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Socoder -> Hardware and Technology -> Jay Gets a Macbook

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Fri, 22 Jan 2021, 04:41
Jayenkai
Frequent Issue

Some of my spritesheets keep getting rotated 90 degrees, and I've just now realised why it's happening.
I'm coding in the text editor, Alt+tabbing over to the browser, hitting Alt+R to refresh and see the results..

.. except, sometimes it's accidentally Alt+tabbing to the explorer-folder window, instead.
And if I hit Alt+R on a highlighted image file, it rotates it...
GAWD!!!

(Explorer = Finder / Alt = Squiggly Circles)

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Sat, 23 Jan 2021, 16:27
AndyH
Trackpads are a right pain in the palm for sure! I usually disable mine, although the one on the Surface is identical to apples. You can dull it down and disable the tap to click/select (it also does not have buttons, but you can physically click the whole pad at the top for left/right mouse buttons) which is good, becuase also like Apple's it has the two, three, four finger gestures - quite handy. This is one feature I did always like about my Macbook.

jay, I think you are enjoying all this misery really

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Andy H
8-bit games at www.hewco.uk
Cartoons at awful.ovine.net
Ovine at ovine.net
Sat, 23 Jan 2021, 16:34
Jayenkai
...How are you guys typing?

My wrists are WAY over the top of the trackpad..

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Sat, 23 Jan 2021, 17:57
steve_ancell
I'm typing with a nice clunky keyboard and using a normal mouse.
Sat, 23 Jan 2021, 20:41
Pakz
I have no problems with the touchpad. The recent discovery that the volume can be set with it with 3 finger swipes is grand. I also set it to go to search with a 4 finger tap.
Sun, 24 Jan 2021, 04:53
AndyH
There's a setting on mine (not sure if it is Window 10 or specific to this keyboard) to ignore palm touches and it works.

I can switch off 'taps' to click which was a right pain. I just wish I could switch off single finger touches and only respond the 2+ finger gestures which I use a fair bit, otherwise I would disable it completely (there is a setting to disable if a mouse is attached but that switches it off completely).

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Andy H
8-bit games at www.hewco.uk
Cartoons at awful.ovine.net
Ovine at ovine.net
Sun, 31 Jan 2021, 05:00
Jayenkai
Ugh.. Can't open my old .psp layered image files in Pixelmator Pro..

Fortunately, it CAN open the incredibly oldskool .psd Photoshop exports that Paintshop Pro 7 can generate.
So, if I ever need old images (Like the original SoCoder ball image) I can open it in Windows PSP7, export it as Photoshop, then load that into Pixelmator Pro on the Mac.
.. Bit convoluted, but .. it works, at least.

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Mon, 15 Feb 2021, 16:13
Jayenkai
Still ToDo

1. I had to remote to Windows to get BlitzMax running, for that recent example I did.
Using Remote Windows is SUCH a pain in the arse, mostly because "Alt+Tab" results in MacOS flipping over to a different app, and you having to switch back all the bloody time.
Grrr.
Ctrl+Alt are flipped by the Microsoft Remote Desktop app, in some places, but not all, leading to a very frustrating experience.
In an ideal world, I'd have BMax or Cerberus or whatever, running on MacOS, but given the M1 and all of that gubbins, I'm not sure it can be done easily, or in a worthwhile way.

2. Related, I'm still occasionally having to flip over to use the odd little BMax tool, here and there. My weekly SmileBASIC games require a whole host of BMax scripts, like the one that converts jpgs to pngs and stuff. But a whole lot of that can and should be done in PHP. I need to rewrite those things, and see if I can once again reduce reliance on Windows.

3. I'm still having to flip over to Windows and PaintShop Pro 7 to fiddle about with a few artsy things. Most notably, Pixelmator Pro seems to have issues working with raw pixels when doing selections. It always makes the selection a vector based thing, which is of course extremely useful in places.. But doing pixel-based stuff can be a right pain.
As an example, trying to draw a none-anti-aliased text logo, and add a none-anti-aliased single pixel outline, has proven FAR too bloody difficult. Instead, I've found myself Copying in Mac, hopping over to Windows, pasting into PSP7, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-T, Expand 1pixel, Fill, Copy, Flip back to Mac, paste..
A LOT!!!
I mentioned it on Twitter, and the Pixelmator devs gave me an explanation as to "how to do it", to which I replied "no.. no, it doesn't.." and they went "Oh.. you're right!"
Hopefully they can figure something out that allows me to do what I want, without breaking what everyone else on the planet wants!!


.. But other than that.. I'd say I'm more or less Mac'd up, now.
I'm getting the hang of having to use Audacity, with it's bloody annoying "Save doesn't save where it loaded from" issues. Annoying as hell, but .. liveable.
FileZilla seems insistent on using Windows key commands, making it occasionally frustrating.
But .. yeah.. I'm coping.
Just about!

I should say, however, that even after 3.5 months of this, I've yet to properly attempt to make any use of Xcode, other than quick tests of things. I probably should, but everything's going so swimmingly, that I daren't spoil it all by screaming blue murder!!

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Sat, 06 Mar 2021, 05:42
Jayenkai
Got PHP8 installed on the MacBook, today, thanks to this site.

Back when I first attempted it, the "brew" installer wasn't quite ready for M1 processors, but today everything went much smoother.
Brew was installed, followed by PHP8, and now I can do fancy things with ttf fonts in PHP!
Hurrah!!

Within TextMate, open the preferences, and Variables, and add TM_PHP to be /opt/homebrew/bin/php, that way you can hit Shift+Alt+R to run any .php script that's currently in the editor.

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Mon, 08 Mar 2021, 16:02
Jayenkai
One thing I'm desperately missing is a "New : Text Document" option in the current finder directory..
I used to do that ALL THE TIME.. New TextDoc, then rename it to Script.js or whatever, then open it in the text editor.

.. Yeah, you could open the text editor, and Ctrl+S, then navigate to the folder YOU WERE ALREADY IN, then save.. But who does that!?!

On MacOS there's a workaround, and it involves Terminal, so first we need an easy way to "Terminal Here!"
To add that function to Finder, View : Show Path Bar. The Path Bar sits at the bottom of Finder windows, and has the list of folders to the current path.
From there you can easily right click the current path and "New Terminal at Folder"

That's part one. Now we need a way to create an empty file, and the terminal command for that is..
..
.... Touch.
Because, of course it is..

touch MyFile.ext
and the 0-byte file MyFile.ext will now exist within the current folder.

Job Done!
Pain in the arse... But it'll do.

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Sun, 18 Apr 2021, 04:39
Jayenkai
Haven't struggled with Harddrive space until today, when doing backups of all my and mum's iPhings.
Each backup uses around about 15Gb, and you daren't copy the folder directly to the NAS, as it's full of teensy tiny itty bitty little files.
Instead, you have to zip the backup folder, then copy THAT to the NAS.
So, whilst that's happening, you need at least 30Gb or so of free drive space, for each backup.

Dear God!!!!
Trying to backup mum's phone, whilst my phone's backup is zipping and the iPad's zip is moving to the NAS..
I managed to get the free drive space down to about 8Gb, at one point..

> Reveal 🔎

And.. The MacBook Air managed to get warm, too!

This is the most it's been stressed since I got the thing.

Backups done, zips copied, files deleted. Hopefully that all restores fine when I unzip them, at a later date.. !!!

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Sun, 18 Apr 2021, 04:49
Pakz
Can you not stick in one of those tiny usb-c usb storage sticks and copy the stuff on that? I was looking at these a while back(regular usb though) and those tiny ones are pretty cheap nowadays. You can leave these tiny ones in the port without the danger of them bumping into things.
Sun, 18 Apr 2021, 04:54
Jayenkai
The files, sure.
But an actual, complete backup I don't *think* can be done like that.
You can also do backups to iCloud, but since each backup uses about 12Gb, and iCloud's free storage is only 5Gb, I don't think that's going to be an option

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Sorry, just realised you meant the Mac, not the iPad. No, once the things are on the Mac, I copy them over to the NAS, then free up the space on the Mac.
The Mac is now running at it's usual 87Gb Free Space. (It used to be about 95Gb, but those GameCube Roms took up some space!!)

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Sun, 18 Apr 2021, 05:05
Pakz
I have the cheapest icloud storage package since a couple of years now. It is a buck a month for 50gb. Handy for when I get a new ipad and everything just gets restored I do hope they increase the gb it in the future as the 3 bucks a/m for the next(200gb) is a little bit to much for me.
Sun, 18 Apr 2021, 05:12
Jayenkai
I've been tempted to get that AppleOne thing, which includes the Music, TV, Arcade and some iCloud Storage, but apparently you can't share the storage the way I am with my Mum.
I'm currently having her iPhings logged in as her own iCloud account, but additionally with my account as a secondary one. This means that, even though she has her own iCloud settings, the music and apps are shared with my account.
But iCloud Storage isn't.. ..

The options are either...
1. Get the iCloud storage just for myself... Selfish Jay. Grrr..
or
2. Rejig Mum's iPhings so they're ONLY set up as my account, meaning .. well.. anything she does could possibly impact my stuff!!
or
3. Buy Mum the iCloud Storage on top of my own iCloud Storage..
.. Which doesn't seem like the best option, if I'm honest.

There's "Family Settings", too, but to do that you need to share your purchase options across those devices.
The way it's currently set up, Mum literally cannot buy anything, so I have no sudden freakouts about a random influx of IAPs or something.
If I add Family Settings, then anything Mum buys, erroneously or otherwise, comes straight out of my bank account!!

Nah, sod it, I'll stick to doing manual backups!

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