News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

April 23, 2007

software

iStat Pro 4.0 is the new hotness

Posted Apr. 23, ’07, 6:34 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Software

iStat Pro It was not so long ago, I swore off iStat Pro in favor of the svelte iStat nano 2.0. I probably should have guessed that with the Pro version getting long in the tooth, it was due for a redesign, and boy howdy, the new version is purdy.

iSlayer has outdone themselves (particularly considering the software is free, as in beer). There are just so many improvements that I’ve been forced to throw them in the extended section. A few favorites are the ability to drag and drop panes to reorder them, liver (not the organ, more “live”) displays, added mouse and keyboard battery status, and a ton of preferences. If you’re like me and an obsessive compulsive about the status of your machine (and have the screen space), give it a download.

  • Support has been added for 8 cores in the CPU view (just in time for the new Mac Pros!)
  • Live updating for network changes, disk mounts/unmounts, bluetooth connections/disconnections, intel module installer completion (as soon as it happens the widget will update). In previous releases the interface wouldn’t update until the next scheduled timer update, which was up to 6 seconds in some cases. Changes are now reflected instantly.
  • History graphs are now drawn with webkit’s canvas object
  • Added history graph to cpu section on tall skin
  • Added option to choose graph type on cpu sections (history or bar)
  • Processes section shows 5 items on wide skin (was 4)
  • Improved support for local iDisks
  • Processes view can now be sorted by either CPU or memory usage
  • Improved fan name support on intel macs
  • Improved 10.5 support
  • Wide temps/fans sections can now show upto 8 sensors (was 5)
  • Improved text truncation (uses ellipsis now instead of just cutting off strings)
  • Added keyboard shortcuts to turn sections on/off (please refer to the manual for details)
  • Added shortcut key to copy your external IP address to the clipboard (“i”)
  • New icon
  • Updated external IP verification code
  • Temps/fans sections on wide skin auto-resize to fit content (there are min and max sizes)
  • We’ve trimmed, optimised and refined… what was 2.6MB is now 2.1MB
  • Removed classic skin (sorry if you liked it… we had to!)
  • Wide skin is now smaller
  • Tall skin is now smaller (compared to advanced modes on v3 tall skin)
  • Advanced option to show extended memory details — page ins, page outs and swap size
  • New layouts for CPU, disks, processes, memory, battery on wide skin
  • New layouts for CPU, disks, battery on tall skin
  • Disk icons are now always shown on wide skin
  • Added Apple wireless keyboard and mouse battery support
  • Improved process icon support

1 Comments

Dimitri said:

liver = organ
more lively / livelier = more "live"

April 23, 2007 11:30 AM

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