Why and How...

This site was originally planned as a little package for a friend who was considering switching from a PC to a Mac; sort of a "Now you've been using it for a month — try some of these..." package.

And then it just sort of grew from there.

Although it's called Mac Tips, the bulk of it is made up of Quick Reviews. I started writing tips but the more I modified my setup's appearance and shortcut keys etc. the harder it was to remember what OSX is like out of the box. Still, if I think of something general enough, then I add it to a Using... Section.

Lesson Learned:
Don't be too specific in how you name your site. Be somewhat vague — you never know how it might end up.

The Quick Reviews are always summaries of apps that I like and use often. If I install something and find that it's a truly useful tool — particularly if it does one thing ridiculously well — then I'll build a page for it.

The first step is grabbing some screenshots. I've tried several utilities for doing this, settling on the built in Cmd-Shift-3 grab screen, and Cmd-Shift-4 grab selection tools. I like these because they automatically name and store the shots on the desktop in TIFF format.

Then I'll drop them on ToyViewer to name and save them as JPGs in my local Mac folder which is a mirror of the online site. Leaving the original screenshots on the desktop (to get an overview, and to see the image dimensions). I open TextEdit and paste in a Quick Review template, using the Butler Custom Pasteboard tool.

Although there are many fine applications for building and editing webpages — I still prefer to do it manually. That way I keep from forgetting how all this HTML business works, and it makes it easier for me to understand the resulting code.

Plus, it's fun!

After doing a Cmd-E Cmd-F inside TextEdit to replace the boilerplate "XXX" with the name of the app (this sets the title, header and button), I save it as HTM into the Mac folder and open it in Safari to take a look.

I fill in the blanks on the image placeholders for the screen shots and then set about writing the blurb; all the time saving and switching to Safari to see the result.

When the page is about finished I switch to MyMind where I have a checklist of tidy-up steps.

I use javascript files as much as possible to manage sidebars and navigation links and stuff like that — things that are repeated all over the site, and really should be automated. So I modify those two files with the links to the new page; that modifies the Index page, Latest Articles page, Alpha Index page, Categories page; and the sidebar.

I really should get into something like Applescript to help me automate the mundane updating of all the navigation code even more. Can anyone point me to a good online tutorial?

Once I'm happy with the page, and the navigation, I upload all of the new and modified files using, of all things, ImageWell. I drop the files on its Send button and they're uploaded, and then ImageWell closes itself.

When the new page is on the web, I visit it and then use a Wordpress bookmarklet to quickly post about it on the site's weblog. The final step is to email my subscribers using a similar bookmarklet.

...And I'm done!