Early in the last decade, the number of requests we got for a Mac version started to increase dramatically.  One of our developers at the time was particularly afraid he would be chosen to do this work because he had some Mac experience – but he really didn’t want to.  Naturally, he came in one morning to discover on his desk an old Mac SE30 that used to be used for something around here (I believe it was used to print out labels for floppy disks) sitting on his desk with a Mac OSX CD hanging out of the floppy disk drive and a note that read “[Developer name changed to protect their identity] – see me – Clark”.  (Note to our new users: SlickEdit has been around long enough that it used to ship on floppy disks) (Note to users under 30 – USB sticks did not always exist).

The prevailing wisdom at the time was that it would be easy for us to do a Mac version, “because it’s just UNIX now, and you guys are UNIX already – it’ll just be another port”.  I remember hearing this over and over at trade shows in between requests for Ruby support, and “Do you guys have any free t-shirts?” (Right now, there’s a guy in his basement inventing a new scripting language, convinced his will be the one that will take over the world, obsoleting all other scripting languages.  I really wish somebody would stop him, because it won’t take over and obsolete all other scripting languages, but it will become just popular enough we will have to support it.  When I say “stop him”, I don’t mean hurt him or anything – just take him out to dinner or introduce him to a woman).

It turns out the “It’s just UNIX now” logic is a bit, what’s the word I’m looking for…. wrong.  There is UNIX under there, and obviously that was a good place to start when they revamped MacOS.  Plus, I can get a console window which was always my complaint about Macs “back in the day” (yes, I know you could install something, I maintain it should just be there).  But what the fact that “It’s just UNIX now” got us was the ability to create an X11 application that would run on the Mac.  So we did that – and customers loved it.  Well, that isn’t exactly true.  They acted more like we gave them a new BMW but first used it for one of those things you see at the county fair where you pay a dollar and get to hit a car with a sledgehammer (granted they usually do this with demolition derby cars, not new BMWs).  It was SlickEdit – it worked, but it just didn’t look or feel like people expected it to. Hardcore SlickEdit fans were happy… ish.  They were happy to have SlickEdit, but they missed all the Mac-isms, and were a little perturbed by SlickEdit’s menu being attached right to the top of the application window.

So, starting sometime in 2010 our CTO began the process of exploring how to get us a native version on the Mac – and the GUI overhaul that ensued stayed largely in his office until sometime this past spring when different team members began to have certain controls assigned to them to port to our new GUI framework (I’m not going into which one here, the evidence is “out there”).  I was able to be part of this process, and it was very interesting work.  It is an exciting time to work here at SlickEdit.

We had a nice long beta test – a little longer than we planned. I would like to take a moment to say that our beta testers were some of the best we’ve ever dealt with.  Even when there were problems, the comments almost always went something like “It crashed, but thanks for doing a native Mac version, great work, looking forward to the next version!”.  The beta testers this time were aces – some of them old SlickEdit fans we’ve known for a while, and I believe we made some new friends too.  Thanks guys.

So, our native Mac version is “out there” now.  We hope everybody likes it.  Typically I haven’t been a big Mac fan, but I’m learning to appreciate the things that it does well.  I only wish I could get a few people to join me in an Indiana Jones like quest to track down the eleven remaining single button mice on the planet and then Ctrl+Click could work properly.

If you bought any of our X11 versions on the Mac you can get the new version for free. Here’s the link,or you can give our sales team a call at (919) 473-0070.

If you’re in need of one last gift for the techie on your holiday shopping list, we suggest the following.

Caffeinated Soap
No, we’re not making this up. http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/giftsunder10/5a65/ 
Between end-of-year project deadlines, gift shopping, and other holiday preparations, a coder can get really squeezed for time. And you don’t want to back a programmer into a corner where they have to choose between sufficient caffeination and personal hygiene. This should avoid any such unpleasantness.

A Blunt Instrument
http://www.harborfreight.com/4-lb-neon-orange-dead-blow-hammer-41800.html
There are situations in which you simply cannot improve upon a large hammer.  This is the reason that the B-52 has had such a long lifespan. This orange beauty will allow your beloved techie to vent frustration upon keyboards, desks, recalcitrant Solaris machines, etc without the risk of forehead or hand injury.

A “Come home for dinner late” card
It’s surprising how many bugs are found just after the “I’ll be home by 6:15 for dinner” phone call. Your programmer is now torn between a promise to loved ones and a dedication to hunting down that crash before calling it a day. Give them a Monopoly-style “Get out of dinner, free” card so that at least once this year week, they can arrive late without guilt.

A USB-chargeable flashlight
http://www.berettausa.com/products/jolt-usb-flash-light-b2c-only-blue/
A USB flashlight is insidious in its irresistible blend of techie-seducing features. First off, it’s a USB device. *Anything* USB (and to a lesser extent FireWire) is worthy of investigation. Secondly, it’s the size and shape of most trade show trinkets, which programmers are wired at birth to hoard. Thirdly, it has a genuinely useful function, which all but ensures your coder will make every effort to rationalize this gadget’s place in the laptop bag for years to come.

Carpal Tunnel Therapy
http://www.amazon.com/Roleo-Therapeutic-Carpal-Therapy-Massager/dp/B005CP4GDA/
Because sometimes you gotta play hurt.
(Not yet verified, but I think this thing can also make homemade ravioli…)

Yoga Gear
http://www.amazon.com/Office-Yoga-Simple-Stretches-People/dp/0811826856
Not only is this great for relieving the tension of long hours frozen at the keyboard, it appears to also be a crafty way of furthering ones career.

Many developers work with source code which resides in files with “non-standard” extensions. By a standard extension, I am referring to something like .cpp or .java. By a non-standard extension, I am talking about .ryan, or .data. I will show you how to quickly and easily set up your SlickEdit Core editor in Eclipse to handle these files the way you want them handled.

Let’s assume you have some file extension which is not already set up accurately in the default SlickEdit Core configuration. It might be something your company only uses internally. Let’s use .data for this example.

I have a workspace created which includes some .data files, and what I first see in the Navigator view is this:

When I go to open one of these files, Eclipse will use the standard Text Editor because it does not know better:

Not terribly useful…clearly the SlickEdit editor has not been opened, and we have no language support whatsoever. These appear to be COBOL files…so we should set up Eclipse to recognize them as such, and also tell SlickEdit that these files should be treated as COBOL code.

The first step is to go to Window > Preferences > Editors > File Associations and add *.data as a “New File Type”. Then select *.data in the list and click the Add button in the “Associated Editors” pane. Now select “SlickEdit Editor”. Make sure you mark “SlickEdit Editor” as the “Default” editor for this file type. Now we have told Eclipse to open all .data files with the SlickEdit Editor.

We are not quite finished yet. Now we need to tell SlickEdit to treat these files as COBOL. So, go to Window > SlickEdit Preferences > Languages > File Extension Manager and create a new extension for data (just data…not *.data), and assign the language to be Cobol 85. Click “OK”, and then click “OK” on the SlickEdit Preferences dialog. Now when you open up one of these .data files, you will see the correct editor opened with the correct language support.