[Elecraft] K3 Utility and OS X Lion

[David Fleming]

I've received several emails concerning the compatibility of the K3 Utility for Mac with OS X Lion. I installed Lion on my development iMac and initial tests show no issues with the K3 Utility, P3 Utility and W2 Utility. Everything seems to be working FB.

There are already plenty of comprehensive reviews of Lion out there. I wanted to mention a couple of my observations that you might find useful. The online upgrade was an interesting experience. It was much like downloading apps on the iPhone and iPad. At 3.74 GB, the download took about 45 minutes over my fairly speedy Cox Cable connection. I don't know how dial-up folks will fare (if there are any Mac users still on dial-up). Not very well I suspect. Once the download was complete, after I kicked off the installer and clicked past the license agreement,  the installation took about 25-30 minutes.  One of the first things I noticed, other than the new "natural" scrolling, which you will either love or hate, is the fact that the User Library folder is now hidden. I suppose Apple did this to prevent new users from inadvertently deleting this important folder. The K3 Utility (and many other apps) use the ~/Library/Application Support folder to store
 application data. I find myself navigating to the Library folder very often. I was a bit panicky when I thought it was no longer there! Turns out it is still there, but it is now hidden. This is very easy to fix by opening up the Terminal and typing in this line:

chflags nohidden ~/Library

If you want to hide it again:

chflags hidden ~/Library

Scrollbars have been removed and now only subtly appear when you are actually scrolling (ala iOS). Once you get used to the natural scrolling of list views and windows there is no going back. As I mentioned above, you'll either love it or hate it. You can always switch back to the classic scrolling if you want, but give the new scrolling a chance. It is one of those things that once you get used to it, it feels completely natural.


If you're on the fence about upgrading to Lion, I say go for it. It's an impressive piece of software.

73,

David, W4SMT