PowerToys VS sharpkeys

Windows PowerToys GitHub Repo

RunFlow is a cross-platform productivity tool which can launch apps and search files and more, that similar to Wox and PowerToys on Windows, and also similar like Alfred and Raycast on macOS. But we have differences with these tools, and we have our own unique new features. Right now, at the below, we will introduce you what features of RunFlow have been implemented in more details. It's an amazing journey, let's start.

I'm curious - when you were doing research into the mechanics of hinting options, did you stumble onto any relevant discussion around allowing custom pixel geometries to be defined, to enable hinting on modern OLED / WRBG displays? There's a good thread on the topic here[0], with some people referring to it as 'ClearType 2' on the MS side [1]. On the oss side I know FreeType theoretically supports this[2], but I can't quite figure out how relevant the FreeType backend is to this most recent work.

This is great work btw.

[0]: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype/issues/932

[1]: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595

[2]: https://freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-lcd_render...

Thank you all for the informative advices. Here is the summary for those who are in the same situation:

1. Run Windows on Linux by using VM

for the applications you can’t run on Linux

Risks:

* some softwares may attempt to detect VMs and refuse running

* Anything what needs to touch hardware may not work.

2. separate "data" partition on D:

3. back up %APPDATA% and %USERPROFILE%

4. learn chocolatey, scoop or winget

Winget should be good enough

5. Don’t worry about C:\Program Files

6. (Mixed) Use/Don’t use Ansible (or saltstack/salt)

Use:

* Allows you to setup a new machine quickly and consistently when one breaks, get stolen, or lost in an inconvenient time.

* You can get a clean and consistent development environment so that you do not depend on anything accidentally installed on the machine.

* If you define specialised roles, create test playbooks for those individual roles, use these roles to compose more complex playbooks, and offload logic to custom ansible modules that are written in python, you won't wrestle with heavy logic in the template or playbook layer.

* installing software and pulling some configs and scripts down is fine

Don’t use:

* You will spend your days fighting a mix of yaml and Jinja.

* You will end up looking at Python errors because there are no static types.

* errors are cryptic.

7. Use WSL2

You need 32gb of ram, but ram is cheap so choose a good thinkpad

8. Debloat with Recommended Tweaks

Run

irm christitus.com/win | iex

from Administrator Terminal (Powershell)

The link leads to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil/mai...

VirusTotal

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/709834b0e003b6bb546cf16e...

9. Get [PowerToys](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys)

10. Use Devbox for containered environment

https://www.jetpack.io/devbox

11. Dual-Booting Linux and Windows

If you use physically separated drives, you don’t need partitioning.

12. Dedicated Windows machine for class

Yes it sure would be the cleanest solution but I prefer one device for everything

13. keep a git repository with all dot files in it

Many people suggested me to use virtualization, otherwise just let Windows be Windows.

Also, backing up seems to be a good practice.

I’m planning to write a blog about this, if it worked.

Again, thank you all for the helps!

Powertoys Run (https://github.com/microsoft/powertoys) can do this. There are not that many plugins as Alfred but Window Switcher is built-in.

For sharing a mouse/keyboard between Windows PCs, there is Mouse Without Borders. It's included in PowerToys nowadays.

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

- https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

If you’re on Windows, download PowerToys. It’s an app published by Microsoft officially. Then enable Quick Accent in the settings of PowerToys. Now all you have to do is hold down the key you want accented until the switch shows up, then add an accent with your arrow keys.

microsoft/PowerToys: Windows system utilities to maximize productivity (github.com)

I don't like using my mouse while drawing and I couldn't find how to do this anywhere, but luckily when I was about to give up I achieved it! So, for this you'll need a program called SharpKeys. You can download it here: https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys/

Sharpkeys can swap keys, the readme says as much:

> Things that SharpKeys will do:

> ...

> Allow you to swap two keys with each other - e.g. you can swap Left Windows with Left Control and vice versa

I do have a vague recollection of Sharpkeys previously saying that it couldn’t, but that I tried and it worked. Long time since I last used Windows though.

https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys#things-that-sharpkey...

> Total commander isn’t FOSS.

I'm aware of that. There are lots of FOSS equivalents, though. Including, I believe, on Windows. Wikipedia lists 23 of which I think -- haven't checked -- the majority are FOSS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_man...

> Ironically windows 11 can’t do vertical taskbars.

True. Easily fixed with Explorer Patcher, though. Which, ironically, is FOSS.

> And where in windows can you change the system shortcuts?

I don't use it much any more and stopped early this century, so my knowledge here may be out of date.

When I do, I use SharpKeys to put a GUI on editing the relevant registry keys for keyboard remapping.

https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys

In the NT 3.x era, it was the properties of every EXE's PIF file. So I set Crtl+Alt+(initial) to open my most used apps. Ctrl+Alt+D for DOS, E for Excel, W for Word, etc.

This still works with limitations under Win9x through to XP, which is when I jumped off the Windows ship.

But mostly it's about learning the many many built-ins.

Remapping Capslock to Control:

Windows: https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys

Ubuntu Linux (don't know about other Linuxes): /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc

    key  { [ Caps_Lock  ] };

There's a little utility program called Sharpkeys that lets you remap the functions of every key on the keyboard.

Sharpkeys

This application can be used to do that. You'll notice it can't see the menu key either if you try to autodetect it, so you need to set it manually. It's listed as:

https://www.randyrants.com/ or the Microsoft Store

SharpKeys: available in the Microsoft Store. Or you can get it here: https://www.randyrants.com/category/sharpkeys/ or here: https://github.com/randyrants/sharpkeys