Favorites is a Flow Launcher plugin to define favorite apps, files, folders, URLs and command lines.
Launcher apps typically find all installed apps. The Favorites plugin is different, it lets users define apps using a conf file. This has the advantage of getting clean results that are not cluttered with items which are never or rarely used.
The Favorites plugin is ideal for people that prefer typing short queries with few characters.
Also supported are:
- Files
- Folders
- URLs
- Command lines
Extract the files in the release and put them at:
%APPDATA%\FlowLauncher\Plugins\Flow.Launcher.Plugin.Favorites
Or use Flow Launcher's built-in Plugin Manager to install the Favorites plugin:
pm install Favorites
Create the definition file at:
%APPDATA%\FlowLauncher\Settings\Favorites.conf
Or create it in the portable settings folder if you use portable mode. You can find this folder by searching for "userdata" in FlowLauncher.
Now fill the definition file with the items you want to add to your Favorites.
Here is an example configuration:
Favorites = %APPDATA%\FlowLauncher\Settings\Favorites.conf
VS Code = %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe
CPP Folder = C:\My Projects\CPP
To Do = %USERPROFILE%\OneDrive\Documents\To Do.txt
Google = https://www.google.de
Last system events = wt -- powershell -nologo -noexit -command get-eventlog system | select -first 500
Wheater (Store/UWP/MSIX) = %USERPROFILE%\OneDrive\Shortcuts\Weather.lnk
Press the Ctrl key to open the folder of the file, rather than the file itself.
Press Ctrl+Shift to launch a file as admin.
There is a context menu to copy an entry to the clipboard or to run it as admin.
To edit the Favorites.conf file, use a text editor, for instance Sublime Text. Use Flow Launcher to open the file as shown in the example below. The Favorites plugin detects changes of the Favorites.conf file automatically and reloads the file automatically.
For Microsoft Store (UWP/MSIX) apps, navigate File Explorer to
Shell:AppsFolder. In there you can search for apps and create
shortcuts (.lnk files) using the context menu. These shortcuts can then
be used to start the app.
Underscores have a special meaning: they enable single character input matching. The character after the underscore is matched.
Environment variables are expanded.
https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/shell-commands-to-access-the-special-folders
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/77458-rundll32-commands-list-windows-10-a.html
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/06/10/windows-msc-files-overview
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/launch-resume/launch-settings-app
