The reason why I fell in love with Microsoft PowerToys
Tags: productivity, tools
Published: 2019-11-21 09:11:54

A few weeks ago Microsoft revamped an old project called PowerToys.
In a nutshell, PowerToys it's a suite of utilities to empower the user productivity and add some features to existing Windows apps.

As other projects released recently from Microsoft, it's an opensource project hosted on GitHub: https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

## Installation
You have several ways to install the suite.

### Github
You can find the installation package directly on the GitHub releases page: https://github.com/Microsoft/powertoys/releases
Download the .msi file and launch the installation.

### Choco
If you are using Chocolatey to manage your apps installation on Windows, you can run the command below from your command prompt.

**choco install powertoys**

## Utilities

### FancyZones
It's my favorite tool of this suite. It is a window manager that makes more easier to create and manage windows layout.

![](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/raw/master/src/modules/fancyzones/WindowEditor.png)

### Shortcut
If you hold the Windows key for a while, an overlay screens appears with a guide sheet with all Windows shortcut.

![](https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/raw/master/doc/images/shortcut_guide/usage.png)

### PowerRename
This tool helps the users to rename many files in a folder with a single command. Very helpful.

### FancyZones
But let's talk about my favorite tool coming from this suite of tools.
FancyZones is the only tool in this suite that requires some configurations before it can be truly useful.

After the installation, open PowerToys from the taskbar icon or the shortcut on the desktop.
Then, in the main scree, click on the button "Edit zones".

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/krmf3ykuoj1nfu9meyor.PNG)

From that window you can select a pre-configured template or create a new one.
To try it, you can start with an existing template, so, click on "Apply".

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ovexs7z06lljw7z5jmhl.PNG)

Now, if you want to move an app to a fancy zone, you have to hold the shift key while dragging and the magic happens!

If you don't like the pre-configured templates, you can create your owns layouts in 30 seconds.
In the previous screen, select Custom tab and click on "Create new custom".

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/7cc7qhu5movlis5zle4p.PNG)

From this screen now you can use the new editor to create how many zones you want!

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/4ogkaya2yoj985q85nfe.PNG)

For instance, at the moment I have three custom layouts for my daily work.
The most used at the moment is one called "To Do".

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/ymah2d2gvzglidy2yu3y.PNG)

With this layout I can use applications like Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio and other development tools on my left side and Microsoft To Do with my goals and task on the right.

![Alt Text](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/2fyezlhbpz6jvjtpip6x.PNG)

## Conclusion
I hope I have transmitted my love for this tool from the deep of my heart.
Now, share your layouts in the comments!!! :)