Boost Productivity Using PowerToys Day 5 - FancyZones

This is the day 5 of my journey using PowerToys following the post. ⏮️ Day 4: Peek ⏸️ Day 6: Quick Accent ⏭️

📝Description

This is the most interesting application of PowerToys! In a nutshell, it allows you to customize the layouts where you can snap your apps!

As a developer who has a portrait screen, the default Windows layout always gives me a half left and half right. This setup is miserable as each app is skinny and the width is not readable.

I want to divide the layout as half top and half bottom. Boom! The FancyZone saves me.

⌨️Shortcut

Just remember the Shift key is enough!

When you drag your app, hold the Shift key and you’ll see the zones appear.

🖱️Code

Is Compactible?

When you are trying to drop a window to a zone, it will first check if the window is eligible for zoning.

bool FancyZones::ShouldProcessSnapHotkey(DWORD vkCode) noexcept
{
    if (!FancyZonesSettings::settings().overrideSnapHotkeys)
    {
        return false;
    }
 
    auto window = GetForegroundWindow();
    if (!FancyZonesWindowProcessing::IsProcessableManually(window))
    {
        return false;
    }
    //...
}

Remark

It’s no wonder developed by Microsoft… The code is so readable. Each function does only one thing. No nested if block and all of them are early return. 😭😭 The code is just like poem.

Show Zones

This step is to show the zones you configure in the setting.

boost-my-productivity-using-powertoys-day-5-fancyzones-show-zones.webp

The intent is straightforward. Calculating the active zones and render the zone.

void WorkArea::ShowZones(const ZoneIndexSet&, HWND draggedWindow)
{
    SetWorkAreaWindowAsTopmost(/*the current window*/);
    DrawActiveZoneSet();
    Show();
}

The Windows API to actually draw the zone is this one:

WINUSERAPI
BOOL
WINAPI
ShowWindow(
    _In_ HWND hWnd,
    _In_ int nCmdShow);