yyzTools: 40+ Windows Productivity Tools in One Install — Local-First, Free Forever

Tired of juggling a dozen separate utilities — a launcher, a clipboard manager, a translator, an OCR tool, a file previewer, a screenshot app, a batch renamer...? yyzTools fuses them all into a single, native Windows application with a shared data layer and unified keyboard shortcuts. No plugins. No accounts. No telemetry.

The Problem

If you're a Windows power user, your efficiency toolkit probably looks something like this:

Need	Typical tool
App launching	PowerToys Run / Flow Launcher
File search	Everything
Clipboard history	Ditto / Windows built-in
Translation	DeepL + browser extension
OCR	Online tool / Umi-OCR
File preview	QuickLook
Screenshots	Snipaste
Batch renaming	Separate utility
JSON formatting	Browser tab
Regex testing	regex101.com
Base64 encoding	Browser tab

Each tool has its own shortcut, its own settings panel, its own update channel — and crucially, none of them talk to each other. You can't pipe clipboard history into OCR, or send OCR output directly to translation, or push translation results back to the clipboard. Every cross-tool workflow requires manual copy-paste intermediation.

The Solution

yyzTools (Yes Your Zen Tools) takes a different approach: fuse 40+ productivity tools into a single install, sharing one data layer, one set of keyboard shortcuts, and one visual language.

• Current version: v1.0.3.1300
• Platform: Windows 10 1809+ / 11, 64-bit
• Price: Free forever, no account required
• Languages: 12 (English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian)
• Website: yyztools.com

Architecture: C++ + WebView2

yyzTools uses a hybrid architecture that's worth understanding as a developer:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│     Frontend (Alpine.js + vanilla JS)   │
│   cmdplate / ocr / translate / ...      │
│   Unified via web/lib/zen_api.js        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│      WebView2 Bridge Layer              │
│   BindSync → synchronous return          │
│   BindAsync → async callback (OCR only)  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│         C++ NativeApi Layer              │
│  FileManager / ProcessManager /          │
│  ClipboardManager / OcrManager /        │
│  DownloadManager / CmdManager ...        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│            Win32 System API              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key design decisions:

• WebView2 over Electron: Uses the Windows-built-in Edge engine, no bundled Chromium, lower memory footprint
• Alpine.js (3KB) over React/Vue: No virtual DOM overhead, no heavy build chain
• Vite multi-entry: Each feature page is an independent bundle
• Frontend updates without recompiling C++: UI changes ship as frontend dist, no .exe rebuild needed

The JS ↔ C++ bridge is straightforward:

// Frontend calls go through ZenAPI wrapper, never raw window.Zen
class ZenAPI {
    static isOk(res) {
        return String(res.error) === '0';  // Normalizes both number 0 and string "0"
    }
    static async getConfig() {
        return await window.Zen.getConfig();
    }
}

// C++ registration in NativeApi::SetupBindings()
m_bindManager->BindSync("getConfig", [this]() { return this->GetConfig(); });
m_bindManager->BindAsync("ocrRecognition",
    std::bind(&NativeApi::OcrRecognition, this, _1, _2));

All methods return a JSON object { error, errorMsg, ... }. error === 0 means success.

Core Features

Command Palette — One Search Box for Everything

Alt + Space brings up the unified entry point. Prefix-based domain switching:

Prefix	Searches	Replaces
(none)	Apps, system commands, settings, command modules	PowerToys Run
f	All files (Everything SDK)	Everything
p	Running processes	Task Manager
w	Windows	—
b	Browser bookmarks	—
c	Clipboard history	Ditto
>	Command line	Terminal

Also includes instant math: type 128*0.85 or sqrt(144)+3^2 and the result appears in real-time, press Enter to copy.

Supports pinyin search for Chinese app names — typing weixin or wx finds WeChat.

Clipboard History + Cross-Feature Pipeline

Text and image clipboard history with:

• Pin images to desktop as floating windows (great for reference screenshots)
• Pipeline: select a text entry → send to translation; select an image → send to OCR

This is the "fusion" advantage — no manual copy-paste between tools.

Local OCR (RapidOCR)

Screenshot-to-text using the local RapidOCR engine:

• Fully offline — no cloud API, no upload, no latency
• Chinese-English mixed recognition
• Pipeline: Screenshot OCR → one-click translate → one-click copy to clipboard

File Preview

Spacebar to preview without launching any app:

• Word / Excel / PowerPoint / PDF
• Images / Videos / Audio
• Code files (syntax highlighted)
• Archive files (browse directory tree)
• DXF drawings

Developer Tools

Built-in utilities that replace browser tabs:

Tool	What it does
Regex tester	Real-time match highlighting, group viewer
Encode/Decode	Base64 / URL / HTML / Unicode / Hex / Morse
Hash calculator	MD5 / SHA-1 / SHA-256 / SHA-512 for text and files
Crypto	OpenSSL-based symmetric/asymmetric encryption, key generation
Data conversion	JSON ↔ YAML ↔ XML ↔ TOML ↔ CSV, hex/case/width conversion
Data generation	UUID v4, ULID, random strings, batch test data

Batch Processing — Three Heavy-Duty Engines

Engine	Powers	Capabilities
ImageMagick	Image batch	Resize, crop, format convert, watermark, compress
FFmpeg	Video batch	Transcode, trim, extract frames, compress, extract audio
pdfcpu + Ghostscript	PDF batch	Merge, split, watermark, compress, encrypt/decrypt

Plus a batch rename tool with preview: sequential numbering, find-replace, regex, case, EXIF date.

Screenshots + Recording

• Region screenshot: Select area, copy or save
• Scrolling screenshot: Scroll to capture long pages/documents
• Pin to screen: Pin screenshots as desktop sticky notes
• Screen recording: Record screen + audio, optional webcam overlay, auto zoom-follow on mouse, keystroke display, one-click export

Command Module System (.zenmod)

379 built-in command modules across 5 categories:

Category	Count	Examples
System	257	All Windows Control Panel functions
AI Tools	55	ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, Claude, Qwen, etc.
Apps	47	Volume control, shutdown, screenshot, etc.
Internal	21	Translation, OCR, download, calculator, etc.
Web	2	OneNote, Microsoft To-Do

Extending is trivial — drop a JSON file into the Modules/ directory:

{
    "id": "my-tool",
    "type": "app",
    "name": { "en": "My Tool", "zh_cn": "我的工具" },
    "desc": { "en": "Quick launch", "zh_cn": "快速启动" },
    "cmdPath": "yyzBrowser.exe",
    "cmdArgs": "--url=https://example.com --size=800x600"
}

No compilation, no restart. The command appears in the palette immediately.

Dynamic Wallpaper + Desktop Effects

Windows Composition API places web pages and videos below the desktop icon layer — no icon obstruction, no click interference. Game mode pauses all effects to free resources.

Design Philosophy

Local-First

All data processed locally:

• Clipboard history → local storage
• OCR → local RapidOCR model, no cloud API
• File search → local Everything index
• App usage stats → local records
• File preview → local parsing

Only translation (calls translation service API) and update checks require network.

Free Forever

• No paywalls, no premium tier, no trial countdown
• No account registration required
• No identity collection, no user profiling, no behavioral telemetry
• No ads

Delta Updates

Each component (main binary, frontend pages, command modules, FFmpeg, OCR models) is packaged independently. Updates download only the changed sub-packages — a frontend-only update might be a few hundred KB, not a full 1GB reinstall.

Comparison

	yyzTools	PowerToys	uTools	Flow Launcher
Architecture	C++ + WebView2	C# + WPF	Electron	C# + WPF
Feature source	All built-in	All built-in	Plugin market	Plugin market
Translation	Built-in	None	Plugin	Plugin
OCR	Built-in (offline)	None	Plugin	Plugin
Batch processing	ImageMagick/FFmpeg/pdfcpu	None	Plugin	None
File preview	Office/PDF/code/archive	SVG/PDF/MD	Plugin	None
Data pipeline	Clipboard→OCR→Translate→Copy	None	No shared data layer	None
Extension method	JSON file (zero compile)	C# plugin	Plugin market	C# plugin
Price	Free	Free	Paid tier	Free

The key difference isn't feature count — it's integration. yyzTools features share one data layer and can pipe into each other. The others are either loose collections of independent tools (PowerToys) or plugin platforms where plugins don't share state (uTools).

Getting Started

• Download: yyztools.com
• Requirements: Windows 10 1809+ / 11, 64-bit
• Cost: Free, no registration
• Languages: 12 (English, Chinese Simplified/Traditional, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, Italian)

Quick start:

1. Download and install from yyztools.com
2. Press Alt + Space to open the command palette
3. Type a feature name or app name to search
4. To add custom commands, drop a .zenmod JSON file into the Modules/ directory

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If you use 3+ of the tools yyzTools covers (clipboard manager, translator, OCR, file previewer, batch renamer, screenshot tool, regex tester, etc.), it's worth trying as a single replacement rather than maintaining a fragmented toolkit.

Website: yyztools.com · Free forever · Local-first · 12 languages