Tool #1: Chocolatey For Package Management

Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows. The goal of Chocolatey, and other package managers, is to allow users to download other software (aka packages) using a command line (aka terminal). Lots of people are used to installing software from (GUI) Graphical User Interface ie. downloading software from a website as an exe and using Window’s install wizards to install the software. Chocolatey and other package manager complete install using commands in a command line interface. In the following instructions we are assuming that as a Windows user you will be using PowerShell as your command line interface. For fullstack development there will be a lot of efficiencies in using command line for installation. If this is unfamiliar to you just remember that practice makes perfect.

Installation

Go to https://chocolatey.org/install and follow the install instructions. They are shown here for completeness, but may vary

Detailed Instructions (That Worked For Us)

Step 1. Open PowerShell from Windows Menu but make sure to right click and “Run As Administrator”

Step 2. Query Execution polity in PowerShell by entering:

Get-ExecutionPolicy 

This will likely come back as Restricted. If it comes back as unrestricted, then skip the next step.

Step 3. (if required). Bypass restrictions, with the command as documented in the chocately instructions

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process

Step 4. Copy the install script from the Chocolatey website https://chocolatey.org/install (as part of install instructions).

At the time of the writing this was the command (for example) but it is better to copy from website.

Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

Step 5. Confirming install by typing

choco

If install was successful this command should return something similar to

Chocolatey v0.10.15
Please run 'choco -?' or 'choco <command> -?' for help menu.

Leave this PowerShell terminal/console up and use it for installing Tool #2 Git and Tool #3 Hugo.

Tool #2: Install Git:

Git is by far the most popular version control software and will be vital for all projects.

Since we have Chocolatey installed (see tool #1) installing Git is easy. Using PowerShell with admin and bypassed restrictions, install Git.

Referencing https://chocolatey.org/packages/git

choco install git

Type “Y” to proceed

Tool #3: Install Hugo:

Hugo is a static website generator, a framework we can use to build websites. There are TONS of website generators out there with different advantages and disadvantages. We some other tutorials using Hugo so we are installing it here.

Since we have Chocolatey installed (see tool #1) installing Hugo is easy. Using PowerShell with admin and bypassed restrictions, install Hugo:

https://gohugo.io/getting-started/installing/

choco install hugo-extended -confirm

Type “Y” to proceed Note, installing Hugo extended. We are covered if this is needed.

Tool #4: Install Text Editor = Visual Studio Code

We will need a robust text editor. There are lots out there Sublime, Atom, Visual Studio Code.

We recommend Visual Studio Code.

It’s free and here: https://code.visualstudio.com/download

Since you may be using Visual Studio Code to write some content, it is worth install an extension for Spell Checking.

Here is how to install an useful extension called “Code Spell Checker”. The video does not show hitting “Install” since it had been previously installed.