Mac life...

[EpicBoy]

Well, I finally broke down and bought myself a little Mac machine - iBook G4. Nice little machine for just over a grand!

At any rate, I was hoping the developers here could steer me towards the things I'll be needing to do development on it ... graphics programs, C++ compilers, modellers, etc. Any info (or links so I can do my own research) would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks all!

[Sillysoft]

Apple provides a solid IDE called xCode for free. It uses gcc as a compiler. It should either already be installed or be on the dev-tools CD. There are some other cool applications in the apple dev tools that you should check out.

GraphicConverter is a good shareware image editing application if you don't have photoshop.

The best place to find mac applications is www.versiontracker.com. Do a search there for anything you are looking for and you will find what is available.

I recommend you check out the tool LaunchBar (www.launchbar.com). You can set it up as a quick-launcher for anything you want. It works really well. I have it set up to be able to open all my applications, projects, the java APIs, etc. It's very cool.

[Musenik]

I've been programming games on the Mac since 1984, and I still love it. The tools keep improving, if not Apple's attitude about the importance of games.

XCode is a great pick for cheap, low-level Mac Coding.

Codewarrior is great for low-level, cross platform coding.

Right now, I'm getting great mileage out of Python and PyGame, since my games are not in a hurry to get their processes done. The language is damn fast to get a program working, and the game library is damn good at cross-platform games with all the basic bells and whistles.

If you like knocking around ideas, code them with Python and PyGame, and if you need more speed, you'll have an excellent prototype to use as a template for C/C++ coding.

two cents,

[Dan MacDonald]

Richard Hernandez is a cool guy, no doubt about it.

[Red Marble Games]

XCode is free, which is a big advantage, but I find it much harder to use than CodeWarrior (which is very far from free...). XCode is still more of a GUI on top of GCC rather than a really integrated environment, though it is a big step beyond its predecessor, Project Builder. And it's likely to continue to improve since Apple seems committed to it.

GraphicConverter is indispensable for format conversions, but I find you can't do any serious artwork with it. Very few tools, and results not always what is expected. That's not GC's fault, it's really not designed to create new art. My current fave for that purpose is Photoshop Elements -- most of the power of Photoshop (all that I really need) for a fraction of the price.

I haven't done any 3D modeling in a long time; at one point a program called Meshwork (http://codenautics.com/meshwork/) was popular among the shareware development set, but I don't know whether it's still alive and well.

[EpicBoy]

OK, so maybe I'll grab Photoshop Elements then. I do agree that GraphicsConverter doesn't seem well suited to actually editing images. Nothing ever comes close to Photoshop for some reason.

Why can't people writing paint programs just LOOK at Photoshop and clone the things it does well? :) Damn it...

So any other recommendations on Mac software that you simply can't live without? I've got it under control now I think. I'm comfortable using the Finder windows and I think I have a handle on where files are and such...

Let me ask this as well: does Mac have the whole "uninstall" paradigm of Windows? If I don't want an application anymore, do I just delete it's directory or is there a "proper" way to get rid of programs I'm not aware of?

[Diodor Bitan]

Just got me an eMac and I love it already :) Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Apple-8 will turn the screen to use a white on black palette, which is what I wanted for a long time. Expose (F9-F10-F11) is brilliant, Stickies are cool, the auto-hide Dock works (as do file sharing and the internet connection sharing with the Win XP box), and I created my first MP3 after fiddling a bit with GarageBand. I also installed Gimp and X-Code, and have compiled the first Carbon Hello World program :) Not to mention OSX has a bash shell, and Gnu Emacs is already installed.

Original post by EpicBoy
Let me ask this as well: does Mac have the whole "uninstall" paradigm of Windows?

I'm curious about this as well. The way I understand it, the uninstall "paradigm" of Windows is an utter mess. Basically, it's the program's task to clean up, shared files, registry entries and all, and virtually no program really does it.

What are the Mac equivalents of the registry, the temp directory and the windows\system directory with shared DLLs? Also, the my documents directory and the usual behaviour of applications regarding it. Where do Mac games save their save games?

[Diodor Bitan]

Is Gimp for the Mac more stable than Windows Gimp?

Can a program delete the files of another program?

Should I usually login with a different account than the administer account? I set a password for the admin account (the only account actually), but when I start up the computer it doesn't ask me the password. Does this mean I don't have the rights to cause havoc? (at least without entering the password)

What about the desktop? Is there such a notion as "shortcuts" or do you just copy the entire application bundle on the desktop? And do you keep many entries on the desktop or rather add them on the dock?

What are the rules for what apps get to stay on the dock? Do you use magnifying dock?


:)

[ragtag]

BlitzMax for OS X is just out, might be worth a look ( www.blitzbasic.com ). Windows and Linux version on the way soon, which should make cross-platform development easy. Although, it is at v.1, and only out by about a week so it hasn't been tested properly yet.

Shortcuts on OS X are called Alias, you can find them in Finder>Make Alias or hit apple-L.

Anything you want in the dock you can just drag and drop there and it will stay. If you want to remove something from the dock drag it to the garbage bin.

A lot of software on OS X can (as far as I know) be uninstalled simply by throwing it in the trash bin. I have a few apps on it, like Animation Master, that come with an uninstaller.

Back to lurking mode,

Ragnar

[EpicBoy]

OK, so no real uninstall process then? I was throwing things into the trash bin, hoping that I wasn't screwing up my Mac in the process heh.

And I'm definitely using the magnifying Dock, but that's probably because I'm still a n00b and easily amused by animating UI pieces. :)

[EpicBoy]

One thing I find weird about Mac is when I download something, it will unstuff it onto the desktop and then it's basically up to me to drag it into the applications folder later if I want to keep it. There doesn't appear to be a real "install" process unless I'm missing something...

[Red Marble Games]

Re uninstalling -- just dragging the app to the Trash usually will not delete everything. Preference files are stored in Home/Library/Preferences, other stuff may be in Application Support. It's sort of like dragging a Windows app to the trash, leaving behind registry entries.

There is no registry on the Mac, it's all stored in separate files (which makes reg. code hiding a little more difficult, can't just tuck it into some registry key).

Installing by default doesn't put anything into Applications or other folders, unless you use an installer program (like Apple's own installer, or a commercial tool). But Mac users are pretty used to this.

Re the Dock, apps that you use enough times will automatically be added to the Dock by the OS, and then can be deleted by dragging them to the Trash (it's the equivalent of trashing a shortcut, the file will be deleted from the Dock but not from the machine).

[EpicBoy]

So if you want to keep your Mac nice and tidy, it's a manual process of hunting down all the files the application used/created?

[Red Marble Games]

You got it. There are utilities, the best known of which is Aladdin Systems' Spring Cleaning, that will do this for you, but otherwise, yes, you have to pick up the pieces that apps throw around your hard drive.

You would think that Mac apps would realize the messiness of this and keep preferences etc. inside their app package -- it is really just a folder, after all -- but this doesn't work because writing to the app's package on OS X requires administrator access, and a surprising number of Mac OS X users access their Mac with non-administrator accounts. Don't ask me why, but they do; a number of my Mac ports had to be rewritten to avoid writing to the app's "folder" because customers were writing in to say their games weren't being saved, etc.

OTOH, there aren't that many places that a well-behaved Mac app will drop things -- in part because there are only a few folders for which an app will have write permission, again enforced by the OS. Preferences folders and Application Support are the main two, so if you keep those clean you are most of the way there.

[dannyngan]

Here are a few Mac 3D programs that are used the most frequently by artists and game devs (at various price points, of course):

Maya
Lightwave
Cinema4D
Animation Master
Blender

I might be missing a couple, but those are the most common ones.

[Sillysoft]

Should I usually login with a different account than the administer account?

What about the desktop? Is there such a notion as "shortcuts"? And do you keep many entries on the desktop or rather add them on the dock?

What are the rules for what apps get to stay on the dock? Do you use magnifying dock?
It is fine to login as an administrator account. The OS will require you to re-enter your password whenever you do something that could screw up the system.

The shortcut equivalent is called an Alias, and works the same. You can also make unix style symlinks if you use the terminal. I only put the applications that I use most every day on the dock. For the rest I use LaunchBar. My dock does not magnify. Tip: you can drag files onto an application's dock icon as a quick way of opening that file in that application.

If you need a place to store saved games or other files I suggest you use ~/Library/Application Support/YourGameName/. I also have a temp subdir here.

Apple hosts a mac-games-dev (http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/mac-games-dev) mailing list that might be of use to people bringing games to the mac.

[Ryan Clark]

I don't believe anyone has yet mentioned Fink:

http://fink.sourceforge.net/

It allows you to run (almost) any of the major open source software packages on OS X.

If you're moving from Linux to OS X, it's quite handy! Or, if you're looking for a free tool and just can't seem to find one that suits you, Fink might have a package that'll do the trick.