oXygen enhancements for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

[joewiz]

Leopard has several wonderful features that I would enhance oXygen's user experience on the Mac:

1. Quick Look - filetypes registered to oXygen should be previewable using Finder's Quick Look. This is Leopard's best feature! Being able to see the full contents of the file while browsing through folders just using the space bar! See http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quicklook.html

2. Add .xq and .xql to oXygen's registered filetypes (.xquery, .xml, etc.) so that .xq files have an oXygen icon instead of the generic file icon. The generic icons stick out particularly in Finder's Cover Flow view. See http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/finder.html

3. Improve Spaces functionality - it appears this has come up on the forums, and perhaps there's already a fix, but I've observed that oXygen doesn't respect the System Preference > Spaces option, "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application." See http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spaces.html

Perhaps other Leopard users have ideas?

Thanks,
Joe

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

1. Quick Look - filetypes registered to oXygen should be previewable using Finder's Quick Look. This is Leopard's best feature!

Do you mean previewable using Oxygen? The filetypes associated with Oxygen are not some special file types that need special handling. They should be handled the same way as any other files that you work with in Finder.

2. Add .xq and .xql to oXygen's registered filetypes (.xquery, .xml, etc.) so that .xq files have an oXygen icon instead of the generic file icon.

The next version of Oxygen will register also .xq and .xql with Oxygen.

3. Improve Spaces functionality - it appears this has come up on the forums, and perhaps there's already a fix, but I've observed that oXygen doesn't respect the System Preference > Spaces option, "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application."

It is a problem in the Apple's Java virtual machine on 32 bits that comes with Leopard. Apple fixed the problem in the Java virtual machine on 64 bits. That means the switch is not done correctly for Java applications that run with the 32 bit JVM but is done correctly for Java applications that run with the 64 bit JVM. As workaround if you run OS X on 32 bits you should keep a modal dialog open in the Java application, for example the About dialog or the Find/Replace dialog in Oxygen when you switch to other space. With a modal dialog visible in the Java application OS X switches back correctly to the space that contains the Java application.


Regards,
Sorin

[joewiz]

Thanks for your reply, Sorin,

1. Quick Look - filetypes registered to oXygen should be previewable using Finder's Quick Look. This is Leopard's best feature!

Do you mean previewable using Oxygen? The filetypes associated with Oxygen are not some special file types that need special handling. They should be handled the same way as any other files that you work with in Finder.

No, I mean previewable using Finder's Quick Look feature. This feature lets you click on an icon in the finder and hit the space bar. This quickly brings up a "HUD" (heads up display) window with a full preview of the file. Each application that wants to support Quick Look has to include a Quick Look plugin in the application bundle. Most common document types have quick look plugins in OS X: MS Word, JPG, PDF, etc. There's an open source project to add syntax highlighting for common code formats, such as XML - see QLColorCode at http://www.quicklookplugins.com/2008/01 ... d-to-v041/ . I've looked at this to find XQuery or XSLT support for the files I use oXygen for. If oXygen added this, it would add to its Mac-ness significantly!

The next version of Oxygen will register also .xq and .xql with Oxygen.

Great! Thanks.

3. Improve Spaces functionality - it appears this has come up on the forums, and perhaps there's already a fix, but I've observed that oXygen doesn't respect the System Preference > Spaces option, "When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows for the application."

It is a problem in the Apple's Java virtual machine on 32 bits that comes with Leopard. Apple fixed the problem in the Java virtual machine on 64 bits. That means the switch is not done correctly for Java applications that run with the 32 bit JVM but is done correctly for Java applications that run with the 64 bit JVM. As workaround if you run OS X on 32 bits you should keep a modal dialog open in the Java application, for example the About dialog or the Find/Replace dialog in Oxygen when you switch to other space. With a modal dialog visible in the Java application OS X switches back correctly to the space that contains the Java application.

Thanks for the explanation. Personally, this isn't a high priority for me, but it's nice there's a workaround for people who want to use it.

Again, thanks!
- Joe

[sorin_ristache]

No, I mean previewable using Finder's Quick Look feature. This feature lets you click on an icon in the finder and hit the space bar. This quickly brings up a "HUD" (heads up display) window with a full preview of the file. Each application that wants to support Quick Look has to include a Quick Look plugin in the application bundle. Most common document types have quick look plugins in OS X: MS Word, JPG, PDF, etc.

We will look into that. Thank you for the suggestion.


Regards,
Sorin

[joewiz]

Hi Sorin,

2. Add .xq and .xql to oXygen's registered filetypes (.xquery, .xml, etc.) so that .xq files have an oXygen icon instead of the generic file icon.

The next version of Oxygen will register also .xq and .xql with Oxygen.

Thanks for adding .xq to oXygen's registered document types in v9.3. (And the other features are great - being able to open zipped files is great!)

I noticed, however, that .xql isn't registered to oXygen; perhaps this and .xqy should be added to the list?

I feel like such a stereotypically picky Mac user in making the following observation, but I noticed that the Mac version of the application is called "Oxygen", but the application resides in a folder called "oxygen". I'd suggest calling the application folder Oxygen too. (Am I right that the "<oXygen/>" spelling is only used in the logo, but the program itself isn't actually called "<oXygen/>" or "oXygen" -- and the correct spelling is "Oxygen"? I've become accustomed to "oXygen", and this would be fine with me too, as long as the spelling is somewhat consistent.)

Lastly, let me reiterate the mac user community's interest in QuickLook support for Oxygen files. Syntax coloring isn't necessary, even - just a plain text view would be great.

Thanks,
Joe

[sorin_ristache]

I noticed, however, that .xql isn't registered to oXygen; perhaps this and .xqy should be added to the list?

.xql was added to the XQuery extensions in version 9.3. We will add .xqy too in the next version.

I noticed that the Mac version of the application is called "Oxygen", but the application resides in a folder called "oxygen". I'd suggest calling the application folder Oxygen too. (Am I right that the "<oXygen/>" spelling is only used in the logo, but the program itself isn't actually called "<oXygen/>" or "oXygen" -- and the correct spelling is "Oxygen"? I've become accustomed to "oXygen", and this would be fine with me too, as long as the spelling is somewhat consistent.)

Yes, the logo contains the name <oXygen/>. I call the other names used in text communications (oXygen, Oxygen) abbreviations of the full name (<oXygen/>). Both abbreviations are correct spellings.

We will consider naming the install folder Oxygen instead of oxygen.


Regards,
Sorin

[vkl]

Hi sorin,

It is a problem in the Apple's Java virtual machine on 32 bits that comes with Leopard. Apple fixed the problem in the Java virtual machine on 64 bits. That means the switch is not done correctly for Java applications that run with the 32 bit JVM but is done correctly for Java applications that run with the 64 bit JVM. As workaround if you run OS X on 32 bits you should keep a modal dialog open in the Java application, for example the About dialog or the Find/Replace dialog in Oxygen when you switch to other space. With a modal dialog visible in the Java application OS X switches back correctly to the space that contains the Java application.


Regards,
Sorin

With 64 bit Java you get the opposite! It works so far there is no open Oxygen dialog box like Open/Save.

• download Java 64 bit (see Java for Mac OS X 10.5, Update 1)
• open Oxygen app bundle Applications/oxygen/Oxygen.app/
• open Contents/Info.plist (with Property List Editor - part of Developer Tools or in Oxygen because it's an XML file)
• change element Java/JVMVersion to 1.6+
• save file and restart Oxygen

A newer version of Oxygen will overwrite your Contents/Info.plist changes, so you have to change it again.

Now Spaces works for me

Regards,
Icke.

[sorin_ristache]

With 64 bit Java you get the opposite! It works so far there is no open Oxygen dialog box like Open/Save.

...

Now Spaces works for me

I am not sure I understand. Do you mean that Leopard spaces work correctly for the Oxygen window when there is no dialog opened in Oxygen but they do not work correctly when there is an Oxygen dialog?


Regards,
Sorin