jessedyck.com

Adium, the multi-protocol IM client for OS X, has a problem. That problems is groups. It has a horrible lack of a GUI when it comes to managing contact list groups. The biggest thing that has bugged me lately has been how it sorts my groups. I like to have my close contacts group at the top of my list, and my group of people I don’t talk to at the bottom. Adium however, seems to have it’s own idea of how it will order my groups. Here’s what I did to fix it.

Adium stores it’s information for every item in your contact list in a plist located at ~/Library/Application Support/Adium 2.0/Users/Default/ByObject/. Navigate to that folder in Finder and you will see a bunch of .plists. These files are ordered by protocol, and named as such (’AIM.*’, ‘GTALK.*’, ‘MSN.*’, etc). You will also see the ‘Group.*’ files. This is where Adium stores it’s information on Groups.

Being that these are .plist files, you will need a plist editor installed to make changes. I have XCode installed, which comes with Property List Editor, but there are also some other plist editors out there. This is also a great opportunity to use Leopard’s Quick View, which will display the plist in XML. Looking at one of the ‘Group.*’ files you will see a property called Order Index, this is how Adium determines what order to display your groups in your contact list. This is the golden value. Change it to whatever you’d like (0 being the top of the list, 1 would be the second from the top), save the plist and relaunch Adium. Be careful not to have duplicate Order Index values, though I’m sure Adium would handle it gracefully, it’s still something you’d want to stay away from.

Update: As indicated in the Comments, I’m lazy and didn’t actually do very much research into this beforehand. It appears that when your Contact List is in Windowed mode, it is as simple as click and drag to re-order your groups. When your list is in Borderless Window mode, you only need to hold Command while dragging.

And what did we learn today kids? Google is your best friend! Even though we already knew that…

The official Microsoft Remote Desktop client for Mac is adequate. It does what it’s suppose to, allows you to remotely control a Windows computer, and it does it in a very Windows way. As with most Microsoft/Windows based programs it is very reliant on the file system, the confusion of the Open/Save dialogue boxes and navigating through files has most novice users frustrated to no end. This is where CoRD comes in.

Mac apps, Apple developed or not, tend to have more of an all in one approach. Take a look at the iLife suite, Delicious Library, or Filemaker Inc’s Bento, they’re all based on the concept of a library. You open a program that does a specific function (say iTunes), and you have all your music right there, in the interface that iTunes (rather, it’s developers) feels works best for the task. Even the process of getting everything set up for the first time is usually aided by some kind of import wizard.This is the basic idea that I’ve noticed across most Mac applications, minimize the amount of time spent in Finder. Apple itself has been actively trying to steer you away from the file system with the introduction and enhancements of Spotlight (saved searches and it’s new abilities as an application launcher).

From CoRD’s web site:

“Macs interact well with Windows, and with CoRD the experience is a bit smoother. Great for working on the office terminal server, administrating servers or any other time you’d like your PC to be a bit closer without leaving your Mac. CoRD allows you to view each session in its own window, or save space with all sessions in one window. Scale session windows to whatever size fits you - the screen is resized automatically. Enter full screen mode and feel like you’re actually at the computer. The clipboard is automatically synchronized between CoRD and the server effortlessly. CoRD does all this while staying light and quicker than Microsoft’s RDC client.”

That about says it all. CoRD is a great little open source implementation of Microsoft’s RDC protocol. Opening the app, you’re greeted with a clean sleight for all the remote sessions you could ever want, stored neatly in a standard OS X shelf on the side, along with your “Saved Servers” that allow for quick access to your favourite servers, include login information and performance settings. All in one nice clean app, no messing around in Finder looking for those saved Remote Desktop Connection files. Functionality wise, all it brings to the table is automatic scaling/resizing of your RDC sessions, but combined with good design what more could you ask for? Especially when comparing it to the other offerings available.

It’s really a great app to have on hand, whether you need it for an actual server environment or just to connect to your PC that’s in the other room for whatever reason. It’s been recently updated to fix a few minor Leopard issues, and thanks to the Universal Binary it works on Intel and PowerPC Macs. My iBook G4 (1.2GHz, 1.2GBs of RAM) handles it beautifully, not a single hiccup over a (sketchy) wireless network.

CoRD hasn’t seen much of any update (besides the previously mentioned Leopard fixes) since May. I’m hoping the developer jumps back on it and makes it more Leopard like. The Shelf is functional, but seems dated to me. Something that fits in with the new Finder and iTunes I think would be appropriate. Also, when in a Remote Desktop session, hovering over a menu item (such as Programs in the Start Menu) does not highlight the selection. Other then that, this was my OS X find of the week. Have at it!

CoRD on Sourceforge

My poor old iBook never had the capability to do the two finger scrolling that all the kids are up to these days. We’d be sitting in a coffee shop together, glaring down all those MacBooks and MBPs when they’d rock the two finger goodness, while in the back of our minds we thought “we’ve been together a lot longer then you lot, you switchers”. Well, that as mostly just us being bitter. After a while, we found iScroll2, a great little free app that adds this functionality to these old dogs. Who’s to say they can’t learn new tricks!

Well, the Leopard release day came and went, and we were quick to jump on that upgrade, not thinking twice about what we might lose. Sure enough, pop open Firefox and start reading the latest Daring Fireball updates… wait, no scrolling, NO!!!

Fear not, for iScroll2 has since been updated with complete Leopard support! It’s really a great thing to have two finger scrolling back in Leopard on these older machines, you really don’t realize how much you rely on something till you lose it completely. I even thought it may be time for a new laptop! Ok ok, I know I need a new one anyways, but shhh don’t tell her!!!

Grab iScroll2 from sourceforge here!