{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Chris Krycho - apps","link":"http:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/","description":{},"lastBuildDate":"Sat, 19 Jan 2019 09:00:00 -0500","item":{"title":"My Current Setup","link":"http:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2019\/my-current-setup.html","description":"<p><i><b><a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2018\/assumed-audiences.html\">Assumed Audience<\/a>:<\/b> people interested in productivity and work flow and app choice.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>A friend was asking me the other day what my workflow looks like, and while I don\u2019t generally spend a <em>lot<\/em> of time writing about my working setup, I figured I\u2019d throw up a quick post representing my <em>current<\/em> list so that if people ask I can point them here.<\/p>\n<p>Two important notes on this, though: First, this is <em>just what I use<\/em>. I make no particular claim that it\u2019s <em>the best<\/em>. There are lots of things here that are very specific to me and the way I work, and even to my specific mental quirks. Second, it\u2019s far more important to care about the work you do than about the tools you use to get it done. The tools matter: some people say they don\u2019t and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s right at all. But they don\u2019t matter as much as they might <em>feel<\/em> like they do, and tool fetishism is real. I think the happy point is finding tools which are good enough and fit comfortably enough into your workflow that they don\u2019t <em>distract<\/em> you, and then get back to the work you do!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<section id=\"software-development\" class=\"level2\">\n<h2>Software development<\/h2>\n<p>For software development, I currently use:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/code.visualstudio.com\">VS Code<\/a> as my primary text editor; I also occasionally use Sublime Text or Vim for specific tasks where it makes sense. Code is incredibly fast, impressively low in memory usage given it\u2019s an Electron app, and remarkably customizable. My only outstanding complaint is that there\u2019s no way to actually make it look like a native macOS app. Happily, I <em>can<\/em> make it <em>behave<\/em> like a native macOS app in all the ways that matter to me. Its support for both TypeScript and Rust\u2014the two languages I spend the most time with right now\u2014is <em>great<\/em>. You\u2019re welcome to see <a href=\"https:\/\/gist.github.com\/chriskrycho\/f39442dd78ad6d150bcaaadd9fedf9f4\">my full configuration<\/a>; I keep it updated at that location via the <a href=\"https:\/\/marketplace.visualstudio.com\/items?itemName=Shan.code-settings-sync\">Settings Sync<\/a> plugin.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>macOS\u2019 built-in Terminal app, just using its tabs for individual tasks. I have spent a lot of time with alternatives, including <a href=\"https:\/\/iterm2.com\">iTerm 2<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sw.kovidgoyal.net\/kitty\/\">kitty<\/a>, and I\u2019m comfortable in <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/tmux\/tmux\/wiki\">tmux<\/a> \u2013 but at the end of the day I just like the way Terminal <em>feels<\/em> the best. It\u2019s fast, light, and built-in macOS things all just work correctly out of the box.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"http:\/\/git-fork.com\">Fork<\/a> for a <a href=\"https:\/\/git-scm.com\">git<\/a> <abbr>GUI<\/abbr>. I\u2019ve also used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.git-tower.com\">Tower<\/a> in the past, but I\u2019ve found Fork to be lighter, faster, and a better fit for the way I think and how I expect things to behave (e.g.\u00a0for interactive rebasing). I do a ton of work in git on the command line as well.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p>A mix, varying day by day, of Safari Tech Preview, Firefox, and Chrome for my test browsers. I substantially prefer Safari in nearly every way, but Chrome\u2019s dev tools remain best in class for most things\u2014with the exception of Grid, where Firefox is still the undisputed champion. (When I can, I do most of my JavaScript\/TypeScript debugging in VS Code, though: it\u2019s a much better experience.)<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/kapeli.com\/dash\">Dash<\/a> for offline documentation access. There are other options out there, including some which are free, but Dash remains the best in my experience, and if nothing else it\u2019s deeply integrated into my workflow and muscle memory.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That\u2019s basically the whole list at the moment. I keep my software development workflow fairly light.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"research-and-writing\" class=\"level2\">\n<h2>Research and writing<\/h2>\n<p>For research and writing, I use:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/ia.net\/writer\">iA Writer<\/a> for all my blogging and longer-form writing. This is a recent change; I had been a heavy user of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ulysses.app\">Ulysses<\/a> for the last few years. However, while Ulysses was the best option I had found for how I work, it\u2019s never been quite <em>right<\/em> for me. For one, I\u2019ve always found Ulysses\u2019 \u201cfeel\u201d to be a bit heavy: it\u2019s <em>just<\/em> noticeably slower for me than most of the other writing apps, and I\u2019m hypersensitive to input latency. I\u2019ve also always disliked one of the things that makes many people love it: the way it abstracts Markdown into its \u201csmart text objects.\u201d iA Writer gives me the ability to manage a library in much the same way that Ulysses did, but in a way that feels more truly native on both macOS and iOS; it just uses normal Markdown (no fancy text objects); and it\u2019s <em>fast<\/em>.<a href=\"#fn1\" class=\"footnote-ref\" id=\"fnref1\" role=\"doc-noteref\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a> That combo makes it a better fit for me.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/bear.app\">Bear<\/a> for my note-taking. I\u2019ve talked about this <a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2018\/starting-to-build-a-zettelkasten.html\">a fair bit<\/a> here <a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2018\/zettelkasten-update-all-in-on-bear.html\">before<\/a>, so I won\u2019t belabor the details. It\u2019s an excellent, lightweight note-taking app. The main way it falls down for me is that it does not really handle nested block content in Markdown documents (e.g.\u00a0it won\u2019t correctly display a block quote inside another block quote, or a code sample inside a list, etc.). I\u2019d also love it if it stored its library in a way that made it easier for me to interact with from other apps, i.e.\u00a0as plain text on the local drive. (You can export content from it easily enough, which is great, but it\u2019s not quite as seamless as I\u2019d like.) Those nits are just that, though: nits. I\u2019m very happy with Bear for my note-taking at this point.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.goldenhillsoftware.com\/unread\/\">Unread<\/a> on iOS for reading RSS, with <a href=\"https:\/\/feedbin.com\">Feedbin<\/a> as my long-preferred RSS feed service backing it. (I\u2019m a fan of paying for these kinds of services, so I\u2019m happy to lay out the $5\/month for Feedbin. Free alternatives exist, but I don\u2019t love ad-driven models and avoid them where I can.)<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You\u2019ll note that there are no apps for reading <em>longer<\/em> material on that list. I could mention Apple Books as the place I read most ebooks I read, but that\u2019s more a function of the alternatives not being meaningfully <em>better<\/em> in the ways I care about.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"productivity\" class=\"level2\">\n<h2>\u201cProductivity\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>For \u201cproductivity\u201d concerns, I use:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/tadamapp.com\">Tadam<\/a> for a Pomodoro timer\u2014because it\u2019s precisely as annoyingly obtrusive as I need it to be, which is <em>very<\/em>!\u2014and <a href=\"https:\/\/bear.app\">Bear<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2018\/just-write-down-what-you-do.html\">tracking<\/a> what I do each Pomodoro cycle, each day, each week, each month, and each year. That habit remains very helpful for me.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/culturedcode.com\">Things<\/a> for a to-do app. Things hits the sweet spot for me in terms of its ability to manage everything from simple tasks and recurring to-do items around the house up to complex multi-month-long projects. I particularly like its distinction between when I want to be <em>reminded<\/em> about something and when that task is <em>due<\/em>. I\u2019ve used <a href=\"https:\/\/www.omnigroup.com\/omnifocus\/\">OmniFocus<\/a> in the past, but it never quite <em>fit<\/em> me; Things does. They\u2019re very comparable in terms of features; it\u2019s just that the way Things approaches those features works better for me.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/sparkmailapp.com\">Spark<\/a> as my email client, mostly for its snooze feature, which I use when I know I need to see an email <em>as an email<\/em> sometime later, and its ability to integrate nicely with other apps. I have it connect to Things, and emails that require an <em>action<\/em> get put there instead of snoozed. The combination lets me keep my inbox at Zero by the end of every day. And its lovely \u201cInbox Zero\u201d images are a really nice touch:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<img src=\"https:\/\/f001.backblazeb2.com\/file\/chriskrycho-com\/images\/inbox-zero-spark.png\" alt=\"Inbox Zero in Spark\" \/><figcaption>Inbox Zero in Spark<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"podcasting\" class=\"level2\">\n<h2>Podcasting<\/h2>\n<p>For podcast production, I use:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.izotope.com\/en\/products\/repair-and-edit\/rx.html\">iZotope RX<\/a> (I\u2019m using v6 Standard) for audio cleanup, as I <a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2018\/izotope-rx-is-amazing.html\">recently wrote about<\/a>.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/logic-pro\/\">Logic Pro X<\/a> for the actual editing work most of the time, occasionally using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wooji-juice.com\/products\/ferrite\/\">Ferrite<\/a>. Logic is overkill for what I do, but I\u2019m <em>fast<\/em> with it at this point, so I can\u2019t see moving anytime soon, and there\u2019s nothing else out there that I think is substantially <em>better<\/em> (though there are other apps that are comparably good).<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.overcast.fm\/forecast\">Forecast<\/a> for encoding and including chapter breaks.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/reinventedsoftware.com\/feeder\/\">Feeder<\/a> for generating the <abbr>RSS<\/abbr> feeds, since all my podcasts are currently built in ways that don\u2019t support <abbr>RSS<\/abbr> feed generation: <a href=\"http:\/\/docs.getpelican.com\/en\/stable\/\">Pelican<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/winningslowly.org\">Winning Slowly<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/massaffection.com\">Mass Affection<\/a>,<a href=\"#fn2\" class=\"footnote-ref\" id=\"fnref2\" role=\"doc-noteref\"><sup>2<\/sup><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/doc.rust-lang.org\/rustdoc\">rustdoc<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/newrustacean.com\">New Rustacean<\/a>. (If I ever manage to finish building my own site generator, it\u2019ll have out-of-the-box support for custom RSS feed templates, so that I can have this stuff generated automatically for me!)<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.netlify.com\">Netlify<\/a> for serving the actual static site content (i.e.\u00a0HTML, CSS, and JS), and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/b2\">Backblaze B2<\/a> for hosting the audio.<\/p><\/li>\n<li><p><a href=\"https:\/\/panic.com\/transmit\/\">Transmit<\/a> for actually uploading the audio files.<\/p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"footnotes\" role=\"doc-endnotes\">\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li id=\"fn1\" role=\"doc-endnote\"><p>iA Writer seems to get <em>randomly<\/em> slow at times for reasons I haven\u2019t yet identified, but at least for now, I\u2019m taking that tradeoff over Ulysses\u2019 habit of being a bit slow <em>all the time<\/em>. As I\u2019ve often noted before: <a href=\"https:\/\/v4.chriskrycho.com\/2016\/ulysses-byword-and-just-right.html\" title=\"Ulysses, Byword, and \u201cJust Right\u201d\">my ideal writing app doesn\u2019t exist<\/a>.<a href=\"#fnref1\" class=\"footnote-back\" role=\"doc-backlink\">\u21a9<\/a><\/p><\/li>\n<li id=\"fn2\" role=\"doc-endnote\"><p>Mass Affection isn\u2019t dead! I promise!<a href=\"#fnref2\" class=\"footnote-back\" role=\"doc-backlink\">\u21a9<\/a><\/p><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/section>\n","pubDate":"Sat, 19 Jan 2019 09:00:00 -0500","guid":"tag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-01-19:\/2019\/my-current-setup.html","category":["productivity","pomodoro","apps","writing","reading","software development"]}}}