Setting Up a New(ish) MacBook

I lately dusted off a comparatively outdated (~5 years) MacBook and changed the battery with the plan that I may use it as a secondary machine, for my “non-work” stuff. The final couple of instances I’ve received a brand new Mac I’ve gone for the choice of cloning my outdated setup, so I don’t want to put in the whole lot once more. This time, nonetheless, the entire level was to maintain issues easy, minimal and (hopefully) quick, so I made a decision to fully wipe it and begin from scratch.

Should you’re a developer, naturally there’s a bunch of stuff you want to set up to get your setting completely proper for coding. The next is the method I went by way of to put in the issues I would like for my setup, written purely to remind me what I did, after I inevitably need to do it once more someday.

1. Set up VSCode

Once you’re coding (or certainly, putting in something you want to write code), what’s the very first thing you want? A terminal! Positive, I may use built-in one on my MacBook, or obtain iTerm. However I usually use VS Code’s terminal, and since I’ll positively want VS Code for, properly, writing code, let’s go forward and set up it straight away.

code command

In VS Code we are able to open a mission from the command line by navigating to the mission and typing code .. On a Mac, we first must allow this by operating Set up 'code' command in PATH. (See the VS Code command line docs for extra particulars)

2. Use zsh because the default

As of macOS 10.15, the default shell is zsh. Nevertheless, VS Code robotically opens a bash terminal. How you can repair this? We have to go into our settings in VS Code, discover the property terminal.built-in.shell.osx and alter this to zsh.

We’ll additionally must create a .zshrc file by operating contact ~/.zshrc. This can be a hidden file, so it gained’t present up in Finder by default. To view hidden recordsdata we are able to run:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles true

Then shut and reopen Finder, and our hidden recordsdata must be seen. Now we are able to open this file in VS Code.

3. Xcode Command Line Instruments (and Git)

For the following steps we’re going to want Xcode Command Line Instruments. We are able to obtain Xcode from the App Retailer, or use this command.

xcode-select --install

That provides us a immediate to substantiate we need to set up the command line developer instruments. Sure, we do. As a particular bonus, this course of additionally installs Git, which we’re positively going to want, in order that’s useful.

4. Set up Oh My ZSH plugin

Oh My Zsh is an open supply framework for managing your zsh configuration. It permits us to simply set up plugins, change our shell theme, and extra. Let’s observe the directions within the Github repository and set up it by way of the command line:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://uncooked.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/grasp/instruments/set up.sh)"

5. NVM

I can just about assure I’m going to want Node put in for something I’m engaged on. I like to make use of NVM (Node Model Supervisor), which makes it tremendous straightforward to put in and change between Node variations. One of the simplest ways I’ve discovered to put in that is utilizing the zsh-nvm plugin for Oh My Zsh.

First we clone the repository to our zsh plugins listing:

git clone https://github.com/lukechilds/zsh-nvm ~/.oh-my-zsh/customized/plugins/zsh-nvm

Then add it to our plugins part of the .zshrc file. We are able to record plugins like this:

plugins=(
  git
  zsh-nvm
)

Now we must always have NVM put in. We are able to run nvm -v to verify.

6. Z plugin

One other plugin I discover actually helpful is Zsh-z, which permits us to leap to commonly-used directories just by typing z adopted by the listing identify. We don’t really want to put in it, because it’s now included as a part of Oh My Zsh, so we are able to simply add it to our plugins within the .zshrc file:

plugins=(
  git
  zsh-nvm
  z
)

7. Organising aliases

Lastly, I wish to arrange a couple of aliases for the terminal instructions I exploit essentially the most. We are able to add these to our .zshrc file.

alias gpum='git pull origin principal'
alias gpm='git push origin principal'
alias ga="git add ."
alias gm='git commit -m'

In fact, you possibly can add another aliases and plugins you want, in addition to change your terminal theme, if that’s your bag. Blissful coding!