I’ll be starting a rather ambitious Tinderbox project soon, and shuffling computer resources to match. The big investment is a nice monitor. But I also have a repaired MacBook that I can designate as the mobile machine dedicated to this project. I’m pretty sure the desktop will be graphics heavy, and this portable be focused on coding and migrating PDF content to Tbx notes. This opens a lovely question.
Suppose you had a MacBookPro wholly designed around Tinderbox. What special things would you do to make it the most delightful environment of your day? This by the way is the elegant 15” Jonny Ive MacBook, the one forcing dongles and with the Touchbar. The one with tapered edges and nearly a pound lighter than the M-class machines. This is the last Intel model (i9) to allow Tahoe.
I think I must insist on a specific font. Have no idea what I will do with colours.
I do intend to invest in BetterTouchTool. I have Keyboard Maestro of course. But all that’s obvious.
FWIW, here I’m on a 14-inch MacBook Pro M4max using a pair of external LG 24-inch displays - the ones Apple sold c.2020 when they didn’t offer a monitor of their own.
Primary apps: Tinderbox and BBEdit (and Bookends if doing academic work)
Definitely would recommend an Mx series, preferably M4 Pro (which is what I have) or Max. Not sure about whether Tbx leverages the silicon architecture but my machine is as speedy as I need it to be.
I use a MacBook Pro 16” i9 and a standard Mac Mini M4. The little cube runs 24/7 and is my workhorse. Tinderbox doesn’t tax it in the slightest. It’s actually underutilized — cheap, fast, and energy-efficient. It’s simply not worth turning it off.
Since my MacBook Pro will eventually need a successor, I’ve already given it some thought. As I don’t plan to edit 8K films in the future, it will probably be a MacBook Air. Even in the most basic configuration, it’s more than sufficient. Tinderbox won’t ruffle its feathers.