Mac Applications Starter Kit
Since the latest release of Apple products, including updated iBooks and the all new Mac mini, many of my friends, colleagues and as far as I can tell from the some comments or forum entries, also some of you have recently switched to a Mac.
Since then I got a lot of requests concerning which software is recommendable for specific purposes. For this reason I’ve made up a list of software I use on a regular base…
NetNewsWire
Currently my favorite RSS reader with a bunch of great features, including support for podcasting, bloglines as well as for custom stylesheets, .Mac syncing, smart lists and many more.
TextMate
One of the best editors available for Mac OS X. Behind its clean and minimalistic interface TextMate provides extremely powerful and highly customizeable features, such as smart and column typing, snippets, macros etc.
skEdit
Excellent CSS/XHTML editor — the only editor with real code completion. By the way, the beautiful application icon, as well as the ones used in the interface have been designed by Jon Hicks.
CSSEdit
CSSEdit features full-blown source editing for the advanced user. With one click you transform the easy to use visual editors into a mighty source code environment. Currently my favorit CSS Editor.
Transmit
Simply the best FTP client available for Mac OS X. The recently released version 3.0 comes with a bunch of nice features, such as tabs, column view, DockSend, previews with zooming, server-to-server transfer, support for SFTP, WebDAV, iDisk etc.
Quicksilver
Quicksilver is definitely one of those apps that have to be installed on every Mac, as it provides you with a extremely convenient way to access and manipulate many forms of data. Personally I mainly use this app as application launcher, as well as for looking up phone numbers or email addresses.
Synergy
This handy little application provides the ability to control iTunes either via three buttons in the menu bar, or via system wide keyboard shortcuts. Additionally Synergy may display information on the currently played song, including title, duration cover etc. via a customizeable semitransparent floater. By the way, since version 1.7 Synergy also provides the functionality to display those infos via Growl.
Growl
Growl is a global notification system for Mac OS X. Any application can send a notification to Growl, which will display an attractive message on your screen. Growl currently works with a growing number of applications, such as Safari, iTunes, Apple Mail, folder actions and many more.
Saft
Saft is a Safari plugin to add features like full-screen browsing, searchable bookmarks and history, URL shortcuts, kiosk mode and more. Once you’ve tried Saft you don’t want to live without anymore — I promise you :)
Pixadex
Pixadex is to icons, what Apple’s iPhoto is to images and lets you import, organize and search huge numbers of icons quickly & easily. Pixadex lets you store all of your icons in a single place, organized into collections that you create. Additionally it provides the ability to easily export your icons into many formats such as PNGs, Windows and ICNS icon files etc.
Candybar
CandyBar is quite the easiest, quickest and by far, the safest way to customize the icons found in the system and application toolbars of Mac OS X. The tight integration with Pixadex is what makes this little tool so special.
Shapeshifter
With ShapeShifter you can skin every pixel of Mac OS — the look of windows, menus, apps, buttons, absolutely everything. Really impressive tool, although I always keep coming back to Apple’s default aqua theme.
VLC
VLC is a highly portable multimedia player for almost all available audio and video formats such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg… as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. If you like this app make sure that you also check out Jan Van Boghout’s VLC Replacement icons.
XScope
xScope is a set of tools that will help any designer do their job faster and produce more accurate results. As every application from the Iconfactory, it is also visually very appealing.
Well, from my point of view the list is quite complete. If you think that there are some more tools to be mentioned — and I’m sure there are — please post them in the comments. By the way, in order to create a link, just copy the whole URL (including “http://”) to the comments field — the link will be generated automatically.
14 comments so far
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Simon Zirkunow March 08, 2005 at 04:41 AM
I used Synergy for a while. Then I discovered ByteController (Link It does the same basic things without the advanced stuff — but unlike Synergy it comes for free!
Philipp Daun March 08, 2005 at 05:05 AM
Danke, nette Zusammenfassung soweit, Wolfgang! Obwohl ich auch einer der Typen bin, die wohl endgültig nie vom Windows abzukriegen sind (Frag nicht wieso, ich weiß es auch nicht ;-).
Wolfgang March 08, 2005 at 05:21 AM
Ein Mac ist ja schließlich auch nicht die Antwort auf alle Fragen — abhängig vom Anwendungsgebiet bietet sich Windows, Mac OS und Linux mal mehr, mal weniger an :)
Christian Bogen March 08, 2005 at 06:07 AM
Indeed, TextMate is a promising editor but I strongly dislike the it’s use of italics in syntax highlighting. That just looks stupid with a 10 or 9 pt Monaco (without anti-aliasing) which for me remains the plain text font. (And from what I found in the TM mailing list archives the author seems disinclined to change that …) Good alternatives to look at: SubEthaEdit and TextWrangler.
Wolfgang March 08, 2005 at 06:37 AM
I’ve just added skEdit to the list — how could I forget about it? ;) Thanks for the hint…
Wolfgang March 09, 2005 at 09:13 AM
This night I was working on my site trying to make it unicode compatible — due to an error in a script I removed the contents of all comments ever posted in the journal. After hours of work I could restore most of them. However the most recent ones are still lost. Unfortunately the most recent comments were also the most intersting ones — at least for myself, because in one of them Allan Odgaard described how iTunes can be controlled via Quicksilver. Allan, may you post the links to the applescripts once again? Sorry for any inconveniences. Wolfgang.
Julian March 09, 2005 at 03:03 PM
I found a link concerning the Quicksilver AppleScript in my history: Link You can download this scripts here: Link http://macromates.com/files/iTunes Scripts for QS.zip In this topic (1st link) you will find many other possibilities to download the scripts, i couldn’t say which one is best.
Sean March 09, 2005 at 03:29 PM
It seems you omitted.. Adium X (Link — instant messenger, Camino (Link or Shiira (Link — web browser, FFView (Link — image viewer, OnyX (Link — system utility, and Spark (Link — shortcut manager. All of these apps are freeware, of course..
Wolfgang March 09, 2005 at 04:04 PM
Thank you Julian for reposting the recently lost links. Great. And thanks Sean — obviously I really omitted Adium. Shame on me. By the way I also forgot about two system utilities: Cocktail (Link and PersonalBackup (Link
Allan Odgaard March 12, 2005 at 03:58 AM
Can I post actual links now? :) I see Julian already posted a link to the scripts I took from the Quicksilver forum (and modified to actually work), here’s a screenshot off how I set it up. I use the numbers on my numeric pad for this stuff. And let me add that Christians post about TextMate is misleading because if he really don’t want italic, he can just change it (though it’ll get easier in upcoming versions).
coine March 12, 2005 at 10:27 AM
I use SizzlingKeys to control iTunes. Also freeware, and very customizable.
coine March 12, 2005 at 10:28 AM
sorry: Link
Allan Odgaard March 13, 2005 at 12:40 PM
Main reason I switched from SizzlingKeys to Quicksilver (other than already having the latter running) was that with SK if you pause and the source from which you play is not selected in iTunes, it would actually stop. You know, that problem iTunes have that the pause button becomes stop if you switch to another playlist/album etc.
coine March 13, 2005 at 11:34 PM
i use both SizzlingKeys and Quicksilver, and I guess i could use triggers to set up the same things I can do with SK, but I really like the quick playlist selector built into SK, as well as the search. Btw: Thanks for the links, Wolfgang. I didn’t know skEdit or CSSEdit before, and they seem to be what I’ve been looking for.——-