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PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

fourth-wall.co.uk

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Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#211

Post by xen2xen1 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #108
Zardoz84 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply try a native Linux install. You will find far better that "our way or the highway" behavior of Windows and OSX .

You get "native" linux on Windows with WSL. It's a linux container, but with nice integrations out of the box re: networking etc. I'm not against running linux alone per se, but to me being able to run both Windows (with better app support, polish), and Linux at the same time is kind of the best of both worlds. Windows feels nicer as a daily driver, and can do all dev work directly in a linux environment

Keep thinking I need to use X from a Fedora box to my windows desktop. OK, now to look into that..

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#212

Post by anilakar »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #162
anilakar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FanzyZones is absolutely essential if you're using large monitors.

I use FancyZones as well but I get annoyed that it doesn't seem to preserve custom layouts between reboots. I have to switch to my layouts manually after every reboot. Have you experienced it too? I am curious about whether it is something on my end or not.

FancyZones seems to forget currently selected layout every time it is updated and every time a new Windows developer preview is installed. Other than that, it should be exactly as you left it.

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#213

Post by moogly »

tbezman wrote: post #185
NelsonMinar wrote: post #164

PowerToys Run is fantastic as an app launcher. Not quite as good as Alfred on MacOS but then nothing is. There's a bunch of similar apps for Windows (I used to use Hain) but none ever worked quite right for me, PowerToys Run does though. FancyZones is awfully nice too for just putting a window somewhere at a reasonable size and location. As other folks have noted SysInternals is another similar rogue Windows product…

Wishlist feature for PowerToys Run The ability to search for an application and bring those windows into focus. This is my primary way of switching between applications (except for the terminal which I have bound to Ctrl+Shift+Space). It's much easier for my brain to just type the first two letters of the app I want to focus then to remember the state of the app switch history.

This is "built into" PowerToys Run. In fact, at the beginning that was all it could do.

It's now been moved into a bundled plugin named after the original app that was morphed into this: WindowWalker. I don't remember what the special character you have to type to target the plugin is because I made my installation of PowerToys Run use that plugin by default without a prefix and I disabled all the other plugins.

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#214

Post by gjvc »

lwkl wrote: post #84
spookthesunset wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And support for high DPI displays, and Bluetooth, and modern Wi-Fi, and probably a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting!

PowerShell, BitLocker, SSH, WinRM, Appx and msix and MDM integration come to mind. I don‘t want to go back to the days where managing Windows meant clicking around in GUIs.

my win32 needs are more modest than yours :-)

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#216

Post by Liquix »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #164

PowerToys Run is fantastic as an app launcher. Not quite as good as Alfred on MacOS but then nothing is. There's a bunch of similar apps for Windows (I used to use Hain) but none ever worked quite right for me, PowerToys Run does though. FancyZones is awfully nice too for just putting a window somewhere at a reasonable size and location. As other folks have noted SysInternals is another similar rogue Windows product…

GNU/Linux users may be interested in rofi [0] or the more spartan dmenu [1]

[0] https://github.com/davatorium/rofi

[1] https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#217

Post by jpeter »

tveyben wrote: post #48

I like powertoys, especially ‘fancy zones’! But Explorer is something I stopped using more than a decade ago when I encountered TotalCommander - that I cannot do without!!! The regex-supporting live-preview batch-filenaming utility alone is awesome. I work so much faster (with the keyboard) than will ever possible in Explorer! I could write for hours about the greatness of TCM, but as that’s a little off topic here I…

PowerToys has a batch rename utility that is integrated into explorer

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#219

Post by vladvasiliu »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #208
t0astbread wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not exactly what you're looking for but i3 could be worth checking out. It's a tiling window manager with a powerful customization/scripting interface and it has a feature to save and restore window layouts. There's also Sway which is similar but based on Wayland though it does not have the save/restore feature. Granted they might not be as easy to set up as installing PowerToys on Windows if you have specif…

Isn't I3 terminals only? Am I just missing something?

No, i3 is a full, graphical, window manager, for graphical applications.

https://i3wm.org/

As GP said, by default, it's automatic, so there are no pre-defined "zones". But it can be scripted to do quite a lot of things.

Re: PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

#220

Post by asimpleusecase »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #164

PowerToys Run is fantastic as an app launcher. Not quite as good as Alfred on MacOS but then nothing is. There's a bunch of similar apps for Windows (I used to use Hain) but none ever worked quite right for me, PowerToys Run does though. FancyZones is awfully nice too for just putting a window somewhere at a reasonable size and location. As other folks have noted SysInternals is another similar rogue Windows product…

Never heard of Alfred before, just looked it up. Will try it out this week.
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