Oh Dear is the all-in-one monitoring tool for your entire website. We monitor uptime, SSL certificates, broken links, scheduled tasks and more. You'll get a notifications for us when something's wrong. All that paired with a developer friendly API and kick-ass documentation. O, and you'll also be able to create a public status page under a minute. Start monitoring using our free trial now.

My current setup (end 2020 edition)

Original – by Freek Van der Herten – 11 minute read

After tweeting out a screenshot, it often get questions around which editor, font or color scheme I'm using. Instead of replying to those questions individually I've decided to just write down the settings and apps that I'm using.

IDE

I mainly program PHP. Mostly I develop in PhpStorm. Here's a screenshot of it:

IDE

I'm using phpstorm-light-lite-theme which was handcrafted by my colleague Brent. The font used is IBM Plex Mono: an awesome font that you can download for free in the official IBM repo.

Like seen in the screenshot I've hidden a lot of things of the UI of PhpStorm. I like to keep it minimal. I use the settings sync feature of PhpStorm to backup my settings to this repo on GitHub.

I like working using a light based theme. In some circles this is maybe a bit controversial. Watch this excellent video by my colleague Brent to learn what the benefits of using a light based theme are.

Mostly I work on Laravel projects. One of my favourite PhpStorm extensions is Laravel Idea, which can do stuff like autocomplete route names, request fields, and a whole lot more. It's paid, but definitely worth it.

Terminal

Here's a screenshot from my terminal.

Terminal

All my terminal settings are saved in my dotfiles repository. If you want the same environment you follow the installation instructions of the repo.

My terminal of choice is iTerm2. I'm using the Z shell and Oh My Zsh.

The color scheme used is a slightly modified version of Solarized Dark. The font used is a patched version of Menlo. I'm using several hand crafted aliases and functions.

MacOS

I'm a day one upgrader of MacOS, so I'm always using the latest version. I also sometimes dare to use beta versions of MacOS when people are saying it's stable enough.

By default I hide the menu bar and dock. I like to keep my desktop ultra clean, even hard disks aren't allowed to be displayed there. On my dock there aren't any sticky programs. Only apps that are running are on there. I only have a stacks to Downloads and Desktop permanently on there. Here's a screenshot where I've deliberately moved my pointer down so the dock is shown.

Dock

I've also hidden the indicator for running apps (that dot underneath each app), because if it's on my dock it's running.

In my dotfiles repo you'll find my custom MacOS settings.

The spacey background I'm using was the default one on OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. If you would like to use a class OSX background to, head over to this page at 512pixels.net.

These are some of the apps I'm using:

  • To run projects locally I use Laravel Valet.
  • I couldn't live without Alfred. I'm using several workflows. First up is syn and assoc by Sebastian De Deyne, to help with naming things. phpstorm by bchatard to easily open recent PhpStorm projects. Last by not least I use the Laravel docs workflow by Till Krüss to easily search the Laravel docs.
  • To connect to S3, ftp (?) and sftp servers I use Transmit.
  • Local mail testing is done with Nodemailer. This handly little app install a local mailserver. In the apps you develop locally you can use that webserver to send mails. You can inspect all sent mails in Nodemailers beautiful, native UI.
  • Sometimes I need to run an arbitrary piece of PHP code. CodeRunner is an excellent app to do just that.
  • Paw is an amazing app to perform API calls.
  • Moom is used to quickly resize windows quarter, half and full screen.
  • Databases are managed with TablePlus
  • My favourite cloud storage solution is Dropbox. All my personal documents are on there and at Spatie we use it extensively too.
  • If you're not using a password manager, you're doing it wrong. I use 1Password. Personal passwords are sync in a vault stored on Dropbox. For Spatie we have a team account.
  • All settings of my apps are backupped to Dropbox through Mackup. This is a fantastic piece of software that moves all your preferences to Dropbox and symlinks them.
  • I don't use Time Machine, my backups are handled with Backblaze.
  • Tweets are tweeted with Tweetbot.
  • I read a lot of blogs through RSS feeds in Reeder.
  • Mails are read and written in Mimestream. Unlike other email clients which realy on IMAP, Mimestream uses the full Gmail API. It super fast, and the author is dedicated using the latest stuff in MacOS. It's a magnificent app really.
  • My browser of choice is Safari, because of its speed an low power use To block ads on certain sites I use the Ghostery plugin.
  • I like to write long blogposts in iA Writer
  • Calendars are managed in Fantastical 2
  • To create videos I use ScreenFlow.
  • A common ratio for screencast video is 16:9. By default, my mac only allows 16:10. Using RDM I can force it to 16:9.
  • Even though I'm not a designer I sometimes have to edit images. For this I use Pixelmator.
  • GrandPerspective is a hidden gem that helps you determine how your disk space is being use used.
  • Outside of programming, I also record music. My DAW of choice is Ableton, I'm using the complete edition.

iOS

Here's a screenshot of my current homescreen.

Homescreen

I don't use folders and try to keep the number of installed apps to a minimum. There's also just one screen with apps, all the other apps are opened via search. Most of my time is spent in Safari, Pocket, Reeder and Tweetbot. Notifications and notification badges are turned off for all apps except Messages.

Here's a rundown of some of the apps currently on the homescreen:

  • 1Password: my favourite password manager
  • Air Video HD: I find it much more reliable to sync videos to this one the stock Videos app. No iTunes needed.
  • Overcast: an excellent podcast client
  • Telegram: most of my geeky friends are on there
  • iA writer: to quickly write some stuff or take notes on the go
  • Clock: tick, tock, ...
  • Stripe: to quickly check how Flare and Oh Dear are doing financially
  • Mobile: horribly named, this the mobile banking app of my bank
  • Reeder: an RSS client
  • Slack: for communicating with my team and some other communities
  • Letterboxd: a pretty imdb. I use it to log every movie I watch
  • Railer: to easily look up the train schedules in Belgium
  • Pocket: my favourite read later service
  • Things: contains my to dos
  • Nuki: this controls the electronic doorlock at our office

Hardware

Here's a picture of the desk I have at home.

Desk

Behind my desk there's a Hue Light Strip. When working in the evening, I like to set it to a moody color.

Desk

I'm using a Macbook Air with an Apple M1 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB hard disk.

Mac info window

I usually work in closed-display mode. To save some desk space, I use a beautiful vertical Mac stand: the Twelve South BookArc.

Here's the hardware that is on my desk

As a webcam I use a Sony a6400 camera with a Sigma 16mm 1.4 lens. It is connected to my computer via an Elgato Cam Link 4K. The camera is mounted on a GorillaPod 3K.

To connect all external hardware to my MacBook I got a CalDigit TS3 plus. This allows me to connect the webcam / mic / USB Piano keyboard, and more to my MacBook with a single USB-C cable. That cable also charges the MacBook. Less clutter on the desktop, means I have more headspace, so I'm pretty happy with the TS3 plus.

I play music on a HomePod stereo pair. To stay in "the zone" when commuting and at the office I put on my QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones.

My current phone is an iPhone 12 Pro Max with 128 GB of storage.

Misc

  • At Spatie, we use Google Workspace to handle mail and calendars
  • StreamYard is a fantastic service for streaming. It works entirely in the browser, there's no app that you need to install. I used to use OBS, but switched to StreamYard when starting the Laravel Meetup. Using StreamYard, I can invite guest on the stream, by just sending them a link. It all just works
  • BaseCamp is used to structure communication with the team.
  • High level planning at the company is done using Float
  • All servers I work on are provisioned by Forge.
  • The performance and uptime of those servers are monitored via Oh Dear.
  • To track exceptions in production, we use Flare
  • To send mails to our audience that is interested in our paid products, we use our homegrown Mailcoach

In closing

Every year, I write a new version of the post. Here's the 2019 version.

If you have any questions on any of these apps and services, feel free to contact me on Twitter.

Stay up to date with all things Laravel, PHP, and JavaScript.

You can follow me on these platforms:

On all these platforms, regularly share programming tips, and what I myself have learned in ongoing projects.

Every month I send out a newsletter containing lots of interesting stuff for the modern PHP developer.

Expect quick tips & tricks, interesting tutorials, opinions and packages. Because I work with Laravel every day there is an emphasis on that framework.

Rest assured that I will only use your email address to send you the newsletter and will not use it for any other purposes.

Comments

What are your thoughts on "My current setup (end 2020 edition)"?

Comments powered by Laravel Comments
Want to join the conversation? Log in or create an account to post a comment.

Webmentions

rabbl liked on 2nd December 2020
Nick Dunas liked on 2nd December 2020
hmmonteiro liked on 2nd December 2020
Jeff Martin liked on 2nd December 2020
Philipp Bräutigam liked on 2nd December 2020
Luke Downing liked on 2nd December 2020
Orest liked on 2nd December 2020
olivM liked on 2nd December 2020
Craig Potter liked on 2nd December 2020
Ricardo Vargas / Web Developer liked on 2nd December 2020
Ondřej Hudeček liked on 2nd December 2020
Paul P liked on 2nd December 2020
معاذ الجهني liked on 2nd December 2020
Jamal liked on 2nd December 2020
Danyell Noe liked on 2nd December 2020
Johan de Jager liked on 2nd December 2020
Guus liked on 1st December 2020
Florian Stăncioiu liked on 1st December 2020
Jake D👻hm liked on 1st December 2020
Dustin liked on 1st December 2020
Jaume Sala liked on 1st December 2020
budak kucing liked on 1st December 2020
Aseem Lalfakawma liked on 1st December 2020
Iggie liked on 1st December 2020
Yassine Afnisse liked on 1st December 2020
haq liked on 1st December 2020
Franc Auxach Cortés liked on 1st December 2020
{b}matovu liked on 1st December 2020
Procionegobbo liked on 1st December 2020
Tadhg Boyle 🚀 liked on 1st December 2020
Giancarlo Valente liked on 1st December 2020
Dany Stadtmuller liked on 1st December 2020
Christian Klemp liked on 1st December 2020
German Rocha liked on 1st December 2020
Paulo Elias liked on 1st December 2020
karthickkumar liked on 1st December 2020
Ajith Lal liked on 1st December 2020
Uziel Bueno liked on 1st December 2020
Dannie L. liked on 1st December 2020
Austin Smith liked on 1st December 2020
Zekaryas liked on 1st December 2020
German Rocha retweeted on 1st December 2020
Dany Stadtmuller replied on 1st December 2020
After watching the video you mention, I’m intrigued by the light based IDE theme and want to give it a try.
Sanjeeva retweeted on 1st December 2020
Antonio Coelho liked on 1st December 2020
Jeffer Prince *️⃣ liked on 1st December 2020
Lawrence Enehizena liked on 1st December 2020
Mansoor Khan liked on 1st December 2020
Vinayak S. Agarwal liked on 1st December 2020
Oluwatobi Samuel Omisakin liked on 1st December 2020
Tobias Scharikow 🦊 liked on 1st December 2020
MD Iyasin Arafat liked on 1st December 2020
Chris Perko liked on 1st December 2020
Emerson Broga liked on 1st December 2020
Rod Elias liked on 1st December 2020
Marcos Timm Rossow liked on 1st December 2020
~/αhmєd liked on 1st December 2020
Teddy Jimenez Morrobel liked on 1st December 2020
Eduardo Pajarito liked on 1st December 2020
Abdelkader Mh liked on 1st December 2020
Roman Pronskiy liked on 1st December 2020
Petr Cervenka liked on 1st December 2020
mat liked on 1st December 2020
Rafik liked on 1st December 2020
Ladislav Picha liked on 1st December 2020
Mehmet Hanoğlu liked on 1st December 2020
Zainal Hasan retweeted on 1st December 2020
Antonio Coelho retweeted on 1st December 2020
ali ali liked on 30th November 2020
Dyriavin liked on 30th November 2020
Jonas Siewertsen replied on 30th November 2020
I love that you are using the Trackpad. Am using it myself and fell totally in love with and can't stop telling my self, that I am much faster with it compared to any mouse out there 🐁
Salman Zafar liked on 30th November 2020
Gonçalo Gonçalves liked on 30th November 2020
Aaron Meder liked on 30th November 2020
Laimonas Narbutas liked on 30th November 2020
Jimesh liked on 30th November 2020
Brittany liked on 30th November 2020
Nathan Geerinck liked on 30th November 2020
Phouvanh KCSV retweeted on 30th November 2020
Hanny Ramzy liked on 30th November 2020
Tauseef shah liked on 30th November 2020
/dev/faisal liked on 30th November 2020
Carlos Acuña Campos liked on 30th November 2020
Raul liked on 30th November 2020
Stéphane liked on 30th November 2020
martonos liked on 30th November 2020
Jonatan liked on 30th November 2020
Alexander Hoffmann liked on 30th November 2020
Enzo Notario liked on 30th November 2020
Paul Redmond 🇺🇸 liked on 30th November 2020
Bradley Bernard liked on 30th November 2020
Mark Edward Tan liked on 30th November 2020
Ken V. liked on 30th November 2020
Freek Van der Herten 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
I’m pretty happy with both Dropbox and DO, and don’t see any compelling reasons to change to an alternative.
Alan lam replied on 30th November 2020
🥸just want to ask why Dropbox not google drive? and why digotalocean over aws?
Fong Hok Kin liked on 30th November 2020
MD. Mehedi Hasan liked on 30th November 2020
Hadi Swais liked on 30th November 2020
Stefan Zweifel liked on 30th November 2020
Alfie Hopkin liked on 30th November 2020
Zach Williams liked on 30th November 2020
Joaquin Echevarria liked on 30th November 2020
Geovanni liked on 30th November 2020
Freek Van der Herten 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
Those are HomePods
Sam replied on 30th November 2020
they look dope
Ashish Dhamala liked on 30th November 2020
Sam replied on 30th November 2020
Lovely setup. Are those bluetooth speakers from 'Anker'?
Songhua Hu liked on 30th November 2020
Jose Cerrejon liked on 30th November 2020
Gregor Albrecht ✌️ replied on 30th November 2020
Curious to hear if you'd recommend the Trackpad? I'm thinking of getting one because mice seem to be bad for my hand, especially when scrolling a lot...
Rohit Joshi liked on 30th November 2020
Ken liked on 30th November 2020
Hatam liked on 30th November 2020
Zabir Anik liked on 30th November 2020
Gregor Albrecht ✌️ liked on 30th November 2020
Andrew Schmelyun liked on 30th November 2020
Michael Aguiar liked on 30th November 2020
StoicDojo liked on 30th November 2020
/dev/gooners liked on 30th November 2020
Diarmaid O'Dochartaigh liked on 30th November 2020
Klemen Magajne liked on 30th November 2020
Freek Van der Herten 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
I’ve been using a trackpad for many years now. For me it works better than a mouse (no need to reposition entire your hand)
Serious question, why do you use a light theme for the IDE, but a dark theme for Terminal? Given Brent's findings & your acceptance of light colors in IDEs, I would think Terminal would follow suit.
Freek Van der Herten 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
You’re right. In PhpStorm my terminal is white. I kept de iTerm one dark because that theme is just sooo pretty 😀
Brent liked on 30th November 2020
Jonathan Page liked on 30th November 2020
Kwaku Amoh-Aboagye liked on 30th November 2020
Edwin I Arellano liked on 30th November 2020
Jason Groulx liked on 30th November 2020
Alfredo Martínez liked on 30th November 2020
Tahseen Alaa retweeted on 30th November 2020
mwm [⚡️,🔑] liked on 30th November 2020
Steve Bauman liked on 30th November 2020
stefan schnabs liked on 30th November 2020
Vrymel Omandam liked on 30th November 2020
Sowren Sen liked on 30th November 2020
Gregori Piñeres 🐘 liked on 30th November 2020
Pedro Resende liked on 30th November 2020
8ack2Lobby liked on 30th November 2020
Phillip Mwaniki liked on 30th November 2020
Timothy 🇰🇪 liked on 30th November 2020
Alan liked on 30th November 2020
Nick Ciske liked on 30th November 2020
Radu Mihai Diaconu replied on 30th November 2020
I use material theme atom dark
Adrián Gómez liked on 30th November 2020
james cowie retweeted on 30th November 2020
Pär Thernström liked on 30th November 2020
Wyatt liked on 30th November 2020
james cowie liked on 30th November 2020
Tahseen Alaa liked on 30th November 2020
Ron Northrip replied on 30th November 2020
Nice. Have you tried Sequel Ace for DB management?
Juan Carlos Huerta liked on 30th November 2020
Marco Messa liked on 30th November 2020
सोझो केटो liked on 30th November 2020
Niff liked on 30th November 2020
Khoa Hoang liked on 30th November 2020
Kornél 🌲 liked on 30th November 2020
barsa五郎 liked on 30th November 2020
Peter Brinck 🤘 liked on 30th November 2020
Shu liked on 30th November 2020
70to liked on 30th November 2020
Lars Roettig ⚡🤘PWA liked on 30th November 2020
Aiman Ismail liked on 30th November 2020
Omar Andrés Barbosa Ortiz liked on 30th November 2020
Gytis Karčiauskas liked on 30th November 2020
Jens liked on 30th November 2020
Mozammil liked on 30th November 2020
David Frigolet liked on 30th November 2020
Ryan C. liked on 30th November 2020
Peter Decuyper liked on 30th November 2020
Atiq Samtia liked on 30th November 2020
Abdelwahed Madani Yousfi liked on 30th November 2020
Fabio liked on 30th November 2020
Jamie York liked on 30th November 2020
Martijn Gastkemper liked on 30th November 2020
Mubashar Iqbal liked on 30th November 2020
Luis Mejía liked on 30th November 2020
Grant Williams liked on 30th November 2020
lhp9916 liked on 30th November 2020
David 👨‍🦯 liked on 30th November 2020
Furkan Yesil liked on 30th November 2020
Mostafa A. ツ liked on 30th November 2020
Roy Shay liked on 30th November 2020
Jefferson Simão Gonçalves liked on 30th November 2020
Zaid liked on 30th November 2020
Jordi 🎗🇷🇺 liked on 30th November 2020
Mark Topper liked on 30th November 2020
Marc Hampson liked on 30th November 2020
Espiridion Larosa liked on 30th November 2020
Jaume Capdevila liked on 30th November 2020
Daily Web Dev 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
Love that minimalistic PhpStorm with white background. Here is mine:
Tarsísio Xavier liked on 30th November 2020
Stephan Nijman liked on 30th November 2020
Denis Žoljom liked on 30th November 2020
KGG liked on 30th November 2020
James 🚀 liked on 30th November 2020
jfkr_ liked on 30th November 2020
Abrar Ahmad liked on 30th November 2020
Olivier Lechevalier liked on 30th November 2020
Scott liked on 30th November 2020
Mehmet Küçük liked on 30th November 2020
Laravel Idea liked on 30th November 2020
Tom Witkowski liked on 30th November 2020
Ferdinand AMOI liked on 30th November 2020
Kenneth Schabrechts liked on 30th November 2020
Maxime Roca liked on 30th November 2020
/dev/prabakaran liked on 30th November 2020
Goran Guram Ćulibrk liked on 30th November 2020
Elie Andraos liked on 30th November 2020
Maarten de Graaf liked on 30th November 2020
Ross Alexander liked on 30th November 2020
Towhid liked on 30th November 2020
dsoto liked on 30th November 2020
Bruno Neves liked on 30th November 2020
π liked on 30th November 2020
Unknown liked on 30th November 2020
Marcelo Rodrigues liked on 30th November 2020
William Mandai liked on 30th November 2020
Robert Cooper. Compromised. liked on 30th November 2020
Dani liked on 30th November 2020
Flamur Mavraj liked on 30th November 2020
Robin Dirksen liked on 30th November 2020
Remzi liked on 30th November 2020
Juan Velandia liked on 30th November 2020
Vaggelis Yfantis liked on 30th November 2020
Alexander Stehlik liked on 30th November 2020
Ahmed Qader 🇵🇸 liked on 30th November 2020
Ali Mahdavi liked on 30th November 2020
Pascal Baljet replied on 30th November 2020
The pre-Lion backgrounds never get old. I'm still rocking the blue Tiger 10.4 one 👌
Freek Van der Herten 🐘 replied on 30th November 2020
That’s a nice one too! 👍