deliciously simple web design & creatively technical writing

• Home
• About
• Gallery
• Archive

Seven great Mac applications for freelance web designers

As a freelance web designer & Rails developer, I’m always on the lookout for tools that can save me time and energy so that I can sleep in till a reasonable 2 PM or so and still get my designated tasks completed.

Criteria that the apps have to meet

This is probably the greatest analogy ever written. Eat it, Shakespeare.

I’m very picky about the software I use, sort of like the diametric opposite of the thought process of a really fat kid who hasn’t eaten any cake in a while who is suddenly confronted with cake.

There are three main criteria that I judge applications on are as follows.

Usefulness - Does it actually perform the task I want it to?

Usability - Is the interface easier to use than its competitors? Is the information arranged in a logical fashion? Is the application “mac-like” with drag and drop and intuitive functionality? Does this save me time and energy?

Usability is great and that alone pushes the Mac platform ahead of both Linux and Windows, but its the sheer joy you get when using an Application like Delicious Library or Disco that makes it truly special. Its true what they say….once you go Mac, you never go back.

Joy - Does using this app sometimes make me giggle with child-like wonder and excitement over how cool or intuitive some feature is?

The seven favored apps mentioned here all fulfill at least the first two criteria in my opinion. Some of them arguably fulfill all three.

Nerdy Programming Tools

Text-editors inspire torrid arguments just like Video-game consoles and operating systems. I thought that this recent article provides some humor.

TextMate - There’s a reason this application has such a devoted following among Rails developers. It is hard to say enough about how useful this editor is. It has syntax-highlighting for almost every language under the sun, plenty of great color themes, and more features than I can shake a stick at.

I can’t live without… - Lots of cool things exist here, but the “New From Template” option under “File” is something I frequently use. This feature allows me to create a lot of simple default file types without having to look up what the exact syntax is. I can create a new XHTML Strict file without having to remember syntax, which is great for me.

I hope the next version has… - I’d love for the search to be improved. The search being on a separate screen instead of being integrated somehow feels very old-fashioned and isn’t as quick as something like Safari 3’s search tool, which dims the screen and highlights chosen words. The next version is supposed to be Leopard-only, so I’m hoping that some subtle animation effects can be worked into the search here.

Cost - €39 (I think thats about 70 or 80 American dollars). It costs more than some free Mac options like Smultron, but it is well worth it if you’re using it frequently.

CocoaMySql - Rails migrations make working with databases fairly simple. But there are still times that I need to see what is going on visually and try and determine why something isn’t working. This is a great tool for doing just that. This is great for doing development on your own machine and better for checking out production databases than something like phpMyAdmin.

I can’t live without… The ability to quickly view multiple databases and test specific SQL queries is what I love about this.

I hope the next version has… - I hope a little more effort is devoted to cleaning up the interface and making it a little more “mac-like”. Its useful just the same though.

Cost - Free and open source. The author does accept donations though.

Artsy Graphics Tools

This is probably my second favorite Mac app of all time. My favorite Mac app is Delicious Library.

CSSEdit - This is a brilliantly-designed, even inspiring piece of software. This program has too many useful features to count. Milestones, which give you the ability to revert back to an older version of your work are wonderful for keeping track of projects. The ability to group sections of the CSS and search through it easily based on how it looks in the left sidebar is great. Viewing your changes live makes working with colors and grids much easier.

The sidebar on the right makes adjusting CSS a very visual and pleasant exercise.

I can’t live without… Arguably the coolest feature is the ability to create complex CSS selectors using natural English language menus. It isn’t something I need to use too frequently, but it is a huge help when I do need it because remembering complex syntax that you don’t use frequently can be difficult.

I hope the next version has… I’d love two main feature to be added to this program. First, I’d love it if in the live preview it was possible to get the dimensions of elements in some type of overlay without having to go back to the main editing window. Second, I’d love the ability to preview how the sites look in Firefox and Internet Explorer and other browsers if possible. I’m familiar with Firebug and some other options, but I’d prefer doing it all within this extraordinarily pleasant program.

Cost - $29.95. This is an absolute steal for the quality of the program.

Lineform - I’m not a professional illustrator, so I don’t really need the hundreds of extra features that Adobe Illustrator provides. I just need something to occasionally create some rounded-boxes or quick doodles and things. For that purpose, this program is darn near perfect. I like Inkscape a lot for some of the extra-features it has such as the ability to quickly trace bitmaps, but the interface isn’t quite as usable as LineForm’s. Lineform has the easiest to use interface of any vector-graphics program I’ve ever tried.

I found out from Facebook the other day that my old friend David Myers is still continuing his artistic habits. He was awesome and totally drew the most creative images and flip-books EVAR! Here he gives a brief explanation of vector graphics.

I can’t live without… - Core Image filters allow you to easily add great effects like bloom without having to resort to Photoshop or Gimp. This is a time-saving feature and makes possible some nifty effects that other programs can’t manage.

I hope the next version has… - A few more default shapes and some extra modeling tools would be nice. Also the ability to work with large numbers of objects should be enhanced. You don’t want to ruin the easy-to-use interface, but there are times that you want a little more power.

Cost - $79.95. This is more expensive than the previously mentioned Inkscape, but much less than Illustrator and some other options.

Paparazzi! - Pressing Command-Shift-3 for taking a quick screenshot of a website works just fine, but when you want to save an image of what exists below the fold, especially now that designing for scrolling is in vogue, you need a dedicated tool. Paparazzi!i is easy to use and has many useful features. The newest beta version is even more useful with cool features such as Quick Look style zooming for snapshots and the ability to remember recently captured sites.

This is totally the image-capture program that Batman would use. And if you get the endorsement of Batman, you know it must be damn good.

I can’t live without… The “delay” setting allows you to take pictures of slower-loading Flash elements that wouldn’t ordinarily show up in a screenshot. I’m not a huge fan of most Flash websites, but I do have to evaluate them at times for clients whose competitors might someday have them, so this comes in handy for making presentations.

I hope the next version has… Some optimization to make the app feel a little more snappy when capturing massive images would be welcome. The ability to manage simple galleries of images along with some basic labeling and editing options would be welcome.

Cost - Free, but the author does accept donations. I plan on throwing a few bucks his way soon.

Boring Business Tools

When I say that business tools are boring, it doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the skill that these programmers possess, it means I just hate creating paperwork that never gets read by my clients anyway.

Billable - This is a very easy-to-use tool for managing clients and invoices. It isn’t a full-featured accounting application, but it should solve most freelancers’ needs very easily. The ability to customize the invoices is nice. The ability to turn on the built-in stopwatch and time your work is also useful.

I can’t live without… - The ability to simply create and distribute beautiful invoices is priceless. Print the file out, make a PDF, email it. Very easy to use.

I hope the next version has… Maybe a few more invoice styles would be useful. Just continue to improve the overall interface and make it even more usable than it is now.

Cost - $24.95. This is a very reasonable deal.

Have I mentioned that I hate creating paperwork?

iWork ‘08 - I hate creating paperwork. I really do. But when I do have to write some actual documents, why not do it in style? By virtue of the fact that it has just been released, I’ve only been using it for a short period of time, but the cool features have already gotten me out of jams. It has beautifully designed templates, lots of useful features without feeling bloated, and great compatibility with Microsoft’s Office suite. iWork is a beautiful software package and is well worth your 79 dollars. Unless you need some advanced Excel features, there doesn’t seem to be much of a reason to even consider Microsoft Office anymore if you’re on a Mac. It is great to see some decent innovation in the basic spreadsheet market. Microsoft should hang their heads in shame that Apple’s first effort is better for most users than their billionth.

There are many positive reviews of this package out there right from creativebits, Deep Thought and RoughlyDrafted and others. I look forward to playing around with Keynote and Numbers and Pages a lot more over the next few months.

I can’t live without… - The new Instant Alpha feature gives me a raging clue. Just click and drag to get rid of an unwanted color region. That feature is just so brilliantly simple and I hope other image-editing programs implement something like that. Others seem to love it too. It isn’t as precise as Photoshop, but when you need to make a simple presentation, it really doesn’t have to be.

I hope the next version has… - I haven’t explored this enough to truly come face to face with the suite’s limitations, but I guess a few more templates on top of the already beautiful ones would be a great addition.

Cost - $79.00. This would be a bargain at twice the price. This is a must-have office-suite. You can try the free 30 day trial to check it out without paying, which is something that I hope Apple continues to do with its software. I think the last time they gave out a free preview like that was with Aperture.

Other contenders

There are some other Mac Apps that I haven’t really decided to integrate into my everyday workflow yet, but they are highly regarded by others that I respect, so I feel like mentioning these is obligatory.

It is truly inspiring to see how such a simple application icon can be so distinctive and beautiful.

Coda - Everything from the beautiful application icon to the tabbed interface oozes typical Panic quality. This is really useful if you’re drowning in Desktop clutter as it puts many of the tools you’ll commonly use (text-editor, css editor, ftp program, terminal, reference library) you need into separate tabs. The built-in reference manuals can also be useful to some, though personally I find it easier to look up things in google quickly, especially with the awesome Inquisitor plugin for Safari.

Why I don’t use it - Personally, I’m happy with the dedicated TextMate/CSSEdit combo in most situations as they both have more features than such a versatile app can reasonably be expected to have, but I can tell why people rave about Coda. It is personally interesting for me to see why others choose not to use it as some of their thoughts mirror my own.

Transmit - A lot of people rave about this application. To be honest, I’m not as thrilled with it as some other apps and I really don’t know why. Still, so many others love it that I felt like I had to mention it.

Cyberduck - I don’t care what anybody says, but this FTP program is always going to have a soft-spot in my heart because of the absolutely amazing facial expression on this duck. The duck looks so happy. It is a very useful program that is free and open source as well.

My main issue with PHP that I have is that it encourages horrendous programming practices. I’ve had to dive into PHP apps that mix business logic with presentation in such prodigious quantities that as soon as I’ve opened up the file I’ve started crying. Rails is so good for me not just because the syntax is clearer or anything like that. It just encourages really spiffy practices. And yes I’m familiar with various PHP frameworks like Cake, but I’ve made a decision to stick with Ruby on Rails and I’m happy with it.

Mamp - I’m not a fan of PHP for a number of reasons, but it is ubiquitous and many web apps that need modification such as OSCommerce, Wordpress, and PHPBidPro and others use it, so this app has bailed me out a few times when I’ve needed it. Installing the most current versions of PHP has always given me a headache, so its usually just easier to rely on something like this for development.

Interesting Apps currently in development.

I try and stay up-to-date with Mac software news as I do have some long term plans to learn Cocoa and create some thrilling applications, so I’ve come across a few apps that are currently in development that look very useful.

Flow - Though I like both programs, I’m not 100 sold on both Transmit and Cyberduck, so I was excited to hear that another quality FTP program is in development. The interface looks gorgeous, the drag-and-drop looks very fluid, and there seems to be a lot of interesting usability touches like URL copying and many other features as well. It is currently in private beta but I can’t wait to get my hands on this.

Like many other quality Mac applications from small teams, the Pixelmator team uses lots of Mac only features such as Core Image to speed up development. I’m also glad to hear that they’re supporting Automator so strongly as that is key to performing repetitive actions on a Mac.

Pixelmator - Just like opening Illustrator to make a simple rounded cube-shape is sort of wasteful, in many cases using something like Photoshop or Gimp for some simple drawing is overkill. Thats why I was thrilled to find out that there’s a small team that is trying to make something simple and great for the Mac. It is layer-based, has various filters and effects, and looks absolutely beautiful and easy to use.

Conclusion

Have I forgotten about any useful applications? Have you heard about any other applications that are in development that may be winners? Do you think your favorite app is better than mine? Feel free to comment or drop me a quick message. The next article I think probably expands on the usefulness, usability, and joy simplified version of a software hierarchy of needs concept I briefly mentioned up above. I’ve got an idea that I think is brilliant but it needs to be explored a little more before I more fully articulate it.

Posted on August 15th, 2007 by Chris Papadopoulos.

Subscribe to the RSS feed, Trackback, or contact me privately.

Comments

1. johno (2 comments.) @ Aug 19

   Some great app’s in your list. I’m off to try CocoaMySQL as a replacement for phpmyadmin. I’ll be downloading Paparazzi too.

   Thanks.

2. Chris Papadopoulos @ Aug 19

   Thanks johno. You have a cool blog yourself by the way and I’m definitely going to check out some of your articles.

3. johno (2 comments.) @ Aug 19

   Thanks. Btw, how do I subscribe to your RSS feed? I can’t see a link to it.
   Thanks.

4. Chris Papadopoulos @ Aug 19

   Depending on what browser you’re using, the RSS feed link should show up in the main url bar up top. There is also a link in the footer.

   My site is in a bit of a flux right now as I’ve discovered that the reality of working with small businesses is that a surprising number of them use very low resolution monitors, so I quickly redid the theme a few days ago to better fit a 800 pixel wide monitor until I can take the time out to create something a little more logical and permanent.

   Thanks. Looking forward to checking out your site in further detail later.

5. dimitre (1 comments.) @ Jan 27

   Nice list
   here are other apps I love
   Burn - http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/
   Disk Library - http://www.obviousmatter.com/
   MySQL Tools - http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html
   Hex Fiend - http://ridiculousfish.com/hexfiend/
   The Unarchiver - http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html

   I would love to have a nice database modelling tool in OS X, as Workbench

Agree or Disagree?

Your Name (required)


Your E-mail (required)


Your Website (optional)


Your Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail