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Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

hanselman.com

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Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#61

Post by majkinetor »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #53

AutoHotKey finally fell off my list, to be replaced by... powershell. After about 8 years of utter disdain for the mistake that is powershell, I’m actually enjoying giving it a proper test drive. I can’t quite believe it myself but i chsh’d to pwsh on my mac and linux boxes too. Goodbye 30 lines of AHK just to capture and parse the output of a RunWait (in practice it was better to create a WSH com object and exec the…

AHK is not comparable to powershell. They overlap in some segments but generally, what AHK can do, you would have to reimplement in Posh and it would be slow as hell.

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#62

Post by asutekku »

trm42 wrote: post #55

Funny, how big part of the list are Linux-origin projects or WSL. How about really making the switch to Linux instead of trying to make Windows function like Linux?

Then i would need to emulate windows software on linux to do my job. And for me, borrowing features beats emulating software which may or may not work.

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#63

Post by diarrhea »

eknkc wrote: post #57
trm42 wrote: post #55

Funny, how big part of the list are Linux-origin projects or WSL. How about really making the switch to Linux instead of trying to make Windows function like Linux?

I've been using WSL and a lot of unix tools on Windows. I have a simple reason: Windows is a much better desktop environment. I tried to switch from macOS to Linux. I've found workarounds / alternatives to almost all of my issues on Linux. One issue seems to be unfixable though; I have a 4K monitor and pretty much required to use fractional scaling. Windows and macOS does it perfectly. I had good luck with Pop!_OS bu…

This is the exact reason I switched back as well (next to Lightroom). It just works.

But it is extremely sad to ditch an entire OS for lack of what seems a manageable issue, fractional scaling. I wish it wouldn't be necessary.

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#64

Post by 0-_-0 »

eknkc wrote: post #57
trm42 wrote: post #55

Funny, how big part of the list are Linux-origin projects or WSL. How about really making the switch to Linux instead of trying to make Windows function like Linux?

I've been using WSL and a lot of unix tools on Windows. I have a simple reason: Windows is a much better desktop environment. I tried to switch from macOS to Linux. I've found workarounds / alternatives to almost all of my issues on Linux. One issue seems to be unfixable though; I have a 4K monitor and pretty much required to use fractional scaling. Windows and macOS does it perfectly. I had good luck with Pop!_OS bu…

I do 2x scaling on a 4K monitor (on Windows).

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#65

Post by diarrhea »

Ennea wrote: post #41
DrSiemer wrote: post #30

If you often find yourself renaming files I can highly recommend Flash Renamer. It's $20, but it must have saved me thousands of dollars in production time. Btw, does anybody know of a modern disk usage manager that uses bright, clear individual colors like Space Monger?

As a free alternative to Flash Renamer, PowerRename[0] from the latest PowerToys[1] collection might be worth a look. [0] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/powerrena... [1] https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

PowerRename has worked fine for me, can also recommend it.

However, when there's directories and many, many files involved, I just use Python with pathlib. It's a couple lines of code anyone can learn to do, with all the flexibility of Python. PowerShell would maybe also be suitable.

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#66

Post by immigrantsheep »

abdusco wrote: post #2

I'd add Directory Opus[0] to that list. It's an incredibly customizable and scriptable file explorer that allows you to fit it exactly to your workflow. It's like IntelliJ of file explorers. - Tabbed interface with multiple panes - Every function can be assigned a shortcut - Every button can be scripted - Defaults can be overwritten - Dynamic layouts based on folder contents, path or determined by a script - Custom f…

I've been a dopus user since the Amiga days. Love it

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#67

Post by notretarded »

majkinetor wrote: post #61
CraigJPerry wrote: post #53

AutoHotKey finally fell off my list, to be replaced by... powershell. After about 8 years of utter disdain for the mistake that is powershell, I’m actually enjoying giving it a proper test drive. I can’t quite believe it myself but i chsh’d to pwsh on my mac and linux boxes too. Goodbye 30 lines of AHK just to capture and parse the output of a RunWait (in practice it was better to create a WSH com object and exec the…

AHK is not comparable to powershell. They overlap in some segments but generally, what AHK can do, you would have to reimplement in Posh and it would be slow as hell.

Such as?

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#68

Post by Multicomp »

dukeofharen wrote: post #48
kekebo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any upsides to scoop compared to chocolatey?

In short, Scoop installs all your apps in the user home dir. Apps are not installed through an installer, but through a .zip file. A pro is that you do not need to be admin on your PC for Scoop to function (handy for PCs that are not in your control). A con I've encountered is that Windows is not very friendly towards apps that are not installed through an installer. I've installed IrfanView through Scoop, but for so…

^ I've installed IrfanView through Scoop, but for some reason, Windows restores "Photos" as default app for opening pictures a few times a week, this was not the case when I installed IrfanView with an installer.

This may not be Scoops fault. I installed Irfanview with choco and have to reset my default programs setting every so often, presumably since Windows 10 takes user settings as suggestions for the Microsoft PM to ignore every few weeks when the OKRs get thin :).

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#69

Post by turing_complete »

Ayesh wrote: post #10

Compared to Windows Terminal, I started to use Fluent Terminal (also on Microsoft store), and it is amazing! It crashed a few times at first, but it's customizable, has a settings UI, and is just as fast and nicer looking compared to Windows Terminal. X-Mouse button control is another app I absolutely love. It replaced my Logitech Options, and works quite nice, and quietly sits doing just that.

The year is 2020 and people think a terminal that crashes a few times is "amazing".

That is amazing.

Re: Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

#70

Post by CraigJPerry »

majkinetor wrote: post #61
CraigJPerry wrote: post #53

AutoHotKey finally fell off my list, to be replaced by... powershell. After about 8 years of utter disdain for the mistake that is powershell, I’m actually enjoying giving it a proper test drive. I can’t quite believe it myself but i chsh’d to pwsh on my mac and linux boxes too. Goodbye 30 lines of AHK just to capture and parse the output of a RunWait (in practice it was better to create a WSH com object and exec the…

AHK is not comparable to powershell. They overlap in some segments but generally, what AHK can do, you would have to reimplement in Posh and it would be slow as hell.

Aha! A folder full of .ps1’s (that were .ahk’s) begs to differ on this point :-)

Some random examples i use all the time:

* i have a bunch of apps (i think of it like a workspace) that i open for specific tasks - e.g. when playing ham radio i’ll open a tool that lets me duplicate traffic to/from a serial port (com0com) so that multiple apps can share 1 physical port, a tool that lets me control my radio (flrig), a tool that lets me route audio between devices and software without a mess of cables doing it in hardware (voicemeeter banana), a tool that encodes/decodes messages (wsjtx), a tool that shows what grid squares i’m hearing (gridtracker) and a tool for logging (home brew). They all need to be arranged in fairly bespoke ways across a couple of screens to let me work effectively - bind the shortcut to the .ps1 to a keyboard shortcut and i’m done.

The same idea exists for my other workspaces (dev work - there’s different flavours for this one by task, photo editing, researching, presenting, etc. Etc.)

Things like sending “PS1;” CAT control command to my radio (this turns it on) are actually less lines of code in .ps1 than .ahk. My .ps1’s are about 2/3 the size of the .ahk’s in practice.

Before .ahk i was using python2 with the win32 module, .ps1 is comparably expressive to python2 - which surprises me.

Other .ahk’s i use all the time are basically glorifed macros for common actions i perform. Again shorter to express in powershell.

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