Making Use of Our Mac

Recently we've acquired a new iMac and are having a blast putting it to work. We got to troubleshoot tXtFL builds with our Mac to make downloading and installing as straightforward as Mac users have come to expect. And now we're starting work on giving the Text Trix editor the Mac-compliant shortcuts our hands now gravitate toward.

The Apple platform of course is no stranger to its users' expectations. They've even come up with a list of guidelines specifically for Java software on Mac systems. It will take us awhile to make our software compliant with all of it (and some parts might not be possible), but we're having fun turning our programs into "Mac software." Or at least something we feel you might be able to enjoy better while enjoying your Mac computer.

A couple small changes we made to the Text Trix editor was to switch the major shortcut keys to use the Command ("Apple") key. For example, saving a document on Windows/Linux platforms can be done through Control-S, but Mac users expect to do the same with Command-S. It's annoying if you think you've saved your document, but hit the "wrong" key. So we've switched the shortcut keys to conform to whatever platform you're running our software on (Ctrl-S on Windows/Linux, Cmd-S on Mac).

There was also a weird bug where the up/down arrows scroll the entire window rather than moving the cursor on the Mac platform. Our workaround is to create "shortcuts" where the up/down arrows map to moving the cursor rather than the scroll pane.

We're enjoying our Mac development, and we hope you can enjoy our software on your Mac computer as well! Happy holidays, go buy a Mac!