[Run][Plugin Manager] Support Community / non-core plugins

[dewinterjack]

Is the plugin environment the same as with Wox? The Wox.Plugin package seems to still be present. Can existing wox plugins be used? I can't drag any files into the launcher like I could with wox.

Do you have any guides or tips for creating a plugin otherwise?

[crutkas]

right now we haven't tested that path. is there a plugin you want enabled? would be good to know what some of everyone's favorites are so we can validate.

[dewinterjack]

I’m experimenting with developing my own extensions. I managed to get it working with Wox and it seems that PowerToys Run is using a very similar system. I tried compiling my extension and mimicking the other extensions by placing the folder with the other plugins C:\Program Files\PowerToys\modules\launcher\Plugins however the launcher isn't starting up.
I'm seeing this in the logs:
2020-05-19 20:44:03.4743|ERROR|PluginConfig.GetPluginMetadata|Didn't find config file <C:\Program Files\PowerToys\modules\launcher\Plugins\Wox.Plugin.TimeChecker\plugin.json>

[dewinterjack]

I could try to contribute some plugin installation support if this hasn’t been looked into yet.

[crutkas]

right now it is disabled so we can stabilize the core. Else debugging could get progressively hard if we can't account for the base with people

[addrum]

right now we haven't tested that path. is there a plugin you want enabled? would be good to know what some of everyone's favorites are so we can validate.

everything search would be the must have for me including configuring indexed locations etc (even if this is done through everything itself like the wox integration)

[ABS96]

Some of us would appreciate an instant translation plugin, like Gtranslate.

[ghost]

I personally would appreciate default browser's bookmark search. From what I remember when I was using Wox, their various bookmark search plugins were not efficient. Chromium's own omnibox is an excellent tool for bookmark searching.

[calania]

I would personally really like the ability to convert between units, for example, to convert from imperial to metric.

[drew-royster]

Lorem Ipsum Generator would be awesome

[Dhruva-Storz]

Would also be great to convert currencies

[eiis1000]

Am also hoping to see plugins soon! This would allow developers to focus more on core features and leave stuff like integrated search #3245 and translate to the plugin creators.

[gtheys]

right now it is disabled so we can stabilize the core. Else debugging could get progressively hard if we can't account for the base with people

So this means we can enable it and compile it ourselves?

[crutkas]

In theory, if the plugins go against the plugin interface, it should work. I know we may have tweaked the interface however from the wox

[Drabenstein]

I would also appreciate plugins support as I find Powertoys Run fast and well-designed but I've moved temporarily to Listary due to their extensibility, e.g. you can setup shortcut and url with placeholder {query} which is replaced so we can fast query nearly all pages like google, bing, filmweb, imdb, etc.

[dlgombert]

Devdocs or Zeal or something similar would be great.
Maybe custom web search providers

[enricogior]

Adding a reference to #5273

[gmmedia]

I would love to see Steam, Clipboard History, Youtube Query and an integration for the markdown note-taking tool Obsidian.

[CWempe]

I would like to use Kitty.
https://github.com/Wox-launcher/Wox.Plugin.Kitty

[Animeshz]

+1 I'd like to have a google/bing search plugin sort of g searchquery or b searchquery :)

[bwt615]

@crutkas Can we see the data on how this is not the most requested feature?

Product management best practices are transparency to roadmap and being "user" driven. I see none of these in PowerToys. I work very closely with your Cloud side of the house through my dayjob and started giving them a lot of my feedback about this - they say it is not at all the culture MSFT is trying to create.

[bwt615]

@crutkas Can we see the data on how this is not the most requested feature?

Product management best practices are transparency to roadmap and being "user" driven. I see none of these in PowerToys. I work very closely with your Cloud side of the house through my dayjob and started giving them a lot of my feedback about this - they say it is not at all the culture MSFT is trying to create.

I am in the process of starting my own MSP and leaving my day job. We are honestly considering going all mac due to the lack of a good launcher on Windows. This lack of support is definitely going to have some impact on Windows sales. I'm being very verbal about this on social media - think you should really reflect on this a bit.

[kariudo]

@crutkas Can we see the data on how this is not the most requested feature?
Product management best practices are transparency to roadmap and being "user" driven. I see none of these in PowerToys. I work very closely with your Cloud side of the house through my dayjob and started giving them a lot of my feedback about this - they say it is not at all the culture MSFT is trying to create.

I am in the process of starting my own MSP and leaving my day job. We are honestly considering going all mac due to the lack of a good launcher on Windows. This lack of support is definitely going to have some impact on Windows sales. I'm being very verbal about this on social media - think you should really reflect on this a bit.

While all of us subscribed (34 users at the moment, and 54 reaction emojis) would like to see this feature, your level of self-entitlement is beyond measure. Not only do the tiniest of fractions of Windows user base even know PowerToys exists, even fewer of those people in subset use the Run plugin. Even fewer of whom need more behaviors than are already included by the existing plugins. Nearly all windows users are content to launch with the start menu, so I think they are not too worried about this bug impacting their sales figures nor should they be.

Repeated comments on issues like this such as your two back-to-back ones above are counter-productive and only serve to spam those of us subscribing to the issue and bring nothing of value to the conversation. If you wish to add a "me too" or "+1" to a GitHub issue just subscribe and/or add a 👍 to the issue.

If the feature is so critical to you, you are welcome to implement it and submit a PR to the repository.

Feel free to perhaps look at Wox, the project this one is forked from which this feature is requested to follow from.

[janeoa]

How to add plugins to the PowerToys Run?

How can I have currency conversion from the calc.exe in the Run app?

[davidegiacometti]

Hi!
I leave here two plugins that I have created. They have very basic functionality but can be useful in someone's daily workflow.

• Search Microsoft Edge favorites: https://github.com/davidegiacometti/PowerToys-Run-EdgeFavorite
• Search GitKraken repositories: https://github.com/davidegiacometti/PowerToys-Run-GitKraken

[phone8588]

I am not a coder so seeking community help than building. Is it possible to add a custom unit conversion feature to the PowerToys Run Unit Converter plugin? Have used keypirinha-cvt plugin for many years and there is no equivalent low-code option in PowerToys to do the same. Couple links on topic from history of Cvt plugin development -

1. Custom conversions beyond in tool - https://github.com/DrorHarari/keypirinha-cvt#customizing-conversions
2. Basics of custom units - https://github.com/DrorHarari/keypirinha-cvt#adding-new-conversions-measures
3. Discussion on custom calculations with examples - 2.0 does not allow reloading of custom conversions DrorHarari/keypirinha-cvt#4

Perhaps can seek help from @DrorHarari

[Gurrrra]

I tried making a feature request, but apparently there is no plans for getting this into Run by default, so I copy/paste it into here to see if anyone would like to make it into a plugin :)
Being able to search on different sites would be a very welcome feature. Not sure if Chrome have this, but Vivaldi at least have this feature where you can set it up so if I in the address field write "yt Rickroll" (without the "") you'd search for Rickroll on Youtube, "map Paris" you'd search for Paris on google maps or "wiki super mario" you'd search for super mario on Wikipedia.
This would just be a list where you can add you're own site URL for searching with a suggestion URL and whatever abbreviation you'd want with it.
Below is a screenshot on how I've set it up in Vivaldi.

[Gurrrra]

After some scrolling through this thread I see that I'm not alone in asking for this particular functionality so getting this would make more than one person happy :)
I did some searching did find a plugin that you can search on IMDb (with suggestions) directly from Run which is awesome. Then I started to think if it would be possible to use the code from that plugin to do the same for other places as well, and maybe even expose the search URL and suggest URL directly in the plugin settings. This way it would be an easy deal to at least duplicate that plugin with different settings for each site I want to be able to search on, or maybe for a way more elegant solution just give the possibility to add more than one site with a shortcut for each directly in the plugin, just like this Vivaldi list above :)

I did have a quick peak myself in the IMDb plugin source code, but me having only dabble every so slightly in python or even programming was quite lost. So hoping someone else with a bit more skills could help out? :)

[Advaith3600]

I and many community members could not do currency conversion in Powertoys Run. I have been through other discussions which discuss this in more detail. I took the liberty to create a custom plugin that does this. It is available here: https://github.com/Advaith3600/powertoys-run-currency-converter

[hlaueriksson]

Do you have any guides or tips for creating a plugin otherwise?

I took the time to write a blog post on the subject:

• https://conductofcode.io/post/creating-custom-powertoys-run-plugins/

Creating custom PowerToys Run plugins
A step by step guide on how to create community plugins for PowerToys Run

[hlaueriksson]

I would also appreciate plugins support as I find Powertoys Run fast and well-designed but I've moved temporarily to Listary due to their extensibility, e.g. you can setup shortcut and url with placeholder {query} which is replaced so we can fast query nearly all pages like google, bing, filmweb, imdb, etc.

@Drabenstein

Being able to search on different sites would be a very welcome feature. Not sure if Chrome have this, but Vivaldi at least have this feature where you can set it up so if I in the address field write "yt Rickroll" (without the "") you'd search for Rickroll on Youtube, "map Paris" you'd search for Paris on google maps or "wiki super mario" you'd search for super mario on Wikipedia.
This would just be a list where you can add you're own site URL for searching with a suggestion URL and whatever abbreviation you'd want with it.

@Gurrrra

I created a plugin that lets you search sites with DuckDuckGo !Bangs

• https://github.com/hlaueriksson/Community.PowerToys.Run.Plugins#bang

I think it's something along the lines of what you described in your comments above.

[Daydreamer-riri]

Hey guys, I implemented "select a site to search" in my plugin. I think a lot of people need this feature.