Suggestion: PowerToys Run based on Flow Launcher

[Remzi1993]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

I see that the dev team has based their launcher on the Wox launcher (Fork project source: https://github.com/jjw24/Wox/ Base project source: https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox) which is not only outdated and not actively maintained, but also not modulair and has no plugin support.

PowerToys Run could be better if it used Flow Launcher (https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher) for it's launcher. This launcher supports plugins and also uses the same MIT license. It would benefit us all to use this project instead of the outdated Wox launcher project. It would also bolster Microsoft Bing because users can integrate search with plugins (Google Search and Bing suggestions and whatnot). Users will also be able to run commands in the launcher and search settings in launcher.

See project and it's features: https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher

Scenario when this would be used?

PowerToys Run

Supporting information

No response

EDIT: Wox was already a successor project of two other projects and I also see that Flow Launcher is the successor of these projects. Because Flow Launcher is compatible with Wox plugins and the maintainer has provided a link on the project to go to the Flow Launcher.

[0xCCY]

Plugins are supported but it's not a full implementation of WOX, for e.g. support for library dependency still need some work (see #18437).

I think this have to do with how PowerToys works in generally, it's not a direct implementation of WOX, so there are many things to resolve before full support of plugin is possible.

Plugins are also welcomed in PowerToys Run by the devs as seen here: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/3200#issuecomment-1156956822 But for now they are taking a more cautious approach, plugins are only allowed via a PR merge like the OneNote plugin #18558

Maybe someone who is familiar with the plugin architecture could look into whether it's worth switching to Flow Launcher or come up with a plan to fully support plugin in the current implementation (including how plugins are going to be installed, how to prevent malicious stuff, etc.)

[Fred-Vatin]

Flow seems awesome 😯

[Coldblackice]

Agreed, adapting off Flow instead of Wox would be phenomenal.

[dwmct]

Any updates?

[TrueBeastEmperor]

On this I agree. I did a simple side-by-side comparison of these two. One of the things I wish they would add is the ability to customize the text and color scheme + add time and date to the system. There are other great things, but they need to be more carefully reviewed. Nevertheless, the extra plugins can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

[jamie9090]

I'm actually looking into how these tools compare, and that's how I found this thread.

Question, why does one need PowerToys Run if one uses Flow Launcher?

[Remzi1993]

I'm actually looking into how these tools compare, and that's how I found this thread.

Question, why does one need PowerToys Run if one uses Flow Launcher?

Exactly, but Power toys does more things than only a launcher feature. It has a lot of tools and whatnot.

[IamSmeagol]

I think this would be a great so that many existing plugins could be applied.

[Aaron-Junker]

/dup #17029

[microsoft-github-policy-service[bot]]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!

[vojtanethio]

+1 Would love to see Flow Launcher instead of Wox launcher because of plugins.