Hey, fellow developers!
Today, I give you wincast, a CLI tool I have been building for some days to search up apps, files and folders on windows.
The Problem
You see, I have been a linux user in the past and I still love linux for how customizable it is (yeah I'm talking about that sexy tiling wind0w manager setup with bspwm and polybar and using rofi as the run launcher. Those were fun days). However, there's a bigger problem, which is, gaming. Linux gaming is not as great as windows (it has gotten a lot better, but it's still not there). So, I switched to windows some time back and I have been regretting this choice since.
"But Samy, you can easily dual boot your PC and get both running on the same system" is that people would say, but that's not the point. I like to sometimes game while my code is compiling or some heavy process is running (or when I am bored while working lol), and if I dual boot, I need to turn that off which defeats the point. Anyway, that's enough for a rant.
So after switching to windows, I was left with only the windows search feature which is a piece of shit (just stating facts), unless I got to know about Powertoys Run. I gave it a try, but I always felt something was missing in it (unlike my past experiences with dmenu and rofi). Recently, I came across Flow Launcher, and I have been using it for some time now and yet, I am not satistied enough (also, I just wanted to build a similar tool). Also, I have recently started learning rust and have been loving it (much more than javascript at least). So, I decided to build a tool for doing the same thing, but in rust.
What is Wincast ?
Wincast is a search tool built primarily for windows. This is intended to work similar to apple's spotlight, with similar features. Here's a small demo:
Yeah. As of now, it works in the command line, and yes it's also open source, and I intend to maintain it properly. So if someone is interested, it will be my pleasure if you can contribute (mainly with issues and features). PRs are also accepted xD.
Why should you use it ?
Well, here's the hard truth. As of now, it can only accomplish basic stuff. You can search up apps, open your search query on google, youtube or youtube music (more media app recommendations are appreciated). I am also working on searching media, files and folders and show them in separate tabs. Native youtube search is also something I want to build into this. So, overall, I want this to be the go to place for any developer (personally, I am going to keep this open in a secondary monitor all day lol).
If you're a developer and you resonate with this idea and have some suggestions, please feel free to drop them in the comments.
That's it ?
Well, yes. That's it. I don't want to project this as some state of art work or the best search tool out there, but I want to build this into something similar. Any kind of contribution, advice and support is deeply appreciated.
Here's the github repo if anyone is interested to take a look: wincast
Thank you and I hope you cast your doubts away and use wincast (lol).
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