MacOS power users can 10x their productivity using Homebrew and other CLI tools. Here's a list of my top Homebrew packages to boost your productivity on your Mac development environment. Really the best Homebrew app I’ve tried most of the brewing software apps/platforms out there. Every time I end up just going back to logging my brew days manually because the software was too cumbersome or didn’t make logical sense. This app has changed that. It is simple and intuitive.
If you are a Mac power user and probably a software engineer you will have Homebrew installed on your machine. In case that you don’t know what Homebrew is, you can find more information here and you can read how to install it here. Basically, Homebrew is the missing package manager for Mac OS X and can be used to install additional Unix packages. Is a tool that can really help you install almost anything and it can manage dependencies and update packages with just one command.
So here are the 10 best Homebrew packages for Mac
1. Wget
Wget is a command line tool that can download files over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS. Is a non-command line interactive tool and can be used within bash scripts, cron jobs and terminals.
How to install it:
brew install wget
2. Htop
Htop is a top alternative which can provide additional information through the terminal about CPU usage, available memory, system uptime, running services and also the ability to kill running processes.
You can download and install it from the official website, but is much easier to do it from Homebrew by just typing in your terminal:
brew install htop and you can use it by typing htop after the installation.
3. Youtube-dl
Youtube-dl is a command line program that lets you download YouTube videos and sound. It can also, download content from a couple of other websites as well. You can use it by typingyoutube-dl -f best 'youtube-link'
This will enable you to download the best available video quality that YouTube has. Although, is against YouTube’s terms and conditions is a really useful program that can help you download videos that you have uploaded to YouTube but you don’t have them on your local machine anymore. You can download youtube-dl using Homebrew as shown below:brew install youtube-dl
4. Ripgrep
Ripgrep is a command line tool that can search recursively your current directory. It can be used with a regex pattern and it can also respect your gitignore rules. Ripgrep is available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. You can download the binaries here or you can download it using Homebrew as shown below.
brew install ripgrep
5. Imagemagick
Imagemagisk has many capabilities when comes to converting images from one format to another and it can also do some basic image editing like flip, rotate, mirror, etc. The creators of Imagemagisk have also taken into consideration the performance. Imagemagisk utilises multiple threads so it can do multiple I/O operations really fast. To install it you can do:
brew install imagemagisk
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Extensive API documentation and the full capabilities of Imagemagisk can be found here.
6. Vim
Vim is the famous, highly configurable and somewhat controversial text editor you can use. It has an extensive variety of plugins and in my opinion, if you invest some time to configure it properly and learn all the commands you will be writing a lot faster that using a text editor with a UI. It has support for hundreds of programming languages and it comes in every UNIX system. However, if you would like to get the latest version easily you should install it via Homebrew. A really nice website that will help you to learn VIM is called VIM Adventures. You will learn the basic commands by playing a game which is an interesting way of learning the tool.
brew install vim
For Apple computers, there is a really good guide of how to configure it properly. It can be found here.
7. Zsh
Z shell is another shell, like for example bash (default on Macs). Zsh provides additional functionality and when it’s used with a framework it can be really powerful and can help your productivity. Zsh comes with Mac OS X, however, is outdated and usually, you don’t get frequent updates. That is why is better to install it via brew.
brew install zsh
The framework I recommend using with Zsh is called Oh my Zsh. I will show my Zsh + iTerm2 setup in a future post. Zsh has really good plugins and beautiful themes. I always keep finding myself looking for nice themes every couple of months just to change the look of my terminal.
8. Unrar
Everybody knows unrar. This is the command line version of the famous package unarchiver. It has full support for RAR and ZIP files. Some of the formats it can decompress are GZIP, ACE, CAB along with many more. Installation:
brew install unrar
9. Parallel
Parallel is a command line app that can concurrently execute multiple jobs in your local environment or remotely. A typical use case is to have a script that you would like to run many times. It can take as an input multiple hosts, users, urls or files. You can install it by executing:
brew install parallel
You can check the video below of how you can use it.
10. Speedtest-cli
As its name suggests this is a tool for doing speed tests on your internet connection. Basically is the command line version of the website Speedtest.net.
brew install speedtest-cli
And that is all folks, if you have any other useful Homebrew tools that you would like to see here please contact me directly. Don't forget to share this if you find it helpful and don't forget to subscribe.
Originally published at picocoder.io on December 8, 2018.
- 2List
Installing[edit]
Applications are installed by copying the necessary files directly to the 3ds/ folder in the root of the SD card (preferred for new designs), or in a subdirectory of 3ds/, in which case said subfolder must be named identically to its executable. Most applications come with two files:
[appname].3dsx: The executable.[appname].smdh: The icon/metadata. (Not required in any case, and may be integrated into the.3dsx)[appname].xml: The list of supported targets (i.e. installed titles which the app supports replacing in memory at runtime, thus inheriting its permissions), and of any arguments to be passed to the .3dsx. (Optional)
A standalone .xml file can point to a differently-named .3dsx, launching it with potentially different arguments so that a single application can run in different modes.
The Homebrew Launcher will scan the SD card for all .3dsx files, but will only display an icon for those who have one according to the format described above. Recent enough versions can freely navigate the filesystem to select an application.
List[edit]
Launchers[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homebrew Launcher | Run homebrew on your 3DS! Compatible with Rosalina and all prior 3dsx loading solutions | devkitPro | Here | Yes |
| Homebrew Starter Pack | Everything to get you started. | smea | Here | Yes |
| Homebrew Launcher (v1.x) | The old version of the 3DS Homebrew Launcher, originally created for ninjhax 1.x (Discontinued) | smea | Here | Yes |
| [ Mashers' HBL] | Homebrew Launcher with grid and folder support. (Discontinued) | Mashers | Here | Lost in masher's retirement |
Applications[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3dsfetch | Small 3DS version of a popular Linux ricing script called screenfetch. | VideahGams | Here | Yes | 2015-09-17 |
| 3DS-PluginsFolder | Simple program that creates folders with TitleID and copy plugins on them | Klairm | Here | Yes | 2020-09-06 |
| TSI9 | A simple program for detecting touch screen input. | Johnodon | Here | Yes | 2020-1-18 |
| 3DSident | Identity tool for the Nintendo 3DS heavily inspired by PSPident. | Joel16 | Here | Yes | 2018-8-2 |
| Clear MAC Filter | Reset 8-hour per-console StreetPass rate limiting | tastymeatball | Here | Yes | 2018-8-24 |
| CtrRGBPATTY | Generate patches that edit LED notifications | CPunch | Here | Yes | 2017-11-3 |
| ctrrpc | A small and easily extensible RPC server/client written in C/Python. Allows you to quickly poke service-commands and syscalls over Wi-Fi from a Python shell on your PC. Useful during reverse-engineering. No longer under (active) development? | plutoo | Build from repo | Yes | 2014-11-10 |
| ctr-streaming-server | A 3DS homebrew audio/video playback server. It can also send HID state to the client (see the README) when enabled. The included parse_hidstream tool can be used to parse that HID data to simulate keyboard/mouse input events, via Linux uinput. No longer under (active) development? | yellows8 | Build from repo | Yes | 2014-11-20 |
| DownloadMii | A WIP repo-based online marketplace for homebrew applications & games. | filfat | Build from repo | Yes | 2015-11-24 |
| fb43ds | A simple 3DS Facebook chat client | linoma | Build from repo | Yes | 2015-04-07 |
| for-anyone-who-walks-a-lot | Tool to get past the 10 coin per day limit on earning Play Coins by walking. | iamevn | Here | Yes | 2016-03-26 |
| Homebrew Browser | Download homebrew from the internet! | cromo, zeta0134 | Here | Yes | 2015-10-07 |
| NFCReader | Allows you to use your 3DS as a NFC/RFID UID Scanner. | Jasper Peters | Here | Yes | 2017-01-21 |
| ScreenInfo | Identify whether New 3DS LCD panels are TN or IPS. | SciresM | Here | Yes | 2016-09-04 |
Game Engines[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Löve Potion | LOVE2D for 3DS Homebrew. | TurtleP | Here | Yes | 2018-08-27 |
| ctrµLua | A Lua interpreter for 3DS, brought to life by the remnants of the µLua community. | Firew0lf, Reuh, Negi | Here | Yes | 2016-06-27 |
| EasyRPG Player | RPG Maker 2000/2003 interpreter | Rinnegatamante & EasyRPG Team | Here | Yes | 2019-03-03 |
| LuaPlayer+ 3DS | First Lua interpreter 3DS homebrew, under Lua 5.3.1 | Rinnegatamante | Here | Yes | 2016-09-21 |
| MegaZeux 3DS | A port of the MegaZeux GCS to the 3DS. | MegaZeux developers | Here | Yes | 2018-03-04 |
Games[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2048-3D | A port of the popular game 2048 for the 3DS. | Jasper Peters | Here | Yes | 2016-02-12 |
| 3DSCraft | A Minecraft port for the 3DS. No longer under (active) development? | smea | Build from repo (alt. here) | Yes | 2014-11-20 |
| 3DS Nyan Cat | A port of Nyan Cat for the 3DS, using LIBSF2D. | markwinap | Build from repo (alt. here) | Yes | 2015-05-26 |
| Antibounce | 'Move your player to bounce around and collect coins. Go between screens through the holes in the sides of the floor. 3D can also be enabled.' | TurtleP | Here | Yes | 2015-12-23 |
| Breakout | 'A 3ds Breakout Clone.' | Magicrafter13 | Here | Yes | 2017-10-17 |
| checkers3ds | A checkers game in glorious ASCII. No longer under development. | UnsureSherlock | Build from repo | Yes | 2016-02-25 |
| Cookie Collector | A tiny adaptation of the popular Cookie Clicker game for the 3DS. | Kaisogen | Here | Yes | 2017-06-04 |
| Cookie Clicker 3DS | A simple Cookie Clicker type of game inspired by Kaisogen's Cookie Collector | TheMachinumps | Here | Yes | 2016-08-27 |
| EDuke3D | An unofficial port of EDuke32 for the 3DS. | MasterFeizz | Here | Yes | 2016-05-09 |
| Helii | A port of Helii for the 3DS. | BHSPitMonkey | Here | Yes | 2015-09-18 |
| Insectoid Defense | A Sci-Fi Tower Defense game. | sgowen | Here | Yes | 2015-11-09 |
| NumberFucker3DS | Simple math game, originally used as a debug game for LövePotion. | VideahGams | Here | Yes | 2015-09-19 |
| Zelda ROTH for 3DS | A port of Legend of Zelda: Return of the Hylian, a Zelda fangame, to 3DS. | nop90 | Here | Yes | 2016-09-11 |
| Mastermind 3DS | A port of Mastermind for the 3DS. | Jasper Peters | Here | Yes | 2015-08-15 |
| One Whale Trip | Five-lane underwater whale swimming/pearl pickup adventure game in Python. | thp | Here | Yes | 2016-10-02 |
| OpenSupaplex | An open source 1:1 reimplementation of Supaplex for the 3DS. | sergiou87 | Here | Yes | 2020-06-29 |
| Paddle Puffle 3DS | A port of Paddle Puffle for the 3DS. | Peanut42 | Here | Yes | 2015-07-05 |
| Pituka Classics | Play CPC classics using Pituka Emulator-Core on 3DS. | D_Skywalk | Yes (core) | 2016-02-26 | |
| Portal3DS | An adaptation of Portal for the 3DS. | smea | Build from repo (Precompiled here) | Yes | 2015-08-18 |
| ctrQuake | An unofficial port of Quake for the 3DS, fully playable. | MasterFeizz | Here | Yes | 2016-09-16 |
| Reversi | Reversi for the 3DS. | Jasper Peters | Here | Yes | 2016-03-05 |
| Sokoban | An unofficial port of the puzzle game Sokoban for the 3DS. | Landm | Here | Yes | 2016-03-14 |
| Space Fruit | Hackathon game by 4 friends ported to 3DS. Asteroids but with fruit. | TurtleP | Here | Yes | 2016-04-09 |
| Tappy Plane | A port of Flappy Bird for 3DS, but with a colorful plane. | sgowen | Here | Yes | 2015-11-09 |
| Tetrepetete 3DS | A game with blocks. | thp | Here | No | 2016-06-29 |
| That Rabbit Game 3DS | Inverse duck hunt with accelerometer input and stereoscopic 3D. | thp | Here | No | 2016-07-04 |
| World of 3DSand | A port of World of Sand for the 3DS. | Steveice10 | Here | Yes | 2016-07-12 |
| Yeti3DS | A quick and dirty port of Derek Evans' Yeti3D software rendering engine. | smea | Build from repo | Yes | 2015-08-07 |
| Loonies 8192 | A Mini Retro Puzzle for DOS, the PSP and 3DS (Homebrew) | thp | Here | No | 2019-01-27 |
| DevilutionX | A 3DS Port of Diablo 1. | MrHuu | Here | Yes | 2020-05-08 |
Emulators[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3DNES | A NES emulator, without sound support. No longer under development. | st4rk, gdkChan | Here | Yes | 2015-03-28 |
| atari800-3DS | An Atari 8-bit home computer emulator. | asie | Here | Yes | 2016-10-29 |
| blargSnes | A Super Nintendo (SNES) emulator. A compatibility list can be found here. | StapleButter | Here | Yes | 2015-06-12 |
| CHIP-3DS | A simple and slow CHIP-8 emulator. | xerpi | Build from repo (alt. here) | Yes | 2015-04-02 |
| CHIP8-2DS | CHIP-8 emulator with savestates and touch controls. | nopy4869 | Here | Yes | 2016-07-20 |
| CitrAGB | Yet another GBA emulator for the 3DS. | Shiny Quagsire | Build from repo (alt. here) | Yes | 2015-09-21 |
| GameYob | A Game Boy (Color) emulator. A compatibility list can be found here. | Drenn/Steveice10 | Here | Yes | 2016-07-17 |
| mGBA | A GBA emulator that runs well without kernel hax. | endrift | Here | Yes | 2016-10-13 |
| r3Ddragon | A WIP Virtual Boy emulator for the 3DS based on Reality Boy / Red Dragon. | mrdanielps | Here | Yes | 2016-08-16 |
| RetroArch | A multisystem emulator. (GB, GBA, SNES, Genesis, CPS1, CPS2, etc.) | libretro | Here | Yes | Undergoing rapid development. |
| SNES9x for 3DS | A SNES emulator for the old 3DS / 2DS. Optimised from Snes9x 1.43 and runs many games at full speed. Compatibility list here | bubble2k16 | Here | Yes | 2017-02-11 |
| VirtuaNES for 3DS | A NES emulator for the old 3DS / 2DS. Optimised from VirtuaNES 0.9.7 and runs many games at full speed. | bubble2k16 | Here | Yes | 2017-03-23 |
| TemperPCE for 3DS | A PC-Engine/Turbografx-16 emulator for the old 3DS / 2DS. Optimised from Temper runs all games, including CD-ROM and SGX games at full speed. | bubble2k16 | Here | Yes | 2017-06-19 |
Theme managers[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3DS HomeMenu extdata Tool | Tool for accessing the SD extdata which Home Menu uses. This essentially allows writing custom themes to extdata which get loaded at Home Menu startup. | yellows8 | Here | Yes | 2015-08-17 |
| Custom Home Menu Manager 2 | Theme manager for Nintendo 3DS. Discontinued. | Rinnegatamante | Here | Yes | 2016-07-04 |
| Themely | Theme manager for Nintendo 3DS with 3dsthem.es integration. | ErmanSayin | Here | Not anymore, 1.3.1 last FOSS version | 2017-6-28 |
| Usagi 3DS Theme Editor | A simple 3DS theme editor for PC. You will need to have the .NET Library installed on your PC first before you can use it. | usagirei | Here | Not sure | 2017.05.28 |
| Anemone3DS | New theme and Luma splash screen manager, created to fill the gap left by its predecessors. | User:astronautlevel2 | Here | Yes | 2018-5-13 |
Title managers[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FBI | Open source CIA (un)installer and launcher. | Steveice10 | Here | Yes | 2015-12-02 |
| FBI 2 | Multipurpose file/title/ticket/save manager | Steveice10 | Here | Yes | 2018-8-21 |
Note: downloading non-system applications from CDN is broken in any known homebrew, regardless of whether a signed ticket is installed or not (See also: 11.8.0-41#Server-side_changes)
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Save managers[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| save_manager | Proof of concept save exporter/importer | profi200 | [Here] | Yes | 2015-09-13 |
| svdt | Save Data Explorer/Manager | meladroit | Here | Yes | 2015-10-16 |
| [JK's Save Manager] | Save/Extdata Manager | JK_ | Here] | Yes | 2016-09-29 |
| JK's Save Manager for Rosalina | Modded version of JKSM for use as .3dsx on Luma 8+ | Phalk, JK_ | Here | Yes | 2017-7-12 |
| PKSM | Save editor for Pokémon generations 3 to 7 | Bernardo Giordano | Here | Yes | 2020-6-13 |
| Checkpoint | Fast and simple homebrew save manager for 3DS and Switch written in C++ | Bernardo Giordano | Here | Yes | 2019-12-9 |
| SpecializeMii | Editor for Mii database (specialness) | phijor | Here | Yes | 2017-1-22 |
| SpecializeMii | Editor for Mii database (specialness and ownership) | phijor, Ryccardo | Here | Yes | 2017-8-13 |
File servers[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ftpd (ftBrony) | A FTP server. | mtheall | Here | Yes | 2020-05-30 |
| FTP-3DS | Fork of ftBrony with a Nintendo theme. No longer under development and without repo. | iamevn | N/A | Yes (No source officially available.) | N/A |
| FTP - Graphic ModifierX Edition | Fork of ftpd with aesthetic modifications. | FloatingStar | Here | Yes | 2016-01-27 |
| ftpony | A basic FTP server, useful for testing new homebrew versions without swapping the SD card. No longer under (active) development? | smea | Build from repo | Yes | 2014-11-24 |
Icon Packs[edit]
Icon Packs are SMDH Packs for homebrew apps.
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplok | The first 3DS Icon pack. | link6155 | Here | 2015-09-12 |
| 1LP | Another 3DS Icon pack. Repo is dead, no alternate downloads available. | 100pcrack | N/A | 2015-12-22 |
| Modern UI | A simple icon pack with a flat and minimalist design. | LouchDaishiteru | Here | 2016-02-15 |
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Demos[edit]
| Name | Description | Author | Download | Open-Source | Last Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skate Station | A demo for the 3DS featuring music and 3D effects | SVatG | Here | Yes | July 2019 |
| cubedemo | A short demo of Homebrew on the 3DS, with working sound. | plutoo | Here | No | N/A |
| demo ou mourir | Small demo for the 3DS with music and 2D effects | Desire | Here | No | November 2015 |