 10.7, but they're cool if you are a vi/vim lover:

• viAllOver - vi clone for NSTextView fields... use vi in any cocoa app! - http://www.dabble.org/viallover/
• vi Input Manager - same idea, more recent, but fewer keybindings - http://www.corsofamily.net/jcorso/vi/

This is along the same vein (use your favorite text editor systemwide) and looks promising, but it requires editor support:

• QuickCursor ("your text editor, anywhere") - edit in your favorite editor, transfers back into a text field when you're done; on the Mac App Store - http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/quickcursor

I know summer is a busy time for everyone, but I thought I'd send a message and keep the list alive. What are your indispensable apps or tools?

Kim Slawson Kernel Panic Consulting kimsl...@gmail.com 207-370-7401