This is a guide on setting up an optimal development environment on Windows.
The best environment setup is Babun, which is built on-top of Cygwin, but includes an easy-to-use package-manager, out-of-thebox Zsh support, and better compatibility.
Cmder is the best console emulator.
- Get Babun
- Run
install.bat - To install packages, use
pact <packagename>
- Get Cmder
- Go to Settings>Startup>Tasks
- Create a new task
- Task parameters:
/icon "%userprofile%\.babun\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe" /dir "%userprofile%"
- Commands:
%userprofile%\.babun\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe /bin/env CHERE_INVOKING=1 /bin/zsh.exe
Go to Settings > Main and select desired font. Consolas is my preferred monospace font on Windows.
- Set a preferred style under Settings > Features > Colors
My configuration:
Monokai
0. (background) set to 0 0 0
7. set to 202 202 202
Mactype hooks provides freetype on Windows. Freetype is currently the best font-rasteriser, and is used on Linux, Android, iOS and macOS. Microsoft still uses ClearType, which is considerably worse, especially for alphabets other than Latin.
- Get Mactype
- Choose your desire loading mode. I prefer Load with MacTray with Standalone loading mode, as it allows you to toggle exclusions for incompatible programs.
Please note that VSCode no longer supports MacType due to upstream deprecation of the --disable-directwrite flag. Consider using Sublime Text if you wish to use MacType with your editor
Install VSCode
(Taken from VSCode Mactype Hack)
VSCode requires the following flags to be passed for MacType to work correctly:
- Right-click the shortcut to VSCode > Properties
- In the Target field, append the following string:
--disable-lcd-text --disable-gpu --disable-directwrite-for-ui --disable-font-antialiasing
- Open VSCode
- Open File > Preferences > Settings
- Add the following to the USER SETTINGS section
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Users\\tom\\.babun\\cygwin\\bin\\zsh.exe",