Windows Development Tips

Est. read time: 1 minute | Last updated: April 09, 2024 by John Gentile

Contents

Setting Up Windows for Use With *NIX Tools
- Cygwin
- ConEmu
- Vim
Native Windows Tools

Setting Up Windows for Use With *NIX Tools

Cygwin

Install Cygwin and select the minimum amount of packages required for your setup
- Some suggestions are to at least install git, vim, tmux, openssh, and wget
Install apt-cyg, a nice Cygwin package manager
- To install, just grab the the bash script apt-cyg and install apt-cyg /bin

ConEmu

Install ConEmu
Create a Cygwin task that targets the main Cygwin.bat script

Vim

If you have Vim configuration files, make sure they are put in the correct Windows directory to be found; this can be found in Vim by using the command :echo $HOME or :echo $VIM to find the home (~ UNIX equivalent) or Vim system directory

Native Windows Tools

Sublime Text

Packages

Vintageous: Vim emulator for Sublime Text
SublimeLinter: Linter framework for multiple languages in Sublime Text
Git Gutter: Shows git diff information in side bar of file
All Autocomplete: Find autocompletions in any open file
Base16 Color Scheme: Variety of color schemes
MarkdownEditing: Completion and editing features for working with Markdown (*.md) files
Markdown Preview: Preview and compile Markdown files in internet browser as well as advanced features such as YAML and MathJax support (set enable_mathjax to true in your settings)
VHDL: VHDL language markup and syntax

Visual Studio

Plugins

VsVim: Emulates Vim controls and keys to Visual Studio
MarkdownEditor
Trailing Whitespace Visualizer: Visualize trailing whitespace with red blocks to easily remove them from source files

Utilities

Microsoft PowerToys
Search Everything: Fast fuzzy search of everything on disk
Git for Windows
AutoHotkey
Win32 OpenSSH allows remote SSH access from other computers, especially useful if trying to SSH from a Unix system to a Windows system