Post Bank Holiday delights
Apple and Bare Bones Software seem to have conspired to make the return to work after the Bank Holiday (UK only!) a bit more bearable: there’s the new G5 iMac and BBEdit 8.0. My feelings are slightly mixed about the new iMac. I think I like it, but it doesn’t grab me like the old flat-screen iMacs did. They immediately struck me as cute and cool, and whenever I see one ‘in the flesh’ I can’t resist grabbing the screen and moving it around a bit. It’s that kind of machine. I don’t dislike the new design, but I agree with blech that there’s too much blank space beneath the screen itself. I thought that there must be speakers there, but I see from the specs that they are mounted on the bottom edge and fire downwards to:
[…] bounce sound waves off your desk, counter or table into your ears.
You could have someone’s eye out like that… If I was responsible for designing the new iMacâand it’s a good thing for everyone that I’m notâI would be tempted to put something useful in that space, like a reasonably sized monochrome LCD display to display the currently playing track in iTunes. Still, the specs are pretty good, and a G5 in a ‘home’ Mac is a very nice thing to see.
BBEdit 8.0 is a pretty significant upgrade, with some major new features. Two things that caught my eye were the document drawer (so that you can open multiple documents in one window, and switch between them easily), and the Text Factory, which allows you to string together (and save) a collection of text processing commands, and apply them at will to a document. Another feature that works out very well in practice is a visual highlight for the line containing the cursor. This is surprisingly useful in a long document. I seem to use more text editors that I have hot dinners, but while all of them have some great qualities, none of them is ideal for all types of text file. I tend to use skEdit for HTML and PHP files (for its great tag completion capabilities and syntax highlighting, Vim for Perl scripts and LaTeX (great syntax highlighting and macros to help you edit and manipulate those kinds of files), and BBEdit for straight text files. Much as I love Vim (and I really do), there are times when the simpler and familiar Mac interface is easier to deal with. If you’re writing prose which wraps over several lines, Vim’s wonderful keyboard navigation becomes a bit sub-optimal, and it feels more natural to select and edit lines with the mouse. One attribute that both BBEdit an Vim share is the ability to tweak and customise the interface, keyboard shortcuts and macros to make the app behave exactly the way you want it to. That also means that you have to live with both an explore them thoroughly before you find their real power. I often see on various fora people discussing BBEdit and saying that SubEthaEdit (or some other text editor) ‘is just as good and free’. For some people with fairly simple needs, that might be true1, but there’s masses of hidden power and flexibility in BBEdit, that is difficult to find in other applications. Except for Vim. Which is free. Oh dear, I seem to have just destroyed my own argument…
1 And, of course, SubEthaEdit does unique things like collaborative editing over Rendezvous.
1
oh, and re iMac: the cables destroy the look&convenience;/unclutter because they're all attached to the body, not the base
by Saltation @ 31/08/2004 10:09 pm • Permalink •
2
You know about the Aqua-Version of VIM? Yes, you can eat the cake and keep it
-----
>If youâre writing prose which wraps over several lines, Vimâs wonderful keyboard navigation becomes a bit sub-optimal
haven't tried vim, but it's another vi superset, remember that $ = end of line
eg c$typingESC will replace the rest of the line no matter how long it is
by Saltation @ 31/08/2004 10:09 pm • Permalink •
3
doh "but it's" ==> "but IF it's"
by Saltation @ 31/08/2004 10:09 pm • Permalink •
4
It's interesting (and good really) what impossibly high standards everyone expects of a new Apple model. Any complex machine like the iMac is a series of compromises, and no machine can be all things to all men, let alone usher in an era of peace and harmony among all mankind, which would seem to be what some people want of it! To me however it seems to offer a huge improvement in both performance and price over the previous model, and looks pretty darn cool too. So I'm puzzled by all the nitpicking remarks. Surely if you like Apple kit the new iMac is overwhelmingly good news.
by ThoughtBadger @ 01/09/2004 1:10 am • Permalink •
5
BBEdit 8.0 is great. I picked it up right away yesterday. It really has the two things I've been waiting for - Document Drawer and integration with Apple's Spell Checker. Multiple spell checkers is always annoying.
There is some room for improvement on the document drawer. For instance, it would be nice to categorize items there - ie folder hierarchy. This would be handy when editing multiple web projects so you don't get confused between which "index.php" file goes with which project. (course you can always go look, but that takes time) Be also nice to list unopened documents in the drawer for easy access.
As for the iMac, the white space below is a bit unruly - but I sure do like it a lot better than the lamp. I thought Apple lost it's marbles with the lamp design. I know a lot of people that bought it despite thinking the lamp design was weird... not sure what that says about those people.
Saltation: the iMac can be removed from the base and mounted any way you want. If the cables hooked into the base this would not be possible. I am curious about how well the display tilts with a number of peripherals attached. Of course, with bluetooth thats all just a load of something.
The one thing I think this new iMac should come standard with is Bluetooth. Then Apple could ship the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard with the computer and really decrease cable clutter! One cable for the whole thing would be great.
And now... my comment is long enough to be a blog entry in and of itself.
by Ryan @ 01/09/2004 3:09 am • Permalink •
6
Bsag: "If youâre writing prose which wraps over several lines, Vimâs wonderful keyboard navigation becomes a bit sub-optimal..."
That's one of the things I love about writing prose in vi. It makes me feel as if the paragraph were a single, cohesive whole. After awhile, moving around within a paragraph by jumping from word to word (five or ten at a time, even) or using a known, but unique word as a search anchor is second-nature. My one, main wish in any graphical text editor would be to emulate vi in this manner.
Speaking of text editors, I've downloaded the BBEdit 8.0 demo, and I was largely disappointed. BBEdit has never felt like a Mac OS X application to me (remember, Mac OS X was my first introduction to the Mac, and compared with the Cocoa brothers and sisters, many Carbon applications just aren't as nice.)
I've been waiting for a decent graphical editor for quite some time, and after seeing a video of it in operation and reading a rave review, am impatiently looking forward to TextMate's beta release.
by Nathan @ 01/09/2004 3:09 am • Permalink •
7
True, BBEdit doesn't have the full OSX look and feel. It's been around a long time now. I think, with the advent of the document drawer it's going to start getting a bit closer.
On the other hand, BBEdit is done very well. It is a very powerful and lightweight text editor. The little start up text editors are filling certain niches and grabbing the attention of people. It will be a long time before any other editor comes close to having the power and flexibility BBEdit offers.
I too am looking forward to seeing what TextMate has to offer.
by Ryan @ 01/09/2004 3:10 am • Permalink •
8
Is it just me, or does the new iMac rather resemble the Etch-a-Sketch of old?
by Lyle @ 01/09/2004 8:09 am • Permalink •
9
Hmmm, yeah, the iMac's a bit weird-looking isn't it? Not sure I like all the space below the screen. It'd look cooler with some blinkenlights or something....
by pogo @ 01/09/2004 10:10 am • Permalink •
10
Georg Bauer: Yep, I'm using it. It does make for a more intuitive environment, but still doesn't make me feel completely comfortable when editing prose.
Saltation: Yes, there are some good shortcuts for skipping between sentences and paragraphs, butâreally for no good reasonâit doesn't feel as natural as working with the typical short lines of code for me.
ThoughtBadger: Yeah, where's my peace and harmony, dammit! :-D Sureâit is good news. I was just commenting on the fact that I was surprised that the design didn't grab me immediately. I'm sure it is a wonderful machine, and I know from experience that Macs often look a lot better in person than they do in photographs. That's one of the reasons that AppleCentres are so important. I'd love one despite my niggling.
Ryan: Really, you didn't like the lamp? I suppose I've just watched that Luxo Pixar animation too much
Nathan: I really can't pin down quite why I feel uncomfortable with prose in Vim when I love it so much for code. But now you've really gone and done it; you've introduced me to yet another text editor
It looks really interesting. So much so that I think I might postpone upgrading BBEdit until TextMate comes out.
Lyle: Hehe
Can you shake it to erase the images on the screen?
pogo: Hmm, well maybe not flashing lights...
by bsag @ 01/09/2004 6:09 pm • Permalink •
11
I did love that animation.
by Ryan @ 01/09/2004 8:09 pm • Permalink •
Page 1 of 1 pages