Some hitches in the first-run experience

[joliss]

Hi Gal,

Thanks so much for this tool! I've been bothered by nvm slowing down my shell startup for a long time, and fnm is making my life so much easier!

Since you presumably rarely encounter the setup-from-scratch experience, I thought I'd share some minor usability hitches I ran into when I set up fnm. Perhaps these might simply be addressed by printing some helpful messages.

Here's what I did:

• Download the latest binary and place it in $PATH
• Add eval "$(fnm env --multi)"to .bashrc
• node still isn't found (as expected), so I run fnm install
• node still isn't found (surprisingly), so I check /tmp/fnm-shell-1234567 and notice that it is a broken symlink to ~/.fnm/aliases/default
• fnm ls shows I have system and v14.3.0; I'm trying to have the default always be the latest Node version, like nvm's stable alias, and in a hurry I wrongly(?) assume that system serves this purpose, so I try fnm alias system default
• node still isn't found, so I check ~/.fnm/aliases/default; it's a broken symlink to /dev/null/installation/installation
• I run fnm alias v14.3.0 default, and now it works!

[Schniz]

Hi, thanks for this. Really helpful. I wonder whether this would be easier if you have tried the installation script/Homebrew installation process. I also consider suggesting to use the installation script for Mac using Homebrew because the Homebrew formula does not update .bashrc, and the installation script does it well.

I'm trying to have the default always be the latest Node version, like nvm's stable alias, and in a hurry I wrongly(?) assume that system serves this purpose, so I try fnm alias system default

I should release v1.21.0 with the changes, that allow aliasing to an alias: https://github.com/Schniz/fnm/compare/v1.20.0...master

In order to install the latest Node you can run fnm install latest. I'd recommend installing a specific LTS so you know what you're installing. Also, on every project, I add a .nvmrc or .node-version file so my shell will automatically switch versions instead of relying on a default one.

[joliss]

Thanks!

The reason I used the manual instructions instead of the install script is that I'm running Ubuntu and have a carefully maintained .bashrc, and install scripts can sometimes go wrong and put things in the wrong place. So I figured I'd just err on the safe side and follow the manual instructions.

I wonder if it might make sense for fnm to print a message if you haven't installed any Node version, with hint to run fnm install latest.

Also, could it make sense to have an automatic latest alias, and have the default alias point to latest by default? This way people wouldn't have to wire up aliases when they set up fnm.