Store Zones in a JSon file

[wilhelmmedetz]

Summary of the new feature/enhancement

Editing overlapping zones with the graphical zones editor is difficult (e.g. if zones are hidden by larger zones in the foreground).

Currently configured zones are stored as a binary representation in the Registry.

An alternative would be to edit zones in a JSON text file. This would allow manual editing of zones.

Moving the zones configuration to a JSon text file would also allow to 'fine-tune' zones and copy zone configurations between computers.

[stefansjfw]

In progress...

[enricogior]

Moving to milestone 0.16 since 0.15 is a milestone to improve stability and this change has a high impact that will require extensive testing.

[jbienzms]

Are there any update to this issue? I've noticed that my zones aren't behaving as expected (adding margins when I specified none). I'll search for an existing issue on that, but I would prefer to edit zones without needing to edit registry settings.

Here are some other issues with the current registry implementation:

1. The location isn't documented (registry key is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SuperFancyZones)
2. The Layouts registry folder contains binary keys but it's not documented how these map to Zones or displays.
3. There appear to be multiple registry folders per display, such as SAM0C4D#7&fc5e70&1&UID256_3840_2160_{D36624DD-D62B-4400-90AA-013D7B5BBBA6}
4. Some display folders contain extra settings like ShowSpacing while others do not. IMO these settings should be part of the Zone itself and not the display. At least that's how spacing appears in the Zone editor.

Please consider addressing the issues above as part of the move from registry to .json.

Thanks!

[enricogior]

Hi @jbienzms
the work to migrate to the json format is almost done, next week we will start testing it in a dedicated branch and if everything goes well, we will merge it into master in the upcoming weeks.
The migration will only address some of the current limitations/problems. After the migration will be completed, we will work to address other issues, including the ShowSpacing behavior.

[stefansjfw]

Hi @jbienzms,
2. This will now be clear in json file. Main goal while doing entire migration was to have an easy-to-understand json file.
3. This could be if you have used multiple virtual desktops on same dipslay. Or if the UUID of single 'default' desktop was changed for some reason. If this happens, we should check why and when it is changed. Either way, I'm not sure whether we can do something about it.
4. This ShowSpacing entry preserves editor's Show spacing values.. So when you change ShowSpacing in editor, next time you spawn the editor, you'll have the same value as before

[enricogior]

Fix available in v0.15.1 https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases

[caesay]

For anyone looking for the location of this settings file (I only found it by looking through settings_helpers.cpp) it is located at

%localappdata%\Microsoft\PowerToys\FancyZones

[jatin7gupta]

For anyone looking for the location of this settings file (I only found it by looking through settings_helpers.cpp) it is located at

%localappdata%\Microsoft\PowerToys\FancyZones

How do I change it?
whenever I change it, it changes back to the previous setting. It might be due to the fact that two layouts were overlapping.

Did you manual calculations to make this work?

[wilhelmmedetz]

Editing the file works for me (also have obverlapping zones).
You first have to quit PowertToys, then edit the file, and then restart PowerToys.