1st time Mac owner

NeVeR

I took the leap last week and purchased a Macbook pro from Apple. €1249.

The reason for buying is i wanted to teach myself App development for iphone/ipad etc and i'm sure i'll get there over the next few months - I just downloaded xcode,, let the learning begin,

As i've never used a Mac before i'm trying to find out what programs or apps i should get to make my Mac better.

1 thing I noticed is there wasn't a wordpad / note pad program to write with... well there might have been but i've not found it yet. ( still learning the interface )


So is there a list of programs / app i should install... like the must have's for any Mac user ?

thanks.

jester77

Well, everyone's list of apps will be different based on what they do with their machine.

You say you are a developer. First thing I would install is homebrew. It's a package manager that makes it very easy to keep up to date with the latest software tool releases. Installing something like git is as easy as:

brew install git

Speaking of git, Atlassian's sourcetree app is great for visually managing your repos. It's in the app store. I find it better than githubs equivalent.

Also, I prefer the zsh shell over bash. Have a look at prezto and ohmyzsh for customised shells that will speed up your work to no end. I prefer prezto as it's a lighter framework.

For text/code editing Sublime is probably the best out there at the moment.

Doodah7

NeVeR wrote: »

1 thing I noticed is there wasn't a wordpad / note pad program to write with... well there might have been but i've not found it yet. ( still learning the interface )

There is and it is called TextEdit. You will find it in your applications folder (near the top/middle if your layout is the same as mine).

Idleater

NeVeR wrote: »

1 thing I noticed is there wasn't a wordpad / note pad program to write with... well there might have been but i've not found it yet. ( still learning the interface ) .

Textpad should be there.
As for everything else, Google xyzwindowsprogram osx

ZENER

tallpaul wrote: »

There is and it is called TextEdit. You will find it in your applications folder (near the top/middle if your layout is the same as mine).

For quick handy access to anything just drag it to the Dock at the bottom of the screen. If the application is already open its icon will already be there, just Right-Click the icon > Options > Keep in Dock.

Ken

Mars Bar

...or if you don't like a clunky dock, press cmd and space bar and spotlight will open up. Type in text edit and the app will be there to open.

Colonel Panic

I would actually recommend not looking for other people's list of must have apps. Avoid the temptation to install tools for doing pointless maintenance or even the latest package manager du-jour.

Git is installed with XCode now (embedded in the package by default, go to preferences and install the command line tools version too) and there's a version embedded in SourceTree also.

Liameter

AVOID like the plague anything that purports to "clean your Mac".