We have tested Dialectic with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and, for the most part, Dialectic is compatible with the new operating system. There are some minor issues that we are ironing out but they should not effect the core features of the application. The two most notable issues we have found are that the Dialectic Contextual Menu and the Dialectic Address Book Plug-In do not work with the new OS.
Dialectic Contextual Menu
Mac OS X 10.6 no longer supports contextual menu plug-ins so the Dialectic Contextual Menu item will not be ported to Mac OS X 10.6. However, Mac OS X 10.6 has much improved Services support and this can be used to dial selected phone numbers from most applications.
To configure the Dialectic Services’ “Dial Selection” menu item to work as a contextual menu in most applications in Mac OS X 10.6, follow these steps:
- Copy Dialectic to your hard drive and launch it.
- From the System Preferences application, select the Keyboard preference pane.
- In the Keyboard preference pane, select the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab and scroll down to the “Services” item from the list box on the left side of the window.
- After selecting “Services”, scroll down to the “Text” Services group on the right and enable the “Dial Selection” Services item (see the screenshot below).
Once enabled, selecting text in an application (e.g., Safari) and then Control-clicking on it will display the “Dial Selection” menu item and, when this menu item is chosen, the selected text will be sent to DIalectic for dialing.
Dialectic Address Book Plug-In
The current Dialectic Address Book Plug-In will not work with the Address Book in Mac OS X 10.6 because the Address Book application is now 64-bit but the plug-In is not. We have now addressed this issue and will bundle a 64-bit version of the plug-in with the next release of Dialectic. You may install the plug-in now, however, by following these steps:
- Quit the Address Book application if it is launched.
- Download the 64-bit version of the plug-in: DialecticABPlugIn130.zip (16KB)
- Once downloaded, if not done automatically, expand the downloaded archive in the Finder by double-clicking on the DialecticABPlugIn130.zip file.
- Move the expanded DialecticABPlugIn.bundle file to your Address Book Plug-Ins folder. To install the plug-in for all users, this folder is located in the main Library folder:
/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/
To install for just your current user account, this folder is located in the Library folder in your Home folder (~ is shorthand for your Home folder):
~/Library/Address Book Plug-Ins/
If the “Address Book Plug-Ins” folder is not found in the Library folder where you want to install the plug-in, you can create the folder yourself. - Launch the Address Book application.
For more information on using the Dialectic Address Book Plug-In, as well as other ways Dialectic integrates with the Address Book, please see the documentation.
We hope to have a version of Dialectic released that corrects other minor Mac OS X 10.6-compatibility issues soon. If you install Mac OS X 10.6 and encounter any problems with Dialectic, . Thank you for your patience during the transition.