I started out as as a Windows person, well, actually a DOS person - yeah, I'm that old - then I worked on a Macbook Pro for almost 8 years, which was awesome for web development. I had to give the Macbook back when I left that company, so now I'm on a Lenovo X1 Carbon (6th gen) running Linux Mint. It came with Windows 10, and I really, really tried to go back to dev work on it, but I just couldn't. Anyway, here's what my current setup looks like.

Editor

  • Visual Studio Code is my editor of choice. I used to use PHPStorm, but open-source is the way to go.
  • I use very modified version of the Night Owl Black theme, and before that I was using the Codesandbox theme. I might change back, but so far, I like my modified version as the colors are brighter, making it a bit easier to see things on the dark background compared with Codesandbox that was a little too faded for me sometimes.
  • My font is Victor Mono - I especially like the cursive bits. I use a 500 font weight.

  • The current list of extensions I have installed can be seen in my Gist, but here's a quick list:

    • Bracket Pair Colorizer 2
    • Drupal 8 Snippets
    • Drupal Syntax Highlighting
    • ESLint
    • GitLens
    • Highlight Matching Tag
    • indent-rainbow
    • Prettier
    • Settings Sync (creates the Gist above)
    • Show Functions
    • Smart Column Indenter
    • stylelint
    • Toggle Quotes
    • Twig
    • VSCode Great Icons (next release might include this)
  • I often use the built-in terminal with VSCode - it can go below your editor or to the right (when I'm on the 27"), but I also have Tilix, which is super handy when I need multiple terminals.

Other Apps

  • GIMP for any graphic editing - it's tricky to learn and not always intuitive for me, but I'm getting more used to it now.
  • Chrome and Firefox browsers for development and Brave for general web browsing.
  • Slack for chatting, but sometimes Mattermost too.
  • Dropbox and Mega.nz for cloud storage.
  • Google Docs, Calendar, Keep and Gmail for everything else :)

Desk Setup

  • My laptop has an Intel i7 8th gen CPU, 512GB NVMe SSD, 16GB RAM, and runs Linux Mint 19.
  • To it's left I have an Asus VE278Q 27" 1920x1080 monitor connected via the HDMI port
  • To the right of the laptop I have an Asus PB277Q 27" 2560x1440 monitor connected via a USB-C port to HDMI cable.
  • The laptop sits on an aluminium stand that provides elevation and plenty of air.
  • I use an external Microsoft Wireless 900 keyboard that I wish had backlighting, but is otherwise great.
  • The keyboard comes with a mouse, but I didn't like it, so instead I have a wired Pictek RGB gaming mouse for when I'm working at home, and a silent Tsmine Bluetooth mouse for when I'm working somewhere else.
  • The mouse and power cord are connected to a VicTsing USB Type-C hub, and that plugs into the USB-C lightning port of the laptop.