Monday, 22-Jun-2009 07:49:05 EDT
- Available in September.
- $29 upgrade from Leopard.
- Intel only.
- Faster
- Preview
- Allows copying text from a single column.
- Text annotation.
- Multiple documents in single window, cross-document search.
- Text
- Substitution, built-in/added (e.g., 1/2 → ½).
- Automatic spelling correction.
- Case transformation.
- Dock
- Exposé built in & spring-loaded.
- Stacks has navigable folders.
- Quicktime X
- Edits.
- Screen video capture.
- Mail previews MS Office files (e.g., Word ".doc"); includes Quick Look.
- Finder has slider to magnifiy icons (up to 512x512) that can be used as Quick Look (as in Cover Flow).
- Safari more crash resistant (sandboxed plugins).
- Menu bar can have both date & time.
- Vector graphics ("draw"): OpenOffice (Draw)
- Lots more tools than basics: e.g., gradient shading, transparency, primitive 3D.
- Retuns to Select tool after use of any other tool.
- Uses click, click-&-drag, & double-click instead of left, middle, & right mouse buttons.
- Includes text editor (Writer) that's better at reading MS Word files than TextEdit.
- Sun PDF Import Extension Beta allows editing of PDF (but still buggy).
Inkscape also can edit PDF files; uses X11. (Cocoa version should be ready when GIMP's is.)
- 3D graphics (raytracing, etc.): Art of Illusion (Java);
saves as JPG (e.g.), but Preview will convert to PDF
- Bitmap graphics ("paint"):
- Convert PDF to EPS (Mac OS X will do EPS → PDF & PDF → PS, but not PDF → EPS) with
xpdf:
In Terminal, type "pdftops -eps"
or just drop the PDF(s) on the icon of
Droppdftoeps
(which I made with DropScript: see below).
- JaxoDraw (Java) draws Feynman diagrams with just the mouse. (Others require programming & specifying coordinates.)
- STIX fonts have all the characters of TeX's Computer Modern fonts in a form that can be used in other programs, e.g., when making figures. ("STIXGeneral.otf" and "STIXGeneralItalic.otf" are the most important ones: TeX does math numerals as roman, math letters as italic.)
Also, Computer Modern Unicode fonts (Latin/Greek/Cyrillic only; "cmunrm.otf" and "cmunti.otf" are the ones most relevant for math.)
- MacTeX installer, includes
TexShop
(simplest GUI front end for TeX; now with source line numbering): ⌘-click on input/output to find same spot in other window;
now improved with SyncTeX.
(Modeled on TeXShop, TeXworks, now β, is for all platforms; includes SyncTeX.)
If you have font cache problems, try this bug fix.
- Safari AdBlock, an InputManager
(but Apple may soon discontinue use of InputManagers).
- MacFusion
allows mounting (s)ftp volumes as the Finder should, so you can add files, & edit with TextEdit (or use the latest iWeb, which includes ftp).
- Screensavers:
- Really Slick (especially Hyperspace, Helios, & Lattice)
- System 47 for those who like Star Trek (see User Comments for installation)
- Uniqlo: dance?
- RandomExtra chooses which screensavers to randomize.
- Radar in Motion: weather widget
- Apply shell command(s) to files by drag&drop:
Drop shell script on DropScript
to make it an application. Also, Platypus.
- Fortran & related stuff;
CERNLIB & other HEP.
- For the latest, install both the latest Safari and Webkit β, then use the Webkit β.
- JavaScript bookmarklets (drag to Bookmarks Bar) to click while viewing relevant page:
- One for translation.
- YouTube MP4 DL downloads mp4 in best quality.
- Option-delete deletes words.
- Control-click on selected word(s) to look up in Dictionary, Google, or Spotlight;
hold control-⌘-D to go from word to word for Dictionary.
- Control-clicking on a typo to choose a correct spelling is easier than retyping;
control-T between 2 letters to transpose them.
- Click & drag to select text as contiguous letters,
double-click & drag to do it with words,
triple-click with paragraphs.
- Character Palette for all Unicode characters (e.g., math in Mail):
"Edit>Special Characters...", or add directly to Title Bar by selecting in
"System Preferences...>Personal>International>Input Menu".
(See also my Unicode page.)
- Xcode (install separate from System) includes FileMerge
(or opendiff in Terminal):
Compare 2 files (etc.) with nice interface.
- Screen Sharing (also in iChat) allows remote control of your Mac (even over the internet).
- Put date into Menu bar (along with time): In System Preferences>International>Formats,
use Customize, copy & paste stuff from Dates into Times (Medium).
(But this will double the date in some other places.)
Note: This will be a Date & Time > Clock preference in Snow Leopard.
- ⌘-Shift-4 to select portion of screen for snapshot, or hit space
for camera to select window (or dock, menu bar, or desktop for all).
- When Finder refuses to delete a file, claiming it's still in use, I use Secure Empty Trash.
- Data Detectors: Click on address to look up on map or add person to Address Book, or on date to add to iCal.
- Move between mailboxes with ⌘-(number of mailbox).
- Alpha channels: Instant Alpha makes colors of region you select transparent; Extract Shape does similar by drawing outline.
- Thumbnails in Sidebar can be used to delete or re-order pages (even between files).
- Bookmarks
- To search by filename, type name:
- Does Dictionary & Calculator.
- For Boolean searches, use AND, OR, NOT (instead of Tiger's more obscure equivalents | and -), with parentheses;
also - for AND NOT.
- News/rumors:
AppleInsider
(RSS),
MacRumors
(RSS),
MacBidouille
(RSS),
Ars Technica
(RSS).
- WWDC coverage:
MacRumors,
Gizmodo,
gdgt.
- Grapher (in Applications>Utilities) also does equations nicely;
for arithmetic, just delete the "x=" (or whatever) & type.
- TeXShop preference I missed: To get Preview Window Magnification to work, you need to set After Window Resize to Fixed Magnification.
- I had a problem with X11 starting up unexpectedly (specifically, when running Terminal, or TeXShop with SyncTeX). Fink (which I no longer use) had put a line source /sw/bin/init.csh in my ~/.cshrc file, which I removed. (If you use another shell, a similar line may appear in another shell initialization file.)
- Turn picture into icon in Terminal with "sips -i".
(Cut & paste icons in Finder with Get Info.) Useful to give icons transparency.
- If a program gives some weird error message doing something it did fine the day before, and seems to run fine otherwise, restart it.