Cocoa for Mac

Twelve Coda Features You Never Found

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 20:24:58 -0600

As the wait for Panic’s updates to the company’s wonderful, Mac-like web-authoring application Coda continues, the program itself has never stopped to amaze me in its intuition and quality. Here are 12 obscure, buried little features from release notes that you may not have known about Coda.
You can use Smart Folders (from Leopard’s Finder) in the File Browser
The page source in Coda’s browser is editable. Have fun messing up any website! (claim you hacked it)
You can drop files onto text fields (i.e. the image fields in CSS view) to insert a relative path. Hold option to drag files from Coda's sidebar
The contextual menu in the CSS style list allows for copy/cut and paste of styles and attributes
You can drag text to the Clips panel to create a new clip
Option-clicking on a tab close button will close all others
Holding “Option” will switch the find/replace scope to its opposite
Coda’s image viewer reads PDF files
You can “sort” files in the sidebar by filtering with a file extension (i.e. ".html")
Choose “Close Current Tag” from the Text menu to instantly add a relevant closing HTML tag
Double clicking on a javascript error tries to find the appropriate line number on externally linked files
Clicking on an element while using Coda’s DOM inspector will (sometimes) direct you to the corresponding code in a split view. Edit: apparently the way WebKit renders its DOM causes the link from the source to your code to be broken if you have code that doesn’t comply with WebKit’s standards.
Enjoy these (new) features! Feel free to comment on any others you find... Coda 1.2 or Coda 2.0 will likely introduce many other buried abilities, so there’s lots of hunting to be done.
Additionally, if you’re looking for a good way to extend Coda, I recommend making a bunch of clips with a tag as a tab trigger. (I, as a programmer, usually think about inserting an “a href...” instead of a “link to...” when I code.) This will greatly speed up your coding because a) you don’t need to type carrots “<>” and b) it allows you to avoid HTML markup warnings and errors. For example, typing img(tab) may consistently insert an alt tag, if you want, without you having to worry about it through autocompletion. My example Clip screenshots are below.

A New TextMate User Interface: SuperMate

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:36:08 -0600

Yes, TextMate is written in Cocoa, so it just can’t be ugly. But a text editor with a “minimalist user interface” can become a bore after extensive use, especially if its users are on the GUI-side of Mac people. Introducing SuperMate, an ultra-Leopard-y and ergonomic TextMate skin that will make you want to use every window and panel.

Google Notebook Script Extension

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:25:07 -0700

With its new support for AppleScripts in the toolbar, Mozilla’s Camino browser 1.6 for Mac opens up a whole new world for extensions on the Cocoa platform. One of my favorite Firefox extensions is Google Notebook, which still isn’t available for Camino. So here is a script extension for Camino that provides a workaround: it opens any webpage in a new tab with Google Notebook in the sidebar for taking notes. See the screenshot for details.

Webpage Optimizer for iPhone and iPod Touch

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 20:08:14 -0700

Apple surpassed expectations with Mobile Safari for browsing a complete Internet in the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Flicking around with your fingers can be nice, but sometimes it gets annoying on really wide webpages or when ads abound. I created a bookmarklet that solves this issue for most webpages, especially simple ones. Its features include:
Boxing in text so it fits better on the screen,
Highlighting headers iPhone-style,
Removing advertisements (using Camino’s adblocking rules)

Because they cause overlapping on some webpages, the features are only available when you want them. Just drag the bookmarklet on the right to your bookmarks (or right-click on it and bookmark it), sync your iPhone or iPod Touch with your computer (make sure bookmark syncing is checked), and when you see a webpage that looks too wide or too cluttered with ads, tap on the bookmarklet in your iPhone/iPod’s bookmarks and the page will update dynamically.

Note: you will not need to update the bookmarklet in order to get the latest version of the tool. Please put any feedback you have in the comments below.

National Geographic Video Widget

Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:37:24 -0700

National Geographic has a wonderful video podcast called Video Shorts that explores interesting tidbits about nature, history, and science. I enjoy watching these episodes on iTunes (subscribe here), but video downloads can be big, so I’ve made a widget that plays episodes from National Geographic’s website.

Enjoy the widget, and let me know any feedback you have in the comments.

Introducing MyTextEdit

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:15:45 -0700

TextEdit is ugly and clunky. I normally don’t mind this in my applications, but after my aesthetic expectations rose with Leopard and Trinity Rubicon’s TextEdit mockup, I realized that Apple’s text editor could be a lot cooler if its interface were prettier and its menus were more ergonomic. So I opened the source code in the Developer examples and made my own build, free for download.

Here's a list of all the improvements:
Textured main window
Some panels have been converted to black HUD panels
A static toolbar has been added with:
Undo/Redo buttons,
Spell + Grammar Checker window alias,
Ruler alias, and
Font, Color, and Print buttons.
The menus have been reorganized to
make more sense and
reduce the clicking frequency of the user.
Keyboard Shortcuts have been added to some menu commands.

MyTextEdit (the download unarchives as TextEdit 2) uses the same code as TextEdit and the same preferences. If you have any feedback, let me know in the comments.

iMovie 08 for Power Users

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:35:49 -0700

After Apple released iLife 08, I was ecstatic about finding out every new feature iMovie would sport in version 7.0. To my disappointment, not only was the wonderful icon removed but many editing features were dropped as well, including the following from Unlocking iMovie 08:

Video effects (including fast/slow/reverse) other than color adjustments
Audio effects
Themes
Export to camera
Chapter creation for iDVD
"Rubber band" audio editing
Some styles for transitions and title

Here is a list of features still in iMovie. 
Frame-precise editing
Precise audio level editing and fading
Multiple audio tracks
Extracting audio from a clip
Adding black space to a project
Sending movies to iDVD, iTunes, iWeb, or GarageBand
Capturing a still image from a video clip
Selecting multiple clips  Of course, there is an impressive list of things you can do in iMovie '08 that you cannot do in iMovie HD, but people inclined to complain don't spend a lot of time on these. Here are some of the really nice things you can do in iMovie '08. 
Crop or rotate video clips
Footage organization tools, like favorites and keywords
More than two audio tracks
Advanced, flexible typography in titles
Using images with transparency
Adaptable editing interface
Full screen scrubbing”

“You may be like me. You may need help figuring out how this new iMovie actually works, especially if you spent a lot of time in previous versions. Here you can find tips, information, and commentary all about the newest version of the flagship iLife application.” -Unlocking iMovie 08 is a fantastic resource for extracting iMovie’s juice to your heart’s content. I’ve found many posts very useful, especially one about an awesome new feature I never figured out on my own: video masking. On the right is Karel Gillissen’s detailed introduction of the process

Have any other ideas/complaints about iMovie? Let me know in the comments. And don’t forget to send feedback to Apple.