"App Starter" PowerToy (with Virtual Desktop support)

camya commented 4 years ago

tl;dr: "App Starter" PowerToy

Please implement a PowerToy which automatically starts a list of user defined Apps on "User Click" or "Windows 10 Startup" ( ...with the possibility to move the apps automatically to Virtual Desktops including predefined window positions.) See the end of this post for main features and optional ones.

l;prn: (long; please read nevertheless) ;)

People who work professional with Windows 10 often use and rely on many applications nowadays. (Browser, Mail-Clients, Programming IDEs, GitHub Client, various Messengers, Password-Manager, SFTP-Clients, aso.)

After a new start of Windows 10, they have to start them one-by-one by hand. At the moment, there is no convenient and simple way to start all needed apps automatically. (Win32/UWP/BAT) That's time consuming.

Also at the moment, there is no way to move the apps automatically to predefined virtual desktops. Virtual Desktop support is unbelievable handy for people working on Laptops.

Feature request: Build a tool to manage the auto start of predefined scripts + virtual desktop support.

autostart-apps_power-toy

Current workaround (without Virtual Desktop support) - See screenshot.

At the moment you can build a bat-file. (Limitation: No Virtual Desktop support, Hard to get correct ID for UWP apps.)

For simple Win32 Apps, users can easily build a small bat script file containing something like the below. This will start all Apps included in the bat file with one click.

ECHO - Starting... PHPStorm (PHP IDE)
cd "C:\Program Files\JetBrains\PhpStorm 2019.1\bin\"
explorer.exe phpstorm64.exe

Unfortunately this doesn't work with UWP Apps. The bat entry should look like below. Simple, but its not so easy to find the correct PackageFamilyName and Executable ID from the AppxManifest.

ECHO - Starting... OneNote (Note taking)
explorer.exe shell:appsFolder\Microsoft.Office.OneNote_8wekyb3d8bbwe!microsoft.onenoteim

Main features of the "App Starter" PowerToy:

App-selector (Win32/UWP/BAT), which adds an app to the list of apps to start.
How to execute the "App Starter" PowerToy list? "On click" or on "Windows 10 start".
Optional "Start selected App on Virtual Desktop X and Position Y".

Optional/Additional nice-to-have features for a "App Starter" PowerToy:

App-Starter profiles (Working / Gaming / ... )
"Comment field" to add some description for the app / bat / command. (See screenshot)
Allow to add inline command line commands within the app-selector field (...or extra field, if "command" option is selected)
Auto-Startup "countdown" popup on Windows 10 startup: The "App Starter" PowerToy "Working" will be started in 3 seconds. [Start now | Manage | Cancel] ("Manage" opens Power Toys GUI)

kovben2004 commented 2 years ago

With pyautogui you can use the keyboard for shortcuts. Also you can move the mouse and click anywhere. I have spent 10+ hours making a script that just drags the windows to the positions, and it doesn't even work on other computers because of different window loading times.

Here you can see it in action: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ccsn8TSjIHE/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

kal551155 commented 2 years ago

Khaled bahakim

في أحد، 1 مايو، 2022 في 06:46، كتب kovben2004 @.***>:

microsoft / PowerToys