Toggle between node versions with nvm

You're in a project where your node version doesn't meet the dependency requirement. F your life, right? In the past I would have to uninstall node, and reinstall whatever node version I needed. Unfortunately my 9-5 has too many projects with conflicting version requirements that uninstalling and reinstalling just wan't a good use of time.

Nvm is a node version manager. You can instantly change your node version from the command line. 💪🏽 If you don't need your hand held, here are the docs.

Prerequisites

Lets make sure you're set up for success

1. Mac user (sorry pc's 🥲 )
2. You have ☕️ homebrew installed 

   If you're unsure if you have homebrew, run brew -v. If the command is not found, you probably don't have it installed.

brew uninstall --ignore-dependencies node 
brew uninstall --force node

🟡 If you get the following error

Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/node

Keep going.

Install nvm

Update brew and install nvm

brew update
brew install nvm

Create nvm directory

mkdir ~/.nvm

Create a new hidden file called bash_profile

touch ~/.bash_profile

Vim Basics

If you know how to exit a vim window, move on to the next section.

Create and open a practice file

If you have VSCode, code will open your file using VSCode. If you don't have VSCode installed code will not work ✏️

touch practice.html
code practice.html

Add and save some text to the file.

Go back to your terminal

vim practice.html

Vim has opened your file in a readonly status. To edit the file, hit i to change into insert mode. Make your edits. To leave insert mode back to readonly hit esc. To exit vim, hit :wq {enter}

• insert: i
• exit insert/save: esc
• exit vim: :wq {enter}

✨ more commands (ty vim girl)

Nvm

Setup

Open vim

vim ~/.bash_profile

Copy and paste the following text in the file. Save and close.

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

Activating

If you try to run nvm --version you will get an error that the command is not found. That's because nvm hasn't been activated.

Activate nvm

source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

Check that nvm was activated by running nvm --version again. 💡 Next, we're going to create an alias for that command .

Creating an alias

In terminal

vim ~/.bash_profile

Copy and paste the following text and save it to .bash_profile

alias start_nvm="source ~/.bash_profile"

You can use a different variable name if you don't like start_nvm

Restart terminal

🔺🔺🔺 If you are using iterm2, keep reading 🔺🔺🔺

If you use iterm2 as your default terminal then you need to update .zschrc.

vim ~/.zshrc

Copy and paste the following text and save it to .bash_profile

alias start_nvm="source ~/.bash_profile"

Restart terminal

Installing node

To view a list of all the available node versions run nvm ls-remote. It's a long list, be patient 🧘🏽‍♀️.

Installing node versions

nvm install 14

nvm install 14

nvm install 15

To view the list of versions you have installed, run nvm ls

Sets node version 18 as default

nvm alias default 18
node -v

Swaps for a different version

nvm use ${nodeV}
node -v