Recursive

Category: Software

  • Going Mac – Part 4

    Set up from scratch

    It’s silly how many settings aren’t sync’d to one’s Apple account.

    MacOS install

    TBF, this part would be more difficult to arrange since you’d have to log in.

    • Select Language and Location
    • Select WiFi
    • Enable Location
    • Allow Screen Time
    • Disable Siri
    • Allow FileVault
    • Setup Touch ID (add other index finger later)
    • Skip Apple Pay
    • Light / Dark / Auto mode

    MacOS settings

    • Control Centre, Clock Options, Show Seconds
    • Trackpad settings
      • Secondary click
        • Two Fingers
      • Enable Tap to click
      • More Gestures
        • Disable Notification Centre, Mission Control, Launchpad, Show Desktop

    • Empty the Dock
    • Turn on Dock Hiding

    • create ~/code directory

    • Replace Finder Sidebar items with folders in iCloud
    • Finder Settings
      • Advanced
        • Show all filename extensions
        • Keep folders on top
    • Cmd+Shift+. to show hidden files

    Installs

    JetBrains

    • Run JetBrains Toolbox, login, install
      • Open JB product
        • Do not import settings
        • Disable AI Assistant
        • Settings Sync
          • Fetch settings, restart
        • GitHub CoPilot
          • Sign in

    GitKraken

    • Sign in with email

    Appearance

    • Change Wallpaper

    Alfred

    • Disable Spotlight shortcut
      • System Settings, Keyboard, Shortcuts, Spotlight
    • Set Alfred shortcut
    • Import Alfred Prefs
      • and workflows
      • and snippets (e.g. emoji)
    • Enable clipboard history
      • and Advanced, Diacritic and …

  • Going Mac – Part 3

    So it seems I’m not going back. I still use a Windows machine for the family PC, but here I am on another MacBook Pro for work.

    Install Brew with this

    /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

    Then save the following as a Brew bundle file, `Brewfile`

    tap "homebrew/bundle"
tap "homebrew/cask-fonts"
brew "n"
brew "powerlevel10k"
brew "zsh-autosuggestions"
brew "zsh-syntax-highlighting"
cask "alfred"
cask "font-fira-code"
cask "gitkraken"
cask "hyper"
cask "jetbrains-toolbox"
cask "notunes"
cask "rectangle"
cask "whatsapp"

    and run brew bundle.

    Install Oh My Zsh with

    sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

    Aliases to add to the end of ~/.zshrc:

    alias ls="eza"
alias l="eza -la"
alias c="clear"
alias cat="bat"

  • Going Mac – Part 2

    In a follow up to my previous posts, I’m updating my list of brew installs, and have discovered the bundle subcommand.

    Here’s my Brewfile:

    tap "homebrew/bundle"
tap "homebrew/cask"
tap "homebrew/cask-fonts"
tap "homebrew/cask-versions"
tap "homebrew/core"
tap "homebrew/services"
brew "btop"
brew "freetype"
brew "figlet"
brew "httpie"
brew "ncdu"
brew "the_silver_searcher"
brew "tldr"
brew "unar"
cask "alfred"
cask "amazon-music"
cask "firefox"
cask "font-fira-code-nerd-font"
cask "fontgoggles"
cask "gitkraken"
cask "http-toolkit"
cask "hyper"
cask "jetbrains-toolbox"
cask "notunes"
cask "postman"
cask "proxyman"
cask "rectangle"
cask "rocket"
cask "slack"
cask "the-unarchiver"
cask "whatsapp"
  • Form Validation Errors – don’t embarrass your users

    Form Validation Errors – don’t embarrass your users

    Does it seem fair to scold the user for the errors they make while filling in a form? Are they even “errors”?

    The term “Error” and the usual associated red colouring is remarkably negative. Almost like accusing the user of spilling blood by making a typo or misunderstanding a field’s intended purpose. Okay, perhaps that’s a little extreme, but it’s certainly not a fluffy “oopsie, shall we try again toghether?“

    To work towards better UX we need to be compassionate, to be empathetic. If the user, who you want (nay, need) to be on-side, makes a mistake when filling in your form, there’s nothing to be gained by making them feel daft or at fault.

    This is a wonderful opportunity to improve the UX; simply by changing the tone of form validation messages from blame to guidance, your users are more likely to stick around.

    Some systems, especially internal systems for staff, may have the slightly troubling luxury of being mandatory for the users, but that shouldn’t excuse a poor experience.

    It’s important not to go so far into the fluffy language to appear patronising, and that can be a balancing act, so it’s worth working with copy editors, or even a small cross-section of the users, to land on appropriate messages.

    Contrast “That’s not an email address!” with “Please confirm your email address.“. Indeed, compare the message “Your Order Reference must not contain spaces” with code that just ignores the space – avoiding the messages in the first place can hugely improve users’ experience, which can increase engagement and goodwill and sales.

    We’re fortunate that we’re no longer writing things in stone. However uncomfortable it may feel to change something which exists already, we should use the freedom we have in software and web development, and make improvements wherever and whenever they’re identified.

  • How to change notification sounds per app

    There are many articles online explaining how to change the default notification sound, but I found it hard to find one which explains how to do it for individual / specific apps.

    There are many articles which simply (and unhelpfully) say that the app should have its own settings, so for those that don’t, here’s how:

    Android

    v9 “Pie”

    There are quite a lot of steps here, and one in particular is not obvious.
    It’s easiest to demonstrate with screenshots.

    I suggest you open the relevant app just prior to following this guide.

    Open the main Android Settings Page by dragging down from above the top of the screen.

    Tap “Apps & notifications”

    Select the relevant app, probably from the recent apps list, but you might have to scroll through the list of all apps.

    Tap “Notifications”.

    Make sure “Show notifications” is turned on, and tap the relevant category (there may be only one), this is not just a checkbox.

    Make sure Show notifications is turned on here too…

    …and that the behavior includes sound.

    Tap “Sound”.

    Select your sound, and you’re done.

  • Going Mac – Part 1

    Part of documenting my transition to web dev on Mac is to record what needs to be set up  & configured. Should things ever go awry, this post could be a shortcut to getting back to a work-ready state.

     

    Apps etc installed

    The following needed to be installed manually.

    The following were installed via the commands in the next section.

     

    Other tasks

    Show hidden files. Apparently this needs the command line!

     

    Commands run

    /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

brew update
brew upgrade

brew tap homebrew/dupes 
brew tap homebrew/versions 
brew tap homebrew/homebrew-php 
brew tap caskroom/fonts 
brew tap caskroom/cask 
brew install node
npm install --global gulp-cli 

brew unlink php70
brew install php71

brew install git-flow-avh
brew cask install font-fira-code
brew cask install iterm2
brew cask install gimp

sudo xcodebuild -license

     

    Other changes

     

    References

    https://developerjack.com/blog/2016/08/26/Installing-PHP71-with-homebrew/

     

  • Going Mac – Part 0

    I’ll soon be starting a new job,  still in web development (as I have been for disturbingly more than a decade), though this time it’ll be in-house and for a huge company.

    I’ve been persuaded to go over to what I’ve long considered the dark side; Apple.

    I still don’t believe I’ll ever pay for Apple products with my own money, but it’s becoming clear that Windows really isn’t keeping up with the ease of development on MacOS, and my future employer will be the one stumping up the cash so what’s to lose?

    This is to be the 0th in a series of posts on my conversion, or will that be “enlightenment”? 0th not 1st because I’ve not started yet – I’m just beginning to look at what tools I’ll likely be using.

    Where I spend most of my work days at the moment is in the excellent JetBrains PHPStorm and I’m very pleased to see that I will be able to stick with it. The other software I use is the also excellent FileZilla and the frankly pretty ropey SourceTree. I will likely ditch both and finally get round to instead using the built-in functionality of PHPStorm, and, of course, modern deployment methods.

    I’m a fan of the command line, but it’s always been in *nix (mostly Debian on web servers and Raspberry Pis), so I’m hoping that the move to Apple will mean I can actually do all the modern web dev things instead of spending so much time persuading Windows to let me.

    So far, I’ve used all the contemporary techniques (proper MVC development, proper git usage like branching and pull-requests, npm, gulp, Sass), but never all in one project, and I’m really looking forward to it.

  • 10/GUI


    10gui.com

    This is as much an HCI concept as it is about the GUI.

    I think a multitouch pad would be great.
    5 fingers, i.e. one hand, would be plenty though, and having one hand remaining on the keyboard allows for faster resumption of typing long text.

    My HTPC keyboard already has a simple multi-touch action, two finger to scroll, and I’m sure moving up to five fingers would be perfectly achievable by most users. In fact, in the video above there were only s few times when you’d have to use more than two or three fingers.

    I think this is all fantastically interesting, and discussing the subject with people who won’t just shoot down the unknown/unfamiliar will lead to some great things.

    I wish I could be more involved with this area of research and development.