Melandel's workflow

Hi, my name is Melandel and this project was born from my desire to feel as efficient as possible while developping software.

The main criteria for me is minimizing context switches.

Background

As a C# developer, I spent 4 years using the Visual Studio IDE (up to the 2019 version, with ReSharper). My day-to-day workflow made me unhappy. It involved:

Searching with my eyes	for the feature I was looking for on the screen
Scrolling	to the data I was looking for
Clicking link after link	to finally reach the page with button or input I was looking for
Using both an IDE and a text editor	the first for the code, the second for drafts and notes
Having multiple file explorer windows	for copypasta, for diffs, for downloads, for exploration
Switching back and forth between the keyboard and the mouse	when working with two splits on the same screen
Visual pollution taking space on the screen	buttons, menus, docked windows I have no immediate use for
Disruptive waiting times	while firing up the IDE/ReSharper, while firing up the unit tests, while upgrading the IDE

The Problem

All these issues seemed to point to one main pain point:

Context switching
My brain's PROBLEM-SOLVING mode was constantly disrupted by some FIND-WHAT-YOU-ARE-LOOKING-FOR or BROWSE-TO-YOUR-DESTINATION process.

What to look for then ?

So now I know I want an environment that lets me stay in PROBLEM-SOLVING mode as consistently as possible. What could it involved ?

Keeping up with the speed of my thoughts
Fast and lightweight commands
One interface for every tool
Requests to a search engine over scrolling/following links/parsing the screen with my eyes
Display only what I need in the immediate moment on the screen

I also want to be able to use it from any operating system.

A Solution - that works for me

Files and Folders

My experience suggests that the following files/folders address my different needs:

[…]/todo	Keeps track of my todo list, what I want done at the end of the current day
[…]/done	Keeps track of how productive I have been lately
[…]/achievements	Keeps track of the major steps that my productivity allowed me to reach
[…]/projects/**	Regroups all the source code I'm editing
[…]/config/*	Regroups all the config files I'm using for all my tools
[…]/tmp/*	Regroups stuff that I need at the moment but don't care afterwards
[…]/notes/*	Regroups stuff that I want to keep somewhere
[…]/notes/media/*	Regroups pictures (or other resources) I want to display in my markdown notes
[…]/snippets/*	Regroups all the text snippets I create
[…]/templates/**	Regroups all the folder structure templates I create
[…]/tools/**	Regroups all the tools I use as part of my workflow

Tool box

I went with a dev environment made mostly from vim.

Vim is fast.
Vim is lightweight.
Vim offers a universal interface for every tool (read: a cursor positioned on a text buffer).
Vim offers minimal graphical artifacts.
Last but not least, Vim offers INSANE customization capabilities.

Also, VIM will easily ask one year of your lifetime hahaha. Ha...     Contemplates the horizon, far away, for an instant...

But here, I'm also using VIM (and I know and understand many whom think this is very wrong) a cement for my whole toolbox:

Tool	Main Feature	Usage
Autohotkey	Keyboard remappings	Use CapsLock for Esc/Ctrl, use alphabetical keys for arrows/home/end/AltGr keys, CapsLock+I/M for Tab/Enter
Git	Version Control System	Helps me add values little by little but more frequently
Firefox	Web browser	Web browser & Image/pdf/markdown viewer
Vimium	vim-like keyboard shortcuts
AutoFullscreen	set window as fullscreen at startup
Markdown Viewer Webext	render markdown files
Homify	Add a quote and the current time & date at the bottom of pictures	Use images as background wallpapers
Fzf	fuzzy finder	Allows me to organize commands/folders by groups with fast selection
Ripgrep	(fast) Search tool	Fast search for word in file contents
OmniSharp-roslyn	C# language server	Intellisense for C#
PlantUML	Text-file-based diagram generation	Helps me build a thought or keep a visual representation of an idea
Tree	directory listing	Shows the structure of a project
Nuget	package manager for .NET	Search for nugets names to add to current project
VIM	Text edition	Edit text, use keyboard for everything, split the screen, select intput and send it to command-line-friendly tools
editorconfig-vim	Consistent style in a project	tabs vs spaces, CR/LF/CRLF
ale	Asynchronous Linting Engine	Show errors and warnings on current file in real time
fzf.vim	Fzf wrapper for vim	Offer fast selection of commands or files/folders
lightline.vim	Lightweight status line customization	Show time & date, path-from-git-root, parent sln-or-csproj, window/tab number
omnisharp-vim	Provides vim commands for C# intellisense	Go to Definition, Find Symbol, Find usages, Get Documentation, Fix Usings, Run Tests, etc.
vimspector	Debugger inside vim	Toggle Breakpoint, Add Breakpoint with condition, Start/Stop/Re-run debugging session, Step In/Out/Over, etc.
ultisnips	Ability to use snippets in vim	cls+ → `public class
vim-dirvish	Path navigator	File explorer (similar usage from vifm)
vim-dadbod	Database interaction from vim	database querying
vim-surround	delete, change, add surroundings ({[(<"'>)]})
tabular	Vertical alignment	Markdown tables, C# property mappings, etc.
vim-fugitive	Git in vim	git operations (log/commit/add/push/checkout/merge)
vim-obsession	Session in vim	Start with everyone left the way they were when leaving vim the last time
vim-css-color	Show hex colors in background highlighting	When tweaking my color theme mainly
targets.vim	Improved text objects	Argument text object, next/2nd next/last/2nd last text object
vim-empower	My colorscheme	Feel in an empowering environment all day
gvimtweak	Handle opacity/fullscreen features in (windows?) gVim
7-zip	compression/decompression	Install binaries on Windows
WSL2	Windows Subsystem for Linux 2	Feel in an efficient and comfortable environment under my control
Windows Terminal	A Decent terminal on Windows	Emoji support, several tabs in one window in Windows

Installation Details

Windows

Utilities

Install:

• jq
• xmllint

Using config/vimfiles

Add environment variable:

• VIMINIT to source %HOMEPATH%\Desktop\config\my_vimrc.vim
• D2_LAYOUT to tala
• MELANDEL_RESOURCES_JSON to %HOMEPATH%\Desktop\config\resources.json

Also:

cd %homepath%
mklink /d vimfiles %HOMEPATH%\Desktop\config\myVim
mkdir vimfiles
mklink /J vimfiles/ultisnips %homepath%\Desktop\config\myVim\UltiSnips

Startup programs

gvim, tools/myAzertyKeyboard.RunMeAsAdmin.exe and your internet browser should be run when the system starts up.

On Windows, for each program that should be run at startup: Start > run > shell:startup > create a file with .vbs extension that looks like this example for firefox:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell" )
Set wshSysEnv = wshShell.Environment("PROCESS")
webBrowserPath = """" & wshSysEnv("HOMEPATH") & "\Desktop\tools\firefox\firefox.exe" & """"

WshShell.Run webBrowserPath, 0
Set WshShell = Nothing

Windows Terminal has a particular configuration item "startOnUserLogin": true.

Task Bar Icons

Don't forget to set the target of the task bar icon to $HOME\Desktop\tools\vim\gvim.exe -S and its startup directory to $HOME in order to use and locate Vim's session file properly!