I’m just putting this here so that I can follow it as a checklist when setting up mine and it might help you guys too. I’m a web developer, focusing on javascript and node.
Getting Started
Once you are done booting up and going through the usual set up, make sure your mac is running the latest macOS version and you have Xcode downloaded from app store.
Tools
Homebrew
Homebrew is a package manager for mac, which helps you install your apps via comand line.
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
once installed, give it an update.
brew update
Node.js
Download node.js form their website or install it through nvm. It’s better not to use homebrew for just this one. So you can easily switch between node versions.
Download nvm
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.33.0/install.sh | bash
Ensure that nvm was installed correctly with nvm --version, which should return the version of nvm installed.
Install the latest LTS version with
nvm install --lts
Git
You should probably get git when you install Xcode, or you could simply run git from the Terminal the very first time.
git --version
If it is not already installed, it will prompt you to install it. You can also get a macOS installer from the git website.
or with Homebrew
brew install git
Additionally, you can download the GUI for GitHub from here. If thats your thing.
Window management tool
MacOS never had a built in window management solution as good has windows does, but you can get away with it with 3rd party apps like Rectangle, download from their website or with brew.
brew cask rectangle
Applications
Visual Studio code
It is my got to text editor for all things web, it got plenty of features, and you can always find an extension for almost anything.
Download it from here or
brew cask install visual-studio-code
Browsers
You’ve got Safari pre installed, and since its web development, you’d probably need to check you website in different browsers. So, lets get the rest of them...
- Chrome — https://www.google.com/chrome/
- Firefox — https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/
- Opera — https://www.opera.com/hi
with brew;
brew cask install google-chrome firefox opera
Yarn
An alternative to npm.
brew install yarn
Spotify
Well, what is life without some music.
brew cask install spotify
ImageOptim
ImageOptim helps you optimise an compress images for your website, download it form here, or
brew cask install imageoptim
For messaging and communications
Microsoft Teams for work and WhatsApp for friends and family.
brew cask install microsoft-teams whatsapp
Settings and configurations
General
- Try dark mode
Dock
- Enable automatically hide and show doc.
- Enable Show indicators for open applications
- Disable show resent application in doc (it gets really messed up soon)
Users & Groups
- Add “Rectangle” to Login items
Security and Privacy
- Enable Require password immediately after sleep
- Turn on FireVault for ssd encryption
- Turn on Firewall
Keyboard
- Disable “Correct spelling automatically”
- Disable “Capitalize words automatically”
- Disable “Add period with double-space”
Display
- Make sure Night Shift is off
Sharing
- Change computer name
- Make sure all file sharing is disabled
Setting up the apps
VSCode
Install the extensions and themes
- One Dark Pro
- ESLint
- GitLens
- Live Server
- Material Icon Theme
- Prettier
- Sass
- Better Comments
- Code Spell Checker
- Commit Message Editor
- CSS-in-JS
- Jest
lastly,
To add code . command to open VSCode from mac Terminal. Press CMD + SHIFT + P and click "Install code command in PATH".
Thats pretty much it for now, hope it helped your process.
Let me know what are your go to apps and tools..
Top comments (0)