Frontend Mac Setup 🖥

This document describes how I set up my development environment on a new MacBook.

Finder Preferences

• General > New Finder windows show > Downloads folder
• Sidebar > Show these items in the sidebar > Airdrop, Applications, Downloads & home directory
• Advanced > Show all filename extensions
• Advandec > Keep folders on top > In windows when sorting by name
• Show View Options > Group By: Name & Sort By: Name

Dotfiles

• ~/.zshrc
• ~/.gitconfig
• ~/.gitignore (ignore OS/IDE-specific files globally)

SSH Keys

First generate a new SSH key and then add it to your GitHub account.

Browsers

• Chrome Dev
• Firefox Developer Edition
• Safari Technology Preview

Dev Tools

• iTerm2
• Homebrew (which also installs the Command Line Tools and Git)
• nvm
• Visual Studio Code
• Sublime Text
• Sublime Merge

Productivity Tools

• Todoist
• iA Writer
• Raycast
• Freedom
• Dato
• Magnet or Rectangle
• Xnip or Shottr
• PDF Combo to combine and Lightweight PDF to compress PDFs

Brew packages

brew install pure zsh-syntax-highlighting diff-so-fancy bat macos-trash

• pure
• zsh-syntax-highlighting
• diff-so-fancy
• bat
• macos-trash

Configuring iTerm

• pure
• zsh-syntax-highlighting
• iterm2-snazzy and select colour preset from Settings > Profiles > Colors
• zsh-nvm-auto-switch

Other

• Create workspace directory: mkdir ~/workspace
• Chrome cache: Settings > Preferences > Network > Disable cache (while DevTools is open)
• Haskell for Mac
• Charles Proxy
• Postman