Jenny,
I just tried Texshop and you are right, the compilation steps are indeed a lot smoother (and quicker!). However, when I start latexmk from terminal and let it continuously update the PDF, Texmate and Skim behave quite well.
cheers, Daniel
That's great news! After getting help from Allan and Gildas, I finally got everything working as smoothly as I would like combining TeXShop and TextMate, but it was not easy to set up (for non-coders like myself) and there is no sync. It also felt a little weird to move out of the TextMate fold where I have lived and flourished for so long. The TextMate and Skim union strengthened by Dr. Daniel, the marriage counselor par excellence, will draw me right back in. Now for those of us who don't know how to do this, can you please write out the steps to type in terminal?
Jenny