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Three ways to change Lion's Finder window sidebar
It took me a little while, but I finally last weekend updated to Lion, and so far ... I think I like it. I kind of miss my old Spaces feature, and I did turn off reverse scrolling right away, but it does seem to run better than Snow Leopard, and Mission Control is pretty sweet. Another thing I'm not a huge fan of, however, is the new Finder sidebar -- it's pretty bland, and not quite as clear or useful as the one in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, that's pretty easy to fix, and ZDnet has a few good ways to do it. This SIMBL plugin will put a little color back in those icons, if you like, and you can do a little plist tweaking in Lion to switch around the order of the various devices and sources listed on the side of the screen. Finally, if you're ending up with aliases in the Finder sidebar that lose the source they're originally alias'ed from, you can drag-and-CMD-drop them to erase them once and for all. Apple of course makes all of these changes with good intentions, and maybe there are good reasons to do things like drain all the color out of the interface (maybe it allows you to focus more on the important stuff: your files in the other window). But for those of us who like the old ways best, it's good to know we've got options.
TotalFinder beefs up Finder
A new "hack" for Finder is in the works, and it's pretty darn cool. TotalFinder adds tabs, Visor-like functionality and a few other goodies (with more on the way) to your plain, vanilla Finder setup. If you're skittish, though, don't jump just yet. TotalFinder is alpha, and not in that way that developers label software just to be safe. It's really, really alpha. TotalFinder runs as a SIMBL plugin, too, which can (in some cases) cause some system instability in and of itself. However, if you've got the apples for it, it's a very cool new way to soup up your Finder. In its current state, it does a few simple -- yet amazingly useful -- things, starting with adding tabs to Finder. Honestly, we got tabs in Terminal before Finder? This catches us up a little bit. The Visor feature (which is optional), assigns a hotkey that makes your tabbed Finder window slide onto the screen and disappear when you're not using it. It's take-or-leave for me at this point; it's cool, but it takes a lot of getting used to, especially for window-to-window file dragging within Finder. You can't currently drop files onto other tabs, so some problems arise in that situation. The other features include preventing .DS_Store file creation and sorting file listings with folders grouped on top. For now, I'm sticking with Path Finder for my souped-up Finder needs, but TotalFinder has the potential to bring Finder into its own after years of relatively few improvements. You can grab a copy to try out (for free) at BinaryAge, and note that it comes with an uninstall script that will wipe it clean off your system if you don't like it. [via Smoking Apples]
From Firefox to Safari (and back again)
I realize I may not be your average browser user. As a web developer, a browser to me is two parts daily use, two parts testing, and one part challenge. Since 2005, I've been using Firefox in some form or fashion as both my primary browser and as a testing vehicle. I had recently started a JavaScript-intensive project, and I appreciated Safari 4's lightning-fast JavaScript execution speeds. In Firefox, I rely mostly on add-ons like Web Developer and Firebug to help me analyze and test for mistakes in websites I build in Firefox. They work great, but enabling them slows the browser down. That's why I was excited for the updated Web Inspector that comes as part of Safari 4. (Yes, Safari 3 first came with Web Inspector, it couldn't hold a candle to Firebug's Swiss Army knife of an add-on for Firefox.) Testing was easy, and Safari 4's Web Inspector's many improvements made me think I could migrate to Safari full-time. Read on to see how it went.
SIMBL plugin woes after 10.5.3?
Did you get home only to find that Mac OS X 10.5.3 had been released today? Well, just as some users were unpacking and installing the shiny new update, issues with SIMBL plug-ins were discovered. If you have SIMBL plugins installed, then you may have an error show up when you try to launch an application. Past updates on systems with these plugins installed have been known to run into some issues. If you are experiencing plugin predicaments, there is a way to fix the problem. SIMBL plugins (or other, non-SIMBL InputManager plugins, which may also be problematic) can be installed in any one of the following directories: ~/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/ /Library/InputManagers/ ~/Library/Contextual Menu Items/ ~/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ ~/Library/InputManagers/ When you see the error in an application, just jot down the name of the plugin and look in those directories for it. When you find the plugin, just move it to a separate folder or toss it into the trash can. The application launch problem should cease. Have you experienced plug-in issues since installing the 10.5.3 update? If so, tell us about it in the comments.
Stumbi: StumbleUpon for Safari
Being a Firefox user (I know, I know, and it crashes on me all the time, but still I run back to it ashamedly), I had no idea that there was a gap in the functionality of StumbleUpon (a handy little link-finding and sharing browser plugin) for Safari users -- it only works with IE and Firefox. But Eli K tipped us off that he's trying to bridge that gap with Stumbi, a StumbleUpon plugin for Safari.It's the very definition of no-frills: it just creates a menu option for StumbleUpon that will let you access the most basic of functions from the Safari browser. And unfortunately, it's not exactly completely easy to get working -- you've got to make sure to install SIMBL (which, helpfully, comes with the binary download), and then the binary also requires a reasonable $2 purchase after 100 stumbles (or, for the more technically inclined, you can download the source and do it all by yourself for free).But if you just can't live without StumbleUpon, and can't bring yourself to use Firefox to do it, this might be just what you're looking for.Thanks, Eli!
Afloat 2.0 returns window floating to Leopard
Afloat from Infinite Labs was one of my favorite SIMBL plugins, until it was broken by Leopard. It adds some clever features to windows in Cocoa applications, including a mode where the window remains always visible, "floating" above all other windows, an overlay mode where the window floats but clicks fall through to the windows below, and adjustable transparency (including a very nifty mode in which a window will be translucent until you mouse over it and then it pops into an opaque mode).Thankfully, Afloat 2.0 now works with Leopard. In fact, it works so well with Leopard that OS X 10.5 is now required to run Afloat. The free download includes the Infinite Labs PlugSuit SIMBL plugin manager, but it is not necessary to run Afloat if you already have SIMBL installed.[via Infinite Loop]
Liven up Address Book with Avatars
Is your Address Book full of web-savvy friends who know what a Gravatar (or a Pavatar) is? Avatars is a freeware plugin for Address Book that searches for, displays, and adds your contacts' avatars to their cards. It installs with a package installer as a SIMBL plugin, and it looks to me like SIMBL is in the package, too, just in case you need it. It's simple, useful and has the right amount of eye candy to be visually interesting without being intrusive. Now I just need more friends with avatars.
Widget Watch: Gift-It!
Tasty Apps says of their gift managing widget Gift-It! that it "pushes Apple's Dashboard to the limit!" It's a neat idea: You create entries for all the folks you might need to buy gifts for (including yourself of course!). Gift-It! then installs a new button in the Safari toolbar (thanks to the somewhat controversial SIMBL). Now when you're browsing a site and see something that would be good to get for somebody on your list, you need only click the package button and you'll get a dialog box that allows you to select the recipient. That page's URL will then be automatically added to the appropriate gift list, which you can access back in the Dashboard widget. Here you can see how I've generously allotted myself a new camera from B&H. You can also enter birthdays into the widget for future reminders.I have to admit that the widget is a little bit confusing to use (I can't quite figure out how to move something from the Wish List to the Gift Box), but the Safari integration is seriously clever. I think Tasty Apps is right to suggest that this is one of the more advanced widgets out there, and certainly has the potential to be useful (though I already do something similar to track gift ideas with del.icio.us tags, though without the Dashboard eye candy and birthday reminders of course).Gift-It! is presently in beta and is a free download.
Leopard Axing Input Managers?
There's a disturbing rumor floating around the Mac web today. According to this article at Infinite Loop, Leopard will no longer support Input Manager hacks. Input Managers allow programmers to insert code into cocoa applications, thus allowing the addition of new functionality. etc. These are somewhat controversial as some claim this is a potential security hole. Nonetheless, Jon Hicks brings this up in connection to my absolute favorite input manager plugin, Saft for Safari, which will presumably be rendered non-functional in Leopard. As Hicks notes, its not clear yet whether this also affect the widely used SIMBL plugin architecture (whose author, Pith Helmet developer Mike Solomon, says he won't be sure until he can play with Leopard). If, like me, you're a big fan of Saft and SafariStand and Chax, etc. this is cause for concern.It is to be hoped, of course, that the authors of the various plugins will find some other way of implementing their feature enhancements, even if Apple does close the Input Manager route. The best thing would be for Apple to implement an open plugin architecture for doing this sort of enhancement, but I won't be holding my breath on that one. In any case, this is a potential concern for those of us sure to upgrade to Leopard right after it launches.
