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Below are our suggestions for how to set up your laptop for optimal portability. This setup method is designed to streamline the process for starting with a new machine or getting a fresh start with your current machine.

Special thanks to @Naoki Hisamoto for his work in documenting the bulk of this process.

Set Up section will walk you through getting your phresh machine up and running as quickly as possible.

Application Installation section will walk you through installing your applications.

Tasty Treats section will tell you some of our Liferay team members' top picks for applications and extensions.

Wipe your hard drive clean and install your apps quickly.

Preparation section will prevent you from losing important files, documents, and registration keys upon reinstallation.

Wipe + Reinstall section will walk you through installing a phresh copy of OSX.

Set Up

The Set Up section will walk you through getting your phresh machine up and running as quickly as possible. We will set up the computer with Homebrew, Node, NPM, Gulp, Homebrew Cask, Git, and Github. This will prepare your computer for future processes such as installing applications quickly.

Steps 1-3 are necessary for onboarding — 4&5 are optional if they're interesting to you.

1. Homebrew 🔗

Homebrew is a great tool for web developers. First, it makes removing Node very easy (otherwise you have to crawl through your file system and delete a bunch of files manually). Second, it greatly simplfies the installation of other useful packages like Git, Ruby, or the very useful wget utility.

  1. Paste this into a Terminal prompt:
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Resources

Homebrew Documentation Description from Treehouse blog

2. Git + GitHub 🔗

Note: you will need to set up a GitHub account before doing this step.

  1. Set up Git and authenticate with GitHub
    1. Install Git by entering brew install git into your terminal and hitting 'enter'.
    2. Set your username.
    3. Set your commit email address (use the email your GitHub account is associated with).
    4. Cash your password inside Git (makes life easier).
Resources

Getting Started - Git Basics > Github Guides
Description from Github

3. Node + NPM 🔗

NPM is a package manager for JavaScript and the world's largest software registry. Discover packages of reusable code — and assemble them in powerful new ways.

  1. Enter brew install node into a Terminal prompt.
  2. Enter npm install npm@latest -g into a Terminal prompt.
  3. To check the install, enter node -v; npm -v. You should see two numbers print out which are the versions for node and npm respectively.
Resources

npmjs Documentation Description from npmjs

4. Homebrew Cask 🔗

Homebrew-Cask extends Homebrew and brings its elegance, simplicity, and speed to macOS applications and large binaries alike.

  1. Enter brew tap caskroom/cask into a Terminal prompt.
Resources

Homebrew Cask Documentation Description from Homebrew Cask

5. Caskroom-fonts 🔗

Caskroom-fonts is a Homebrew Tap which allows you to use the same friendly Homebrew-style CLI workflow for the administration of binary font files on your Mac.

  1. Enter brew tap caskroom/fonts into a Terminal prompt.
Resources

Caskroom Fonts Documentation Description from Caskroom Fonts

Application Installation

The Application Installation section will walk you through installing your applications. Using Homebrew Cask, you can download and install the necessary applications, and clean the download files with just a few lines of code.

1. Homebrew Cask 🔗

Homebrew-Cask extends Homebrew and brings its elegance, simplicity, and speed to macOS applications and large binaries alike.

Application

  1. Decide what applications you would like to install with Homebrew Cask Search. 2. Enter brew cask install [application] into a Terminal prompt. This will install the selected application.
  2. Enter brew cask install [application][space][application] into a Terminal prompt to install multiple applications.
  3. After installing all desired applications, enter brew cask cleanup into a Terminal prompt to delete all download files.
  4. Enter brew cask upgrade into a Terminal prompt to upgrade all outdated casks.

To install all of the following applications with a single line of code:

  1. Enter brew cask install google-chrome firefox slack skype figma sketch craftmanager adobe-creative-cloud sublime-text hyper into a Terminal prompt.

Fonts

  1. Decide what fonts you would like to install with this directory
  2. Enter brew cask install font-[font-name] into a Terminal prompt
  3. To install Sourrce Sans Pro, enter brew cask install font-source-sans-pro into a Terminal prompt.

Web Browsers:

  1. Google Chrome google-chrome
  2. Mozilla Firefox firefox

Communication Tools:

  1. Slack slack

Design Tools:

  1. Figma figma
  2. Adobe Creative Cloud adobe-creative-cloud

Text Editors:

  1. VS Code visual-studio-code
  2. Sublime Text sublime-text
Resources

Homebrew Cask Documentation Description from Homebrew Cask


Tasty Treats

The Tasty Treats section will tell you some of our Liferay team members' top picks for applications and extensions.

Paul Hanaoka's Picks

  1. Clipy
  2. Imageoptim
  3. zsh
    1. zsh-autosuggestions
    2. zsh-syntax-highlighting
  4. VS Code
    1. Settings Sync — Paul's Settings (Gist)

To install all of the following applications with a single line of code enter:

brew cask install clipy imageoptim zsh zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting visual-studio-code

into a Terminal prompt.

Paul's Complete List

brew cask install google-chrome firefox slack skype figma sketch google-drive-file-stream adobe-creative-cloud sublime-text flux bettertouchtool opera visual-studio-code vivaldi clipy dropbox imageoptim brave

Paul's Fonts

brew cask install font-source-sans-pro font-blokk-neue font-playfair-display-sc font-playfair-display

Abel Hancock's Top Picks

  1. iterm2 iterm2
  2. Color Oracle color-oracle

To install all of the following applications with a single line of code enter

brew cask install iterm2

into a Terminal prompt.

Naoki Hisamoto's Top Picks

  1. Notion notion
  2. Caffeine caffeine
  3. Karabiner Elements karabiner-elements
  4. Spotify spotify

To install all of the following applications with a single line of code enter

brew cask install notion caffeine karabiner-elements spotify

into a Terminal prompt.

Rebecca Wu's Top Picks

  1. Flux flux
  2. Evernote evernote

To install all of the following applications with a single line of code enter:

brew cask install flux evernote

into a Terminal prompt.

James Lyons' Top Picks

  1. Yabai (formerly Chunk Window Manager) yabai
  2. Simple Hotkey Daemon skhd
  3. GitKraken gitkraken

To install all of the following applications with a few lines of code enter:

brew tap crisidev/homebrew-chunkwm
brew install chunkwm koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
brew cask install gitkraken

into a Terminal prompt.

Preparation

The Preparation section will prevent you from losing important files, documents, and application keys upon reinstalling OSX. The hard drive is completely erased during this process and taking the time to back up files and deauthorizing applications will ensure you have zero regrets after your phresh install.

1. Back Up

A fresh install of OS X will wipe any files, programs, and documents from your hard drive. Whether you use Time Machine, the Cloud, or an external hard drive, be sure to have a back up of anything you will need on your phresh machine. If you are using the cloud, make sure all files are finished syncing as well.

Resources

How To Clean Install MacOS High Sierra
Information from OSXDaily

2. Deauthorize

Your computer will be viewed as a new machine after the phresh install, which means that you will want to deauthorize any applications that required a registration key. Otherwise, the same key will not work when registering a product after the wipe and you might have to jump through hoops to get your product license back.

Resources

Make Your Mac Feel Like New Again With a Fresh Install of OSX
Information from Field Guide—Gizmodo


Wipe + Reinstall

The Wipe + Reinstall section will walk you through installing a phresh copy of OSX. When you are ready, you'll erase your hard drive and install the latest version of OSX. Once you are at this point, double-check that all necessary files, documents, pictures, and videos are backed up and all applications are deauthorized (as mentioned in the previous steps) because there is no going back after this step.

1. Wipe

You will be erasing your hard drive at this point. Once you have completed this step, your hard drive will be reformatted.

  1. Make sure your computer is plugged into a power source.
  2. Restart your computer and hold down ⌘ + R as soon as the reboot starts. If successful, you will be met by the OSX Utilities screen.
  3. Select Disk Utility, select your Hard Drive.
  4. Select the Erase tab.
  5. Rename your Hard Drive, select the format of your Hard Drive, and select Erase.
  6. Once the drive has been formatted, exit out of Disk Utility to return to the OSX Utilities screen.
Resources

Make Your Mac Feel Like New Again With a Fresh Install of OSX
Information from Field Guide—Gizmodo
How to Clean Install MacOS high Sierra
Information from OSXDaily
Disk Utility Help—Erase a volume
Information from Apple Support


2. Reinstall

Now that you have a reformatted hard drive, you will be installing a phresh copy of the latest OSX onto your hard drive (Unless you have the installation files for a different OS version on a flash drive).

  1. Make sure your computer is plugged into a power source.
  2. From the OSX Utilities screen select install macOS.
  3. Select the hard drive you just reformatted in step 3 of the previous section.
  4. Select Install and select your preferences as prompted.
Resources

How To Clean Install MacOS High Sierra
Information from OSXDaily

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