About 13GB of data was accidentally deleted from my account on my Mac yesterday. Fortunately, due to an aggressive backup system, I was able to recover all of the files.

I was trying to test out a tip sent to the TUAW team, which led me to log into (and out of) the "Guest" account several times. One of the logins seemed to hang, which triggered a memory about a data loss bug in Snow Leopard which I had read about (and which Apple is now acknowledging in "extremely rare" cases, per Cnet). I immediately reached around the back of my iMac and shut it down.

At first I thought everything was OK, but then Dropbox started asking me to configure settings, as if it was the first time the app was run. Fortunately, due to the new "LAN sync" feature in recent Dropbox betas, the iMac copied my Dropbox files from my MacBook Pro on the same network in a matter of seconds, rather than having to download almost 2GB of data from Dropbox's servers.

I thought that was the end of the problems, until I saw that my Terminal customizations were missing. Then I noticed that a few other applications were not functioning correctly. Suddenly I realized that I had most likely suffered more data loss than was immediately obvious.

Read on to see what had to be done to recover after the data loss occurred.

Here's a frustrating problem: You have InDesign CS4, and your buddy needs your file, but has InDesign CS2. "Easy!" you think, "just save an InDesign Interchange (INX) file and send it to him."

Lo, wonder of wonders: InDesign saves an INX file that's compatible only with the immediately preceding version of InDesign. (As I found out the hard way today.) CS4 saves a file for CS3; CS3 saves a file for CS2. If you don't have both versions on your computer, you're out of luck. Way to Quark it up, Adobe.

An INX file is just a glorified XML file. And Adobe, clever lads and lasses they are, inserted a version number in the file. Adobe CS2 looks at the version number, sees that the INX file is targeted for CS3, and pops up an error message without even trying to open the file. Curses.

But Mike Rankin figured it out last November: Open the INX file with your favorite text editor (like TextMate or BBEdit) and change the version number. Replace line number 2 (which looks like this):

<?aid style="33" type="document" DOMVersion="6.0" readerVersion="5.0" featureSet="257" product="6.0(352)" ?>

with this:

<?aid style="33" type="document" DOMVersion="5.0" readerVersion="4.0" featureSet="257" product="5.0(662)" ?>

Easy peasy. Open the INX file in InDesign CS2, and you're good to go. Use caution, though: This works best for simple layouts. The more complex your layout, the more likely it will unexpectedly change when re-imported into a lesser version of InDesign.

[Via InDesignSecrets.]

Changes.app, the ultimate Mac application used to track changes in folders and text files, was recently updated to version 1.5. This new version easily integrates with Coda, Espresso, BBEdit, TextWrangler, and TextMate. When you launch Changes, you will be able to install plug-ins directly into those application right from the Changes menu item.

There is a new HUD (Heads Up Display) that allows you to view changes from within the supported applications. Changes can also interface with Subversion, CVS, Perforce, Mercurial, Git, Bazaar, and Darcs for versioning control. With this new version, there is also built-in AppleScript support.

Even if you're not a developer, or don't use the applications or versioning control systems that are mentioned, you can still find Changes to be useful. Anyone, not just developers, may find it useful to be able to look for differences between two support files or folders.

You can download a 15-day free trial of Changes from their website. Single-user licenses are $49.95 each.

Special Promo Code
If you are planning on purchasing Changes, you can use our special promo code to get $10 (US) off the purchase of any license type. Just type in TUAWCHANGES15 at checkout. This special offer is good through April 15th, 2009.

Sometimes I think Regular Expressions are like the tax code: if someone professes to know everything about them, they're probably not telling the truth. In reality, Regular Expressions (or RegEx) is a syntax to help you construct very precise search terms to find and replace bits of text in a variety of applications.

In applications like Coda, BBEdit, and TextMate, you can search for a "string" -- meaning just any old collection of letters next to each other -- using a Regular Expression. For example, I could search for the string "laugh" and it would show up in laughter, slaughter, and Laughlin.

While I can't show you everything about Regular Expressions, I can at least start you off. Keep reading for more about how you can integrate Regular Expressions into your workflow.

Everyone else has had just three choice Mac apps, but I'm going to claim four because two of my choices live in the Menu Bar, and are therefore very small. Only you and I need to keep count, though, eh?

Bean

This marvelous little rich text editor is an excellent tool for writing to word counts, something I have to do very often. Bean packs in a lot of great features, and the developer is responsive to feedback and suggestions.

Either TextMate or BBEdit

When I'm not writing to word counts, I'm usually using Markdown to write for the web. Until last week I'd been using TextMate for this, exclusively, for a couple of years. Now, with the release of BBEdit 9.0, I'm wavering between the two. Both are wonderful, and writing with Markdown just isn't the same without one of them to help me out.

I Love Stars

I'm one of those weirdos who likes to keep the Dock out of sight most of the time. I don't use it for launching or switching apps, and I don't use it to keep minimised windows in either. But there are some functions that I like to have in easy reach from anywhere, and that's why I'm a big fan of Menu Bar applications. That said, there's not a lot of Menu Bar to be had on a little MacBook screen, so I'm very picky about which ones get the honor of a place up there. I Love Stars earns a spot. It does nothing but let me assign ratings to songs, but in my opinion it does it very well and, most importantly, sits in the best place for doing it.

Jumpcut

Another one from the Menu Bar, and this time it's a clipboard history utility that saves my backside 27 times every week. At least. It only saves text, but that's fine for me because that's what matters most in my line of work. With Jumpcut running (and it's always running), I can merrily copy umpteen things from a dozen different places and be sure of pasting them easily, and in the correct places, in the text document I'm writing at the time (see Bean and BBMate raves above).

OK, that was five. Sorry.

BBEdit has released its eponymous BBEdit 9 text editor, a major update that includes a rewritten project manager, improvements to search and document comparison features, and a text-completion tool.

Find and Multi-File search are now separate commands, both available from the Search menu. The dialog boxes are also now non-modal! Welcome to the 20th century. Also gone is the mysterious "don't find" button.

Text completion appears much like the system-wide F5 trick: a pause will bring up a little pop-up menu of likely options. However, users can change the behavior to only show the menu with a click or keystroke.

Also included in the update is improved language support for JavaScript, Objective C, Obj-C++, Ruby, and YAML. The release notes are enormous, and if you have any niggling irritations with prior versions of BBEdit, they may very well be solved.

BBEdit is $129 for new users, and $30 for owners of existing licenses. Anyone who purchased BBEdit 8.5 and above on or after January 1 gets a free upgrade.

[Via Macworld]

BBEdit 8.7, the latest version of the triple-A HTML editor, has been released.

Update: OK, so the reason I originally thought that all the "new" 8.7 features sounded familiar is because I actually was looking at the release list for version 8.5. The 8.7 release notice is here, and it includes Lua programming support, an option to remember which documents and browsers are open after closing BBEdit, and a Python language module and lots of other fixes and improvements. Sorry about the mistake, and thanks to all our commenters (and to Bare Bones Software themselves) for the heads up.

8.7 is a free update for 8.5 and 8.6 customers. If you haven't picked up BBEdit yet, you can try out the free demo here.

Attention, Bare Bones fans. Maintenance updates have been released for both BBEdit and TextWrangler. You can grab them both here.

Since these are maintenance updates, don't expect new features or extra bells and whistles, just a general tidying up of things. Both are free updates.

[Via Macworld]

Barebones has just updated the recently released BBEdit 8.5 (it is now 8.5.1). This is a maintenance release, but there are a few additions, mostly to snippets, so check it out. You can also be sure some bugs are squashed, and that stability has been increased.

Text hackers, get to downloading!

John Gruber has released a command line tool called BBColors which allows BBEdit and TextWrangler users to save, reload and even share customized color schemes. BBEdit, like many code-friendly text editors, has offered a coloring system for some time, but it still doesn't allow users to save and swap out schemes for, say, different languages or simply different days of the week. John's free utility not only brings color swapping to these app's tool belts, but he also posted a few examples to help get your feet wet. DeviantART, eat your heart out.

Instructions for installation and usage can be found on Mr. Gruber's project page for BBColors.

Bare Bones Software really knows how to deliver a .5 release, as the have just announced v8.5 of BBEdit, their powerful and professional HTML and code editor. Amongst the total 160 new and updated features is a revamped UI for both the app and its now-searchable preferences, 'code folding' for collapsing sections of a document for greater legibility, a revamped Clippings feature for re-using snippets of text and code, new languages, auto-save and much, much more.

At $199, this editor definitely isn't for the faint of heart, and it's definitely why 'professional' is included in the product's description. However, for owners of previous versions, Bare Bones has quite possibly the most agreeable upgrade terms we've ever seen for an application: owners of any BBEdit v8.0 and above can upgrade for a mere $30, though if you purchased v8.2 after 1/1/06, it's free. For owners of v7.1.4 and earlier, the upgrade is only $40. a 30 day demo of this Universal Binary app is, of course, available from Bare Bones Software.

[via Mac DevCenter]

James Fee has posted about software that changed his life, and it struck me as a very powerful idea. Can a bucket of bits and bytes really change anyone's life? The more I thought about it, the more I knew it was true. Software can change lives, it has certainly changed mine.

Back to James for a moment. He lists the following software as life changing (for him):

• Hypercard
• ArcInfo
• BBEdit
• Freehand
• ArcView

Not too shabby. This, of course, got me thinking about the software that has had an impact on my life. Mac OS 8.6 sprung immediately to mind. That's what my first Mac ran, and it was the first time that I felt like I was working with a computer instead of at a computer (a subtle, but telling difference). 8.6 was my entrance into the Cult of Mac and now look at me! I'm a titan of the Mac web and I have owned more Mac gear should be allowable by law.

So, dear readers, has any software changed your life?

Text editors are programs that inspire great loyalty amongst Mac users. BBEdit's legions of users attribute everything from being more productive to happier familys to the software's non-suckiness. TextMate is the up and coming text editor that many people are switching to.

MacDevCenter recently spoke with Allan Odgaard, the man behind the application. They cover many things from being an indie Mac developer, to whether or not we'll see a TextMate for Windows any time soon (we won't).

If you're the type that spends the day staring at a display and typing code, we'd bet you'd appreciate any utility that will make the process easier. Check out AutoPairs. It's a Mac OS X preference pane that closes your brackets, braces and quotes for you. Type a left bracket, for instance, and a right bracket and left arrow appear. Pretty spiffy, especially when you consider that BBEdit doesn't do this out of the box.

Note that, since AutoPairs is a preference pane plug-in, it won't work under Rosetta, though the developer promises that a universal version is in the works. AutoPairs requires Panther or better and is free.

[Via ...on a long piece of string]

Francois Joseph de Kermadec no only has a better name than I do, he is also a much braver man. How else to explain his willingness to pen a review pitting BBEdit vs. Textmate. Furthermore, he does the impossible and says that neither of them wins the battle!

Shocking, indeed. However, at the end of the article he points out why he pays for text editors (he has a license for both BBEdit and Textmate), and I don't think the answer will surprise you.