09.08.02
Acclimating to X
I’m getting more acclimated to MacOS X each week. A tweak here and a tweak there has lead me to replace some of my ‘must haves’ with some of the stuff that X does out of the box. There’s a few tweaks heree and there, but I think I’ve kept my compromises to the minimum.
(Note: this is all in 10.1.5. I should move to JagWire some time, but I’m still fuming over the lack of upgrade pricing. Fry’s has it for $109 and change, the best price I’ve seen so far.)
Coming to X, I thought there were a number of system modifications that I couldn’t live without. I even had an entry about some of my Favorite Control Panels but I’ve found that I either don’t need them or I’ve found adequate replacements. TinkerTool X has been a major part of that, providing double headed arrows in scroll bars, and allowing more flexibility in my Dock placement.
Using a laptop has caused me to reduce my mouse useage even more significantly than on my desktop B&W G3. DragThing has been indispensible here in order to get certain high traffic apps launched: Web browser and Mail being the top two, both of which have Function Keys assigned to them, along with Terminal and iTunes.
I use DragThing since I can’t assign keystrokes to them within the Finder/Dock. In fact I have kept my icons in the dock to a minimum; I’ve taken out any icons that were there just for launching. Now in the last week I’ve turned off DragThing’s Process Dock (Which I had placed in the upper right hand corner ofthe screen). Where previously I kept the Dock hidden and on the bottom left side of the screen, I now have it on the middle right hand, fully visible with icons that are only a quarter inch tall.
(This also allows me to remove the other crutch that DragThing afforded me, a replacement, floating Trash Can.)
So it’s nearly a 1 for 1 replacement. I gain a few things: it’s easier to hide, it shows Apps and windows, and it shows the ‘live’ icons (like the number of new messages in Mail.). However I lose a few: I must show all processes (I’d prefer to hide DragThing and Stickies), and it doesn’t float over the Desktop icons. If I position it at the top of the right hand side, my Hard Drive icon moves down 3 or 4 icons lines down, which just tweaks me out. So I’ve pegged it to the middle of the right side where it doesn’t cover the scroll bar arrows and rarely interferes with my scrolling.
The bottom of me screen is still covered by a line of icons from DragThing: Internet Apps, Text Apps, Media Apps, Tools, Utilities and frequest folders.
LiteSwitch has been a life saver as well. It basically implements the standard Windows Alt-Tab app switching functions with a few tweaks. This is far more effective than the built-in Cmd-Tab.
I never really used WindowShade X and now its future looks even bleaker now that I’ve got the Dock on screen full time.
The only other non-standard thing I’ve done is a key remapper that chnaged my useless Enter key (next to the right hand Cmd key) to an additional Fn key so that getting to PgUp/Dn Home and End are much easier. It also added Shift-Delete to work like a Forward Delete.