

Must-have OS X apps for developers and designers - abdophoto
http://thetechblock.com/must-have-osx-apps-designers-developers/

======
bajsejohannes
> Brightness Slider for reducing screen brightness.

I was going to write a little rant about how this should be possible without
3rd party software. Researching a bit, I found that Apple has restored the ⌥+⇧
modifier for volume as well as for brightness (if that was even there before).

So no need to install this; adjust brightness with ⌥+⇧+☼ instead!

[http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/19146/is-fine-
volum...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/19146/is-fine-volume-
adjustment-possible-in-os-x-lion)

Edit: Trying it out, it seems the actual brightness level has the same minimum
as before, even when the setting is at 1/4 of a square. It only works for
values higher than one square. :(

~~~
trotsky
I think this is actually a restriction of their current backlight controller.
As far as I know the apps that reduce brightness below one square actually do
it by placing a black element over the entire screen and adjusting its
transparency.

------
mongrelion
You're missing Alfred, an awesome application launcher that works on top of
Spotlight: <http://www.alfredapp.com/> Definitely worth giving it a chance.

~~~
lukifer
Mandatory plugs for Alfred's cousins, LaunchBar and QuickSilver. Each has
strengths and weaknesses; the only poor choice is to not use any of the three.
:)

<http://obdev.at/products/launchbar>

<http://qsapp.com/>

------
civilian
> Tower for pushing code to GitHub. Makes Git simple. Say goodbye to the
> command line.

[http://wheningit.tumblr.com/post/32917749004/when-someone-
sa...](http://wheningit.tumblr.com/post/32917749004/when-someone-says-a-git-
gui-is-better-than-the-command)

~~~
homosaur
Not sure why you'd spend $60 or whatever Tower is when SourceTree is free
anyway. I'm not sure that Tower does a single thing that SourceTree doesn't.

~~~
gte910h
I _love_ SourceTree. I've tried several other guis, only one I keep using.

------
sambeau
You do not let me zoom your page on my iPad and you limit the font-size to
really small. You limit page width to the same tight column when I change to
landscape.

Why anger your readership?

I will not read your stinking blog.

------
vor_
xScope (<http://iconfactory.com/software/xscope>) is a very useful tool for
designing layouts.

------
skeet
ClipMenu is a nice free clipboard manager.

<http://www.clipmenu.com/>

------
Y0L0
Using your DSLR as a Webcam is a great way to destroy the sensor.

~~~
bluetidepro
I second this. Doing this has ruined my friends DSLR. Not sure the technical
reasons behind this, but it does indeed have consequencing effects.

~~~
zacksjoden
I've read about this a bit for mods on DSLRs for taking older Canon's and
allowing them to record video. If the DSLR isn't designed for recording video
the sensor isn't designed for continuous light exposure which will heat up an
ruin the sensor. I don't know the differences but I'd imagine using one of the
newer DSLRs that have video recording capability as a webcam would be fine.

------
medolino
I wrote a similar post a while ago, recommended for developers:
<http://damir.me/posts/essential-tools-and-apps-for-mac>

------
mikec3k
I'm not familiar with AppTrap, but I use Hazel for that and a lot more. In
addition to moving associated files to the trash when you move an app to the
trash, it also lets you create your own rules for things like sorting & color
coding downloads, removing backups older than a particular age, and
automatically deleting trashed files over a certain size or that were sitting
in the trash for a certain time.

------
jkira
I know it's a list of desktop apps, but I just recently launched a quick
reference (iPhone) app for iOS devs: <http://www.idev101.com/app/>

The color picker is my personal favorite. It'll convert between hex colors,
RGB and HSB. Plus it shows the UIColor code for whatever color you're
previewing.

------
kevjiang
Another really useful app is Spectacle, for keyboard shortcuts to dock an
application the left or right half of the screen (like winkey+left and
winkey+right on windows 7/8).

<http://spectacleapp.com/>

~~~
tom_usher
Slate is my preferred way of managing windows on OSX.

<https://github.com/jigish/slate>

------
zyb09
My vote goes to Soulver (<http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/>), which is
basically the best calculator app ever. Useful for so many things, from
figuring out algorithms to doing taxes.

~~~
ar4s
Thanks for the link, they got me at "The trial is smart, and will only end
after 10 days on which you have actually used Soulver."

------
ja27
Cached:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://thetechblock.com/must-
have-osx-apps-designers-developers/&hl=en&strip=1)

------
Cacti
No emacs or vim? Ouch...

~~~
pudquick
He did mention Sublime Text 2, which does have this:
<http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/vintage.html>

As for all the other additional things that emacs / vim does, they're not
necessary to his workflow - he was just sharing what works for him.

As a side note, he also seemed to only be recommending bundle-style Mac OS X
native .app applications. True, there's MacVim (
<https://code.google.com/p/macvim/> ), but the learning curve is still very
steep in comparison to Sublime Text 2.

~~~
Y0L0
Vintage mode is useless without: <https://github.com/SublimeText/VintageEx>

------
celias
I like CodeRunner for testing snippets of code <http://krillapps.com>

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licorna
Edit with Sublime, then refresh page? I think that's "Web developer &
designer".

~~~
ryanSrich
I'm not sure what you're implying with this comment. Are you saying non-
designers don't refresh pages?

~~~
licorna
No, I'm not.

------
cpursley
totalfinder

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Or Path Finder.

I guess his dislike for Terminal means no mention of iTerm2, and as a knock-on
that there's no mention of homebrew.

I would be sad on any OS w/o some kind of multiple clipboards, on OSX I am
pretty happy with ClipMenu, though it doesn't seem to be getting developed
much these days.

