MacStories Team

3289 posts on MacStories since July 2011

Articles by the MacStories team. Founded by Federico Viticci in April 2009, MacStories attracts millions of readers every month thanks to in-depth, personal, and informed coverage that offers a balanced mix of Apple news, app reviews, and opinion.

Textastic: The Code Editor for Your iPad and iPhone [Sponsor]

Textastic is the most complete and versatile code editor available for your iPad and iPhone. The app’s versatility starts with its extensive support of syntax highlighting for more than 80 programming and markup languages. Textastic handles highlighting for HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, C, C++, Swift, Objective-C, Java, LaTeX, Python, Ruby, Perl, Lua, and dozens more.

Textastic is also a full-featured Markdown text editor that includes a built-in web server and Safari support for previewing your work. The app is compatible with Sublime Text and TextMate syntax definitions too.

Textastic goes well beyond the features of a classic text editor, though. You can manage remote file transfers with FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Dropbox, and Google Drive and there’s a terrific, full-featured SSH terminal built right into the app. Because Textastic supports tabs, you can even have multiple files and SSH terminals open simultaneously.

With robust search and replace that supports regular expressions, keyboard shortcuts that are customizable, and support for Git repositories using Working Copy, it’s the most powerful code editor you’ll find anywhere with a long list of features, including support for the Files app, drag and drop, printing, iCloud Drive, Split View, multiwindowing, context menus, and a whole lot more.

The app is regularly updated and maintained too. With the release of version 9.3 in June, Textastic gained new keyboard shortcuts for code comments, a setting for automatically inserting a matching closing character for parentheses, square brackets, and curly brackets, code awareness that allows for automatic indentation based on syntax context, an adjustable line height setting, and a setting for displaying the selected line indicator in a document’s gutter. Dark mode has been improved too, allowing users to select a separate code editor theme and keyboard appearance and preview Markdown using a dark color scheme.

To learn more about Textastic and what it can do for your code editing needs on the iPhone and iPad, visit textasticapp.com, to download a copy today. You’re going to love it.

Our thanks to Textastic for sponsoring MacStories this week.


MacStories Unplugged

Designing Better Burrito Cooking Instructions Federico and John continue their tour of the English language, including thoughts on oysters, John explains why the design of a frozen burrito’s cooking instructions matters, and Federico shares his thoughts on widgets and three-column iPad app layouts he’d like to see this fall. Show Notes Exploring the English language...


In This Issue

This month, Ryan’s fall hardware wishes, Stephen on how Apple could adapt its laptops to fit better with work-from-home setups, John reviews the Powerbeats Pro from a runner’s perspective, and an all-new especially fun episode of MacStories Unplugged is out....


Sidequest: Helpdesks and Personal Task Inboxes That Teams Love, 100% Inside Slack [Sponsor]

Sidequest is a brand new extension exclusively for Slack that enables you to create helpdesks and personal task inboxes that teams love, 100% inside Slack. With Sidequest, you get the perfect combination of the dependability of a helpdesk system, the effortlessness of a task management app, and the convenience of Slack, all in one terrific, integrated package.

When it comes to helpdesks and request tracking tools, we all seem to share the same love-hate relationship. For many teams, helpdesks are the only way to process a large volume of requests efficiently and reliably, but at the same time, they can feel incredibly impersonal, old-fashioned, and inaccessible, especially when used for internal purposes, such as an IT service desk.

Sidequest makes you love your helpdesk again, by combining the reliability of traditional ticketing systems and the ease of use of modern task managers inside Slack. It allows your workspace members to create tasks in public or private support channels as well as for each other in personal task inboxes. As soon as a ticket has been created, Sidequest becomes the single point of truth, so your team always has a shared understanding of the task at hand, its history, and its status. That way, everyone is on the same page, and nothing slips between the cracks.

Better yet, there is no need to install new software or to set up accounts, as Sidequest lives 100% inside Slack. And because Sidequest is made in Germany, your data and your users are fully protected by GDPR, which is one of the world’s strictest data protection laws.

Start your new helpdesk today with a 30-day free trial of Sidequest by visiting getsidequest.app/macstories. Then, use promo code MACSTORIES for 50% off the first six months. Love your helpdesk again, with Sidequest for Slack.

Our thanks to Sidequest for sponsoring MacStories this week.


Tinderbox 8: Visualize, Analyze, and Share Your Ideas [Sponsor]

Tinderbox is a powerful Mac app that stores and organizes your notes, plans, and ideas, bringing order and insight to the vast amounts of information collected when you’re working on a big project. Whether that’s writing a book, creating course materials, planning a wedding, or just managing your day-to-day life, Tinderbox helps impose structure on your data to keep you organized and productive.

The app, which packs unparalleled power for analyzing, visualizing, and understanding your notes, is beloved by researchers, writers, investigators, product managers, and teachers. That’s because Tinderbox acts as a personal content assistant giving you the tools you need to discover connections and relationships between your notes that you might otherwise miss.

It’s easy to get started by dragging out lines connecting your notes or use Tinderbox’s wiki-like Ziplinks to link notes and ideas together. Best of all, Tinderbox adapts to the way you work. You can use mind maps with shapes, colors, and links to surface connections, or one of many other tools like outlines, word clouds, timelines, and dashboards. Each is a powerful way to gain new perspectives on your ideas, while adding as little or as much structure as you’d like.

Tinderbox also has agents and rules, and employs powerful AI tools to automatically identify names and places, look up addresses, and even suggest links. Of course the app integrates neatly with other apps too. Connect the app to Apple’s Notes app, and notes you enter on your iOS devices or Mac can be automatically categorized in Tinderbox. Of course, the app works with apps like DEVONthink, Scrivener, Bookends, and others, plus there’s a vibrant community.

So download Tinderbox today to try it for free, and when you’re ready to purchase use this link to save more than $50 on the best way to visualize, analyze, and share your ideas.

Our thanks to Tinderbox for sponsoring MacStories this week.


In This Issue

Anybuffer, a collection of iPad apps we’d like to see come to the Mac, the business dilemma facing developers that want to bring iPad apps to Apple Silicon Macs, Jonathan Reed’s Home screen, plusWeekly Q&A, Links, App Debuts, a recap of MacStories articles, and a preview of upcoming MacStories podcast episodes....


Up Next on MacStories’ Podcasts

Next week on AppStories, Federico and John continue their series of conversations with developers and designers about the OS updates coming in the fall by interviewing Vidit Bhargava, the designer and developer of LookUp. This week on MacStories Unwind, John recaps the week’s stories covering privacy features coming to Apple’s OSes in the...


A Short Break

This is a reminder that MacStories Weekly will not be published August 28th and September 4th while we get ready for the fall OS release season. We’ll be back on September 11th with a new issue. Until then, keep an eye out for the August Monthly Log, which will be coming out at the end...


Previously, On MacStories

Apple TV Channels Bundle Now Available Featuring CBS All Access and SHOWTIME Apple Rebrands Beats 1 as Apple Music 1, Launches New Global Radio Stations with Fresh Hosts and Shows Apple and Privacy in 2020: Wide-Reaching Updates with Minimal User Intrusion...