Thursday, July 02, 2015

From Windows to Mac Part 2

Parts (one, two, three)

Starting applications and the Window manager 

When switching from Windows to mac you will notice that the command-tab switching between application windows is not quite the same. The application I use for this is Witch

Witch lets you switch between windows (instead of applications) by pressing a keyboard shortcut, and choosing from a clearly-arranged list of window titles. You can also
  • See previews of windows before activating them.
  • Directly access minimized windows without using your mouse. Witch works across multiple Desktops (Spaces in 10.6), too.
  • Zoom, minimize/unminimize, close windows, or quit applications on the fly.
  • Close minimized windows without bringing them to front first.
Installable using  Homebrew Cask

% brew cask install witch

Moom also a helpful that adds buttons that moves your windows to preset locations, I have not been using it latel, but many friends finds it great.

Source control 

My favorite source control system is git. You can read all about git at git-scm.com/book

Some tools I use with git are

hub

hub is a command line tool that wraps git in order to extend it with extra features and commands that make working with GitHub easier.
$ hub clone rtomayko/tilt

# expands to:
$ git clone git://github.com/rtomayko/tilt.git 
hub is best aliased as git, so you can type $ git <command> in the shell and get all the usual hub features.  Note that hub is a bit slower than running  git  directly.

To install with brew: 
$ brew install hub

tig 

Tig is an ncurses-based text-mode interface for git. It functions mainly as a Git repository browser, but can also assist in staging changes for commit at chunk level and act as a pager for output from various Git commands.
$ brew install tig

Sourcetree

Sourcetree is a a free Git & Mercurial client for Windows or Mac made by Atlassian. It is pretty neat to use to browse for changes, I usually use the command line tool for most stuff. 

Sourcetree is available on appstore 

Integrates with kaleidoscope. 

Tower is a similar paid option 

kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope is a free diff/merge tool that is easy to configure together with the git command line 

Usage from the command line
$ ksdiff -w file1 file2
$ git difftool
Kaleidoscope is available on appstore 

Araxis Merge is a similar and more powerful (more expensive) alternative.

Applications 

Some appications I find helpful when moving from Windows to mac is:

  • Project management  - the online tool teamgantt
  • oxygen xml for XML editing 
  • viscosity - VPN client 
  • charles - a web debugging proxy
  • Scrivener - writing studio (editor like word, similar to Pagemaker) 
  • omnigaffle  - Visio like grapical tool 
  • marvel -Marvel: Free mobile & web prototyping for designers