Have seen what Microsoft has been up to with PowerToys?
You have not?
Then you are clearly missing some awesome functionalities they have been working on and keep releasing it with PowerToys.
You can download it from their GitHub page:
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases/
What is PowerToys?
Microsoft PowerToys is a set of powerful tools for the power user. Bold statement? Not at all.
Here is a set of tools that come with PowerToys:
- Color Picker
- FancyZones (desktop zones you can use to align any open window on your screen)
- File Explorer enhancements
- preview SVG files
- preview Markdown files
- Image Resizer - you can access from the Windows Explorer
- Keyboard Manager (deactivated bz default)
- PowerRename
- PowerToys Run (like Apple's Spotlight but for Windows, deactivated by default) - press Alt + Spacebar
- Shortcut Guide (press and hold the Windows key)
Color Picker
Use the existing shortcut Win + Shift + C and pick any color on your screen. It does work as well when you are watching some tv series on your web browser.
Once you have picked a color you can get the color in different formats (HEX, RGB, HSV, etc.). The color picker will keep the last colors picked on the left hand side until you right click on it to remove it.
Fancy Zones
Is a powerful tool to create window layouts which you can use to arrange your windows on a specific area on your monitor.
You can launch the layout editor from the PowerToys Settings from the Windows Tray Icon
or from with keyboard shortcut of your choice.
Once launched you can either use Templates and choosing a number of columns or you can create your own which I prefer more.
Here you can see just some layouts I've created based on my monitor setup.
PowerRename
This is another powerful tool which you can launch by selecting a couple files, right clicking and then running PowerRename. It is self explanatory and easy to use. You'll see when you use it.
For the power users out there you can use regular expressions as well.
PowerToys Run
And finally my most favorite PowerToys Run. If you'd like to see your beautiful desktop background instead of a bunch of desktop icons.
All my desktop icons are now in a simple folder and I run all installed applications as well as most recently used files from PowerToys Run nowadays.
You have to activate the shortcut first in the PowerToys Settings and then you can just hit Alt + Spacebar to launch PowerToys Run, type the name of the app and select it.
Same thing you can do for files as well but you might have activate and possible optimize the Windows Search by setting preferred locations for Windows Indexing Options, but that is a different story.
Here is an article from How-to Geek on how to setup or even disable the Indexing Options.