What I use - software
PhpStorm
PhpStorm is my editor of choice, as a full IDE it centralises many of the tools I use when writing code. It can also understand the files in a project and validate them on the fly.
Adobe Creative Cloud
I have a Creative Cloud subscription that allows me to use the whole Create Suite. Mostly I use Photoshop, but also Illustrator, XD, and InDesign.
Sketch
While I mostly work within the Adobe world I’ve worked with a few designers to prefer Sketch, its never managed to convince me to abandon Photoshop but I do keep a working knowledge of it.
Google Chrome
Chrome is my standard desktop browser of choice.
I also use quite a few plugins:
- Full Page Screen Capture – for screenshotting the entire page
- Google Analytics Opt-out – this stops me messing up the stats with my own usage.
- The QR Code Extension – produces a QR code that links to the current page, this speeds up mobile testing as I can scan it with my smartphone/tablet to load it.
- Redux Devtools
- React Developer Tools
- Old Reddit Redirect – I use Reddit a lot…still don’t like the new design
- SelectorGadget – a handy tool for finding CSS selectors, I normally use CSS Modules now so I don’t use it as much.
For the whole “cross-browser compatibility” thing I have a bunch of other browsers installed on my MacBook and use BrowserStack for anything I don’t have.
Git
The only version control system I’ve ever used: its super simple, and super powerful. I’m also a big fan of rebasing – when done properly
Command Line
I use the command line a lot, I usually have at least half a dozen terminals open for different things in PhpStorm:
- git
- npm
- build – usually with a file watcher
- code linting
- test – for running unit tests, again usually with a watcher
- e2e – for running tests with Cypress If I’m using a Vagrant/Docker box, then there’s one for that too.
On my Mac I use the Homebrew package manager to install software and keep everything up to date. For a text editor, I’m Team Vim.
Postman
As I front end developer I consume a tonne of API’s. Postman allows me to keep track of them, and also allows me to mock and design new ones.