Tagged: extension

Create text columns on a single Photoshop layer with this uber-cool extension

Photoshop
2 Apr, 2015

Adobe Photoshop’s text capabilities are adequate for most users, but one area that is sorely lacking is the ability to set text in columns. It’s a royal pain when you’re mocking up a website to have to set two separate text layers and align them when you want multiple columns of text.

UberColumns to the rescue! uberColumns is a simple add-on that allows you to convert a single block of text on a layer to a specified column layout, including the ability to customize the gutter width.

Simply use your text tool to drag a text box out and enter your text as you normally would.
After committing the text, click the layer icon for your text so the layer is active.
Open the Columns panel from Window>Extensions>Columns. Type the number of columns in the box on the left, and the amount of gutter space in the box on the right, and hit OK.

Your text should now be converted to columns. You will likely have to adjust the overall width by using your text tool to adjust the width of the text box. And that’s the beauty of UberColumns, you can adjust the columns simply by adjusting the text box as you normally would.

UberColumns is 100% free, and works with Adobe Photoshop CC, and CC2014. I absolutely LOVE this extension!

Upgrade your Safari status bar

Mac & OS X
11 Mar, 2015

The very bottom of Safari’s browser window, the Status Bar, by default shows you the web address of the link your mouse is hovering over. Unfortunately this feature doesn’t always work well, and isn’t very informative. Heck, sometimes it doesn’t work at all.

Ultimate Satus Bar is a Safari extension that improves on the built-in status bar in a few ways.

First up is the fact that unlike Safari’s status bar, Ultimate Status Bar only shows up when you hover over a link, saving you around 20 pixels of screen real estate. That’s not a big deal on an iMac, but if you’re surfing on a MacBook Air it can make a big difference.

Ultimate Status Bar places a small Favicon in the corner of the site the link will take you to when possible, as well as an icon for the file type if you happen to be hovering over a downloadable link such as a PDF, TIF, ZIP, etc. And for those downloadable files, it will display the file size if it can be determined – so you can decide if you want to download the file now, or wait until later.

Perhaps the best feature is that short URLs get lengthened and displayed (see the image above). This is not only great for security reasons, but it’ll also help prevent you from getting Rick-Rolled!

Finally, you can customize the appearance of Ultimate Status Bar with the built-in themes.

Ultimate Satus Bar is free, and for the most part works extremely well. I couldn’t get it to display the Favicon for my own site, nor the download size of a ZIP file I hosted (though it was a very large file, so maybe I didn’t wait long enough). But it never failed to show me the link address, expand a short-URL, or hide the bar completely once I moved the mouse.

Long Shadow Generator for Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop
4 Feb, 2014

Long Shadow Generator

Long Shadow Generator is a Photoshop extension to which creates long shadow with a single click! It’s the perfect add-on for web designers working on a site with a flat design who want to add a little dimension to the design without using typical drop shadows.

You can control the direction, opacity and length, as well as black or white shadows. Long Shadow Generator works with Adobe Photoshop CS6 and CC, and is absolutely free.

Add an RSS subscribe button to Safari in Mountain Lion

Mac & OS X
1 Aug, 2012

One of the features Apple chose to kill off in Mountain Lion is the RSS Subscribe button in Safari. While RSS feeds aren’t quite the rage they used to be, many users still use RSS feeds religiously. The king of RSS Readers is of course Google Reader. And if you miss the subscribe button, there’s an easy way to get it back.

Add to Google Reader Safari Extension adds the RSS feed of the page you’re currently on to Google Reader. It works extremely well!

Another extension that works with any RSS reader you have installed is Subscribe to Feed, a side-project by Red Sweater software, maker of the MarsEdit blog editor.

Add Twitter capability to Safari with Ostrich extension

Mac & OS X
19 Jul, 2010

By now it should be no secret that you can add extensions to Apple’s Safari web browser. One new extension allows you to read and send Tweets with the click of a button.

Ostrich is accessed through a button in your browser bar which drops down an overlay window containing Tweets from your Twitter stream. The icon also notifies you of the number of unread Tweets with a red badge.

Ostrich adds Tweeting to Safari with the click of a button

One of the few features of Ostrich is the ability to automatically add a link to the page you’re currently on to a new Tweet, which you access by clicking the plus button in the upper right corner. And that’s what brings me to the single problem I have with this extension. When you click that plus button, a new window is spawned with a tiny text entry box; a royal pain in the behind, if you ask me. To be fair, the Ostrich feedback page does indicate that the developer is working on adding text input without spawning a new window.

Ostrich isn’t for everyone. Twitter power-users will want to avoid it due to it’s simplistic interface and lack of extra features. But if you’re only the occasional Tweeter, or you own a Macbook with a smaller screen and are trying to save screen space, Ostrich might fit the bill.

Disable extension install delay in Firefox

Mac & OS X
20 May, 2009

I love Firefox for all its expandability. The add-ons available are just awesome. If you think it would be handy to have something in Firefox, chances are there is already an extension out there to do it, if not more than one. But if you find it utterly annoying that Firefox forces you to wait for a stupid countdown every time you try to install an add-on like I do, this tip is for you. (more…)

Safari 4 Top Sites vs. Firefox Fast Dial extension

Mac & OS X
25 Mar, 2009

The recently released Safari 4 introduced a new feature called Top Sites which places thumbnails of your most recently visited sites in a tab for easy clicking. Firefox has had a similar feature for quite some time in the form of an extension called FastDial. So which one is more useful? Obviously, it depends on which browser you use. Here’s a quick comparison of each. (more…)