DayuanJiang/PecoFence v0.3.0

PecoFence v0.3.0

on GitHub

PecoFence 0.3.0 lists the matches of the Peek search as you type, with pinyin and optionally Everything for the whole computer, makes Open and Save dialogs jump to the folder you were just in, adds a Tools page with notes and to-dos, a clock and script fences, opens Peek with a double press of Ctrl, and gives Settings a search box, a clearer General page and a Peek and search page.

Highlights

• The Peek search lists its matches, as Listary's search does. Under the search box, the best matches show with their icon, the fence they are in and Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9. ↑ and ↓ (or Ctrl+P and Ctrl+N) move, Enter opens, Ctrl+Enter opens the containing folder, and → at the end of the text (or Ctrl+O) shows Open, Open containing folder, Copy path and the Windows context menu. Chinese names match by pinyin, in full or by initials (hyjl finds 会议记录), and every name matches by a few of its letters in order. What you open ranks higher next time; that history stays on this PC and is left out of exported configurations. When an Open or Save dialog was in front as the Peek began, Enter hands the file or folder to that dialog.
• Search the whole computer with Everything. With Settings → Peek and search → Peek search also finds files on the whole computer (Everything) on, the Peek search list also shows what Everything (voidtools, free) finds, and its last row, See all results in Everything, opens Everything with the same search. The card under the switch says whether Everything runs: Install Everything installs version 1.5, which matches pinyin too, with winget in a console window (Windows asks once for administrator rights), Upgrade to 1.5 does the same for an older version, and Start Everything starts an installed copy that is not running. After installing, Everything 1.5 also starts when you sign in to Windows. If 1.5 is installed but 1.4 is the one running, the card says so, and Switch to 1.5 closes 1.4, stops it from starting at sign-in (Windows asks once for administrator rights) and makes 1.5 start instead.
• Press Ctrl twice for Peek. Settings → Peek and search → Keyboard shortcut is one list: three common combinations, Press Ctrl twice and Custom…, which shows the shortcut box and Include the Win key in the same card. With Press Ctrl twice, two quick presses of Ctrl anywhere open Peek with its search box, and two more close it and give the window you were in its keyboard back. Ctrl pressed with another key, a click or the wheel does not count, and a full-screen game or video keeps its keys. PecoFence only listens to the keyboard and holds no key back. The tray menu shows Press Ctrl twice beside Peek at all fences.
• Open and Save dialogs jump to your folder. With Jump in file dialogs on (Settings → Peek and search → File dialogs), an Open, Save As or Select Folder dialog of any program goes to the folder of the File Explorer window you switch to and back from: it opens in the folder its program chose, and coming back from Explorer makes it jump once, to the folder of Explorer's active tab. Pressing a folder fence while a dialog is in front jumps it there at once, and Ctrl+G in a dialog jumps to the folder of the Explorer window or folder fence you used last (PecoFence takes Ctrl+G only while a dialog is in front). A Save dialog keeps the file name typed in it. PecoFence loads nothing into other programs: it types the path into the dialog's address bar. If Listary runs, the jump on coming back from Explorer is left to Listary's own Quick Switch, so the two do not move the same dialog at once. The switch starts off: a short demo under it shows the three steps, and the first time an Open or Save dialog comes up while File Explorer shows another folder, PecoFence offers once to jump there and turn the feature on.
• Notes, to-dos and a clock on the desktop (feedback #75 and #38, also asked for on linux.do). The new Settings → Tools page adds small tools to the desktop, each in a fence that moves, snaps and rolls up like any other. One switch, on from the start, covers them all. Under it, each tool has its own button (New note, Add), and the tray and fence menus have New note and a New tool submenu. With the switch off, tool fences make no window and run nothing. Notes and to-dos is a fence with a few lines of text: a click opens the editor, and a line that starts with [ ] becomes a to-do with a box that a click ticks. The text is kept in the configuration, so exports, the daily backups and every monitor layout have it, and deleting a note with text asks first. Clock shows the time in large digits with the long date and the weekday, in the format Windows uses for your region. Show seconds in its fence menu adds the seconds, and the desktop has one clock at most.
• Script fences show what a script of yours prints: PowerShell, Python, batch, JavaScript or a program, run every 1 minute to 3 hours, without a window and for at most 10 seconds. Three ready scripts are one button away on the Tools page and in New tool: Weather, GitHub repository activity (the newest open issues and pull requests of a repository) and PC status (CPU, memory and the free space on C: every 2 seconds). How to write one opens a manual lesson on writing your own. Edit script in the fence menu opens the script in Notepad, and Run now runs it at once. PecoFence itself goes on no network for script fences; your script does. An imported configuration with script fences turns the Tools switch off with a notice, so a shared configuration runs no script before you have checked it.
• Clickable rows and scripts that keep running. A script can end a line with parameters in the format of SwiftBar (a menu bar tool for macOS), text | key=value: href= opens a URL, open= a file or folder, run= runs a program without a window, copy= copies text, and action= runs the script again with PECOFENCE_ACTION set and shows the new output; color=, icon= and tooltip= change how a row looks, --- is a separator, and a row that starts with [ ] or [x] is a to-do that a click ticks. Lines without parameters show as before, so existing scripts need no change. A script marked <pecofence.type>streamable</pecofence.type> (or SwiftBar's <swiftbar.type>streamable</swiftbar.type>) keeps running without the 10 second limit, and each line it prints shows at once.
• Mouse back and forward buttons in folder fences (feedback #116). In a fence that shows a folder, the back button goes up one folder, as Backspace does, and the forward button goes back into the folder you just left.
• Find a setting. A search box at the top left of the settings window (Ctrl+F goes there) lists the settings of every page that match what you type, with where they are; Enter or a click opens that page, scrolls to the card and tints it for a moment. It matches like the Peek search: by pinyin and its initials in a Chinese interface, by a few letters in order (hdsb finds Automatically hide scrollbars), and by common other names in every language, such as startup, hotkey or dark mode.
• A clearer General page. Settings → General has one card per choice, under headings that say what the settings do: Language (first), Appearance, Icons, Desktop and startup, Hiding fences, Roll up and expand, Title bar and tabs and Snapping and alignment. Peek has its own page now, Peek and search, right below General. Theme style has a third tile, Custom · theme file, whose list of theme files, Open themes folder and How to write one show in the same card, in place of the separate Custom theme card. Show the Windows desktop for now is one card with its shortcut box, and Icon label color is now Text color, since it also colors the titles and tabs that follow the theme. config.json keeps the same settings.
• Tips for new users, and what is new after the update. The first start shows four short tips above the taskbar, one after another: drag a box to make a fence, double-click the desktop to hide the fences, Peek and its search, and tabs. After the update to 0.3.0, a card shows once what is new, with an Open Settings button that goes to the demo of Jump in file dialogs.
• pecofence-cli creates and edits the tools (fence create --tool note|clock, --script, fence set <fence> noteText|scriptPath|scriptInterval), changes the new settings (tools.*, peek.doubleCtrl) runs a script fence's script at once (fence refresh <fence>), opens a folder inside a fence and goes up and forward in it (fence open-folder, fence up, fence forward), and opens Peek with text in its search box (peek start --search <text>); pecofence-cli skill describes them.

Fixes

• On Windows 10, Peek no longer closes by itself right after it opens when you clicked the desktop just before pressing its shortcut.
• On Windows 10, a double-click on the desktop right after closing a window hides the fences again; before, it sometimes did nothing.
• A shortcut's right-click menu in a fence has Open file location only once: Windows' own entry, which opens the folder of the shortcut's target with the target selected, as on the Windows desktop. Files and folders keep PecoFence's entry.
• How rolled-up fences expand is one list, On hover, On a title click or Only on double-click or the arrow, in place of Expand rolled-up fences on hover and Require a click to expand rolled-up fences: turning on the second stopped expanding on hover while the first still showed on.
• Windows desktop icons is one list of three: Hidden, items in fences, Shown, with the Desktop fence and Shown, without the Desktop fence. The old Hide the Desktop fence while Windows desktop icons are shown worked only while Hide Windows desktop icons was off. Keep Windows desktop icons hidden when PecoFence closes shows only with Hidden, items in fences.
• With Hide the item count and the roll-up arrow in the title bar on, a fence with tabs made narrower by dragging its edge no longer keeps a fade at the right end of its tab strip.
• pecofence-cli fence move right after fence roll no longer opens the fence again.

Downloads

• pecofence-v0.3.0-x64-setup.exe: installer, per user, no administrator rights needed.
• pecofence-v0.3.0-x64-portable.zip: portable; extract and run pecofence.exe.
• A .sha256 checksum for each.

Copies installed with the setup can update from Settings → About → Check for updates.

Full changelog: v0.2.5...v0.3.0