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I used to be very resistant to having excessive packages installed on my machine. After too many incidences and difficulties with Node.js version controls, I decided to take a step back and try to manage multiple versions of Node.js using the very popular tool nvm

What’s being funny is, I am not alone. For example this man:
A friend’s suggestion to try NVM to easily switch between Node environments popped into my head. I’ll admit I was hesitant that I would fall into a serious rabbit hole and divert too much time away from my task at hand, but it turned out to be really simple so I thought I’d share it with you all.

Resources:

https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/nvm

Enviroment:

macOS Big Sur 11.3.1, Apple Silicon

Installation Steps:

Check if you have node running by node -v

if you see something like v12.16.1 then you have node installed and running.

Check if it is installed via Homebrew

brew list

if you see something like node or node@14 then you have node installed and managed by Homebrew. In an event you are running node from a non-Homebrew source, the usggestion is to keep it intact and install nvm to manage multiple versions of node. Otherwise you should remove node from brew before install nvm.

Remove existing node in brew

In my case I had node@14 installed and I wanted to remove it.

brew uninstall --ignore-dependencies node@14  # if you see an error like no Cellar found then use following one
brew uninstall --force node@14

then cleanup the brew cache

brew cleanup -s node@14

or even clear all brew cache by

brew cleanup -s

and remove any dead symlinks

brew cleanup --prune-prefix

Install nvm

brew update
brew install nvm

Next, create a directory for NVM.

mkdir ~/.nvm

Add the following to your ~/.zshrc file (or ~/.bash_profile if you are using older macOS).

export NVM_DIR=~/.nvm
source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh

Now either quit and reopen your Terminal, or run the following command to reload your shell.

source ~/.zshrc

use source ~/.bash_profile if you are using older macOS.

Verify that nvm is working by running the following command.

echo $NVM_DIR
# /Users/ben/.nvm

and

nvm --version
# v0.39.1

Now you can install Node.js versions.

  • Node version availability: nvm ls-remote
  • Install a specific version: nvm install 14
  • Install latest version: nvm install latest
  • Install the latest LTS version: nvm install --lts
  • List installed versions: nvm ls
  • Switch to a specific version: nvm use 14
  • Set default version: nvm alias default 14

Enjoy using nvm!

Reference:

https://blog.jamesauble.com/install-nvm-on-mac-with-brew-adb921fb92cc

Tips and Tricks:

Q: Tab key does not accept syntax suggestions or Github Copilot suggestions. A: This happens with some markdown plugins including markdown-all-in-one as conflicts with the Tab key.

Solution: is to update your keybindings.json as follwoing instruction (credit to this):

Howto: Ctrl+Shift+p, then find Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON)) by adding the following:

[
  {
    "key": "tab",
    "command": "markdown.extension.onTabKey",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !inlineSuggestionVisible && !editorReadonly && !editorTabMovesFocus && !hasOtherSuggestions && !hasSnippetCompletions && !inSnippetMode && !suggestWidgetVisible && editorLangId == 'markdown'"
  },
  {
    "key": "tab",
    "command": "-markdown.extension.onTabKey",
    "when": "editorTextFocus && !editorReadonly && !editorTabMovesFocus && !hasOtherSuggestions && !hasSnippetCompletions && !inSnippetMode && !suggestWidgetVisible && editorLangId == 'markdown'"
  }
]
node npm nvm