Everyday I get a few emails asking about the specifics of some piece of software or hardware I use.
I change up things fairly often, so this page will serve as a living document and a place to point curious developers to when I get asked.
If there is something missing leave a comment below or ask in my AMA — happy to chat and help you figure out your own situation.
Editor + Terminal
- Sublime Text V3 beta is my editor — I write more about my setup in my book. I’m keen on Atom and Code, and try it every few months but it isn’t at Sublime Text levels yet for my own personal daily use.
- I created a theme called Cobalt2 for both Sublime Text and iTerm2 v3 which I use.
- I’m currently using Operator Mono for a font. Yes I paid the $200 for it. Before that I used Inconsolata for many years.
- I use Operator Mono in Sublime, iTerm2 (with these settings: http://wes.io/fYY8), and in Chrome Dev tools with Dev Tools Author
- I’m currently switching over to Hyper for my terminal.
- The JavaScript suggestions you see in my videos is called JavaScript Completions – you might have to play with the settings to get it to not popup some of the node completions.
Desktop Apps
- I use Text Expander for canned responses and for most of my code snippets
- I’m a huge Alfred fan and have many workflows.
- I use Things App with a GTD mindset for managing my tasks.
- I design almost entirely in Sketch
- I backup with 2 time machines local HDDs, Dropbox for most files, and BackBlaze for my entire hard drive.
- I write in Sublime Text and use Marked to preview. I have an entire series about this.
- The cool Emoji picker you see me use in my videos is Rocket
Recording
- I use ScreenFlow to record and edit my screencasts
- I wrote about my animated gif workflow here
- My mic is a Heil PR40 on a PL2T boom arm. Many of my videos were recorded on the cheaper but still amazing AT2020
- I use a DBX286s to do almost all my audio compression and processing as a I record and pipe it into my computer with a Focusrite 2i2
- My webcam is a Logitech HD Pro c920
- All this gear is pretty demanding, so I use an
Anker 7/3 port USB 3.0 hub DIED 😵Amazon Basics 10 Port USB Hub to make it all work at once while only having to plug in a single cable.
Desk Setup
- I run a Dell 4k P2715Q as my main with a cheap vertical 22″ to my left and an open loaded macbook pro nested on a Rain mStand
- I sit on a polished aluminum Herman Miller aeron
- My desk is an 8 foot oak butcher block countertop on legs
Other Gear
- After a lengthy search for the perfect backpack for both traveling and schlepping gear around the city I bought the Peak Design Everyday Backpack 30L and it’s incredible (and very expensive 😑).
Hi there,
If you are using dropbox to backup ur site folder, did you found a way to ignore node_modules.
thanks a lot
Nope – it’s not possible and I’ve spent many hours trying to find a workaround. Either just deal with it or don’t put node_modules sites in Db
Yeah it’s quite annoying. I wish they would implement some sort of .dropboxignore for us people that really need it :-(.
Is the ‘selective sync’ feature of DB not sufficient for this? It’s pretty easy to ignore a folder or subfolder (and children) with DB.
No – selective sync does the opposite. It deletes the files from your HDD and keeps them in Dropbox.
Not to mention it takes ~15 minutes for selective sync to populate the folders on my machine.
I’m juuust about done with dropbox
mega.nz does the trick 🙂
I rather not trust my data with a company that may be raided again haha
What made you decide on text expander over using snippets on ST3?
For advanced snippets with multiple cursors and defaults I still use Sublime Text, but for simple ones I use Text Expander because I can use them anywhere – like CodePen, Slack, etc..
Hi Wes,
Just curious, what’s your app for color picking, file/folder comparison and vcs (git) handling?
Maybe can recommend some more productivity apps apart from Things that you’re a fan of?
I use Sip to color pick
I only use the command line to do Git – I’ve tried many apps but nothing has stuck yet.
Man! Which keyboard do you use?
Standard apple Bluetooth one
Thanks for putting this post together! I think it’d be great if everyone did something similar to this as I’m sure I’m not the only one who likes learning about alternative ways people work (which can inadvertently enhance my own).
Visual Studio Code hit version 1.0 a few days ago. There’re not that many keyboard shortcuts and extensions yet, it’s slow to start but the footprint is comparable to Sublime’s. Wes, what’s your opinion about this text editor?
Great but nothing that tempts me to try it