PowerToys/doc/devdocs

Dev Documentation

Rules

• Follow the pattern of what you already see in the code.
• Coding style.
• Try to package new ideas/components into libraries that have nicely defined interfaces.
• Package new ideas into classes or refactor existing ideas into a class as you extend.
• Whean adding new classes/methos/changing existing code: add new unit tests or update the existing tests.

Github Workflow

• Follow the PR template, in particular make sure there is open issue for the new PR.
• When the PR is approved, let the owner of the PR merge it.
• Use the Squash and merge option to merge a PR, if you don't want to squash it because there are logically different commits, use Rebase and merge.
• We don't close issues automatically when referenced in a PR, so after the OR is merged:
  • mark the issue(s) fixed by the PR with the resolved label.
  • don't close the issue if it's a bug in the current release since users tend to not search for closed issues, we will close the resolved issues when a new released is published.

Repository Overview

General project organization:

The doc folder

Documentation for the project.

The installer folder

Contains the source code of the PowerToys installer.

The src folder

Contains the source code of the PowerToys runner and of all of the PowerToys modules. This is where the most of the magic happens.

The tools folder

Various tools used by PowerToys. Includes the Visual Studio 2019 project template for new PowerToys.

Implementation details

Runner

The PowerToys Runner contains the project for the PowerToys.exe executable. It's responsible for:

• Loading the individual PowerToys modules.
• Passing registered events to the PowerToys.
• Showing a system tray icon to manage the PowerToys.
• Bridging between the PowerToys modules and the Settings editor.

Interface

Definition of the interface used by the runner to manage the PowerToys. All PowerToys must implement this interface.

Common

The common lib, as the name suggests, contains code shared by multiple PowerToys components and modules, e.g. json parsing and IPC primitives.

Settings

WebView project for editing the PowerToys settings.

The html portion of the project that is shown in the WebView is contained in settings-html. Instructions on how build a new version and update this project are in the Web project for the Settings UI.

While developing, it's possible to connect the WebView to the development server running in localhost by setting the _DEBUG_WITH_LOCALHOST flag to 1 and following the instructions near it in ./main.cpp.

Settings-web

This project generates the web UI shown in the PowerToys Settings. It's a ReactJS project created using UI Fabric.

Current modules

FancyZones

The FancyZones PowerToy that allows users to create custom zones on the screen, to which the windows will snap when moved.

PowerRename

PowerRename is a Windows Shell Context Menu Extension for advanced bulk renaming using simple search and replace or more powerful regular expression matching.

Shortcut Guide

The Windows Shortcut Guide, displayed when the WinKey is held for some time.

obsolete example_powertoy

An example PowerToy, that demonstrates how to create new ones. Please note, that this is going to become a Visual Studio project template soon.

This PowerToy serves as a sample to show how to implement the PowerToys interface when creating a PowerToy. It also showcases the currently implemented settings.

Options

This module has a setting to serve as an example for each of the currently implemented settings property:

• BoolToggle property
• IntSpinner property
• String property
• ColorPicker property
• CustomAction property