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Ran Cohen
Ran Cohen

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macOS developer

Hello developers ๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿ’ป, thanks for reading my post ๐Ÿ™.

Recently I got to spend quite a bit of time finding settings, tools and apps that boost my productivity ๐Ÿš€ and make my development routine easier โœจ.

Note that all of the following are just my personal warm recommendations, and I'd like to hear about any additional tools I may have missed in the discussion section ๐ŸŽค.


The following preferences โš™๏ธ allow me to utilize macOS more effectively

System Preferences ๐Ÿ’ป

  • Dock & Menu Bar โ†’ โ˜‘๏ธ Automatically hide and show the Dock
  • Dock & Menu Bar โ†’ Other Modules โ†’ Battery โ†’ โ˜‘๏ธ Show Percentage
  • Accessibility โ†’ Pointer Control โ†’ Mouse & Trackpad โ†’ Trackpad Optionsโ€ฆ โ†’ ๏ธ๏ธโ˜‘๏ธ Enable dragging
  • Trackpad โ†’ Point & Click โ†’ โ˜‘๏ธ Tap to click
  • Trackpad โ†’ Point & Click โ†’ Increase Tracking speed
  • Battery โ†’ Power Adapter โ†’ โ˜ Wake for network access

Finder Preferences ๐Ÿ—‚

  • Preferences โ†’ Advanced โ†’ โ˜‘๏ธ Show all filename extensions
  • View โ†’ Show Path Bar
  • View โ†’ Show Status Bar
  • Press shift โ‡ง + command โŒ˜ + . (Show hidden files)

The following tools and applications are free ๐Ÿ†“ and allow me to significantly shorten daily operations

Command-line Tools ๐Ÿ› 

  • Xcode Command Line Tools is a small self-contained package available for download separately from Xcode and that allows you to do command line development in macOS.
    Some of the tools below depend on it, so it is important to install it first.
    Press command โŒ˜ + Space โ†’ Type terminal โ†’ Run xcode-select --install โ†’ Wait few minutes

  • Homebrew is an open-source software package management system that simplifies the installation of software on macOS.
    Open Homebrew page in a new tab โ†’ Copy the snippet โ†’ Paste it in the terminal โ†’ Follow the instructions that the script will display

By installing the rest of the command-line tools via brew, you will be able to keep them up-to-date by running brew upgrade once in a while.

brew install git curl wget jq htop speedtest tldr thefuck fzf bat 
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  • git version control system
  • curl transferring data with URLs
  • wget retrieving files
  • jq JSON processor
  • htop process viewer
  • speedtest internet connection measurement
  • tldr commands cheatsheets
  • thefuck corrects errors in previous commands
  • fzf fuzzy finder
  • bat cat with syntax highlighting and Git integration

Applications ๐Ÿ“ฑ

Since most apps these days can update themselves automatically, I prefer to install them via their native installer (download then drag to application directory, and if needed remove with AppCleaner) rather than via brew casks, but it is entirely up to you. (see this issue).

To launch VS Code from the terminal, Open VS Code โ†’ Press โŒ˜ + โ‡ง + P โ†’ Type shell command โ†’ Select Install code command in path.

Extra ๐Ÿ›ธ

Happy coding day ๐Ÿป
easy dev

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Ran Cohen