microsoft / PowerToys

Windows system utilities to maximize productivity
MIT License
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Feature inspirations from other launchers #17029

Closed lin-ycv closed 1 year ago

lin-ycv commented 2 years ago

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Flow launcher is extremely similar to PowerToys Run, almost like they are forks of each other (since they're both base on wox), both have their own fortes, but I think Run can take some inspiration from Flow, functions like setting search priority and plugin store.

Flow also have slightly cleaner documentations, that can help other devs develop plugin: https://www.flowlauncher.com/docs/#/plugins

Scenario when this would be used?

Maybe PowerToys devs can do something similar, better documentation ,community plugin support and user customization. It'll help PT grow; tho it may make things a bit chaotic, but onces thing are set up properly, it should be manageable.

Supporting information

Flow github: https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher/

TheJoeFin commented 1 year ago

PowerToys Run does have 3rd party plugin support. I'm going to close this issue, if there is something else I missed please clarify and reopen.

Remzi1993 commented 1 year ago

PowerToys Run does have 3rd party plugin support. I'm going to close this issue, if there is something else I missed please clarify and reopen.

I would politely clarify that you missed some information before you made the decision to close this issue. I have explained this in detail in issue #20825 PowerToys launcher is already based on the Wox launcher which is not only severely outdated and might even have possible security issues.

The successor project has improved things a lot and has the same permissive license like PowerToys, namely MIT license. The upgrade might basically mean that the team only need to copy paste code and change some things. And it will even improve the run launcher because search on the web is also included. Microsoft even has an incentive to do this because it can set Bing as a standard.

From a business standpoint this is a no brainer. But I understand that I'm talking to developers and since people can select whatever search engine they use this is also a no brainer from a user friendly perspective.

I hope you reverse your decision and improve the run launcher with this upgrade.

Edit: Forgot to tag you @TheJoeFin

TheJoeFin commented 1 year ago

@Remzi1993, part of why I closed this issue was clarity. It wasn't obvious to me what feature specifically you wanted to be added to PowerToys Run. After reading your comment this morning I still am not sure what you are asking for. The title is very vague "feature inspiration from other launchers".

setting search priority

From what I can tell Run uses the default browser and the default search engine on that browser. Are you asking for a way to customize the browser Run launches outside of the OS default?

plugin store

While this does sound awesome, I think it is beyond the immediate scope of this tool but could be implemented by a 3rd party. You could make a PowerToys Run plugin store manager which could manage and install 3rd party plugins to Run. I agree it would be easier to be built into the product. Also, the manager client-side program would be not a big lift, but managing a web service to host, moderate, and serve plugins is a long-term commitment.

better documentation

I agree 100% with this point. I suggest you make separate issues for each of these points because I think they are valid, but too much for a single issue. Maybe these issues already exist and there could be discussions around them, take a look. 😊

Remzi1993 commented 1 year ago

@TheJoeFin The title of this issue is very vague, but not from my "duplicate" issue. But I understand that it will not be the case at this point.