My Daily Grind: Unveiling the Programs I Swear By!
welcome
Welcome to my workflow, today I will be telling you about the programs I use every day. I can't do without these programs, they make it so I can do what I do every day and not get so mad that I throw a computer at a wall. Heres a quick overview of the programs we will be discussing.
- KeyOp: to map all my keyboard shortcuts.
- NUtils: to keep me from going insane from all my Windows.
- NVDA: to make it possible for me to use a computer.
- Windows Terminal: To manage all those shells.
- starship: To bling up my terminal.
- xplorer2: For efficient and accessible file browsing.
KeyOp
KeyOp is truly one of the best programs I've ever found; it allows you to set keyboard shortcuts for literally anything. It works by allowing you to create categories which can be triggered by keyboard shortcuts. Those categories than contain single letter shortcuts for you to run any command you want. Where it gets really powerful is when you start defining sub categories. You could have a category for apps, than communication, and than press z for zoom, t for teams, d for discord, etc. With in apps yu could also have a category for browsers, and than be able to press b for Brave, t for Thorium, f for Firefox, l for LibreWolf, etc. I Think you can see why KeyOp is one of my favorite programs. Thank you to Damion Garwood for this excellent program.
NUtils
NUtils is my favorite program for managing windows. It allows you to sort your windows into stacks and hide them there until you need them. It achieves this functionality through keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are configurable in its configuration file, but essentially, you have four shortcuts for managing windows: one to hide and unhide a window from a specific slot in a stack, one to move to the next stack, one to move to the previous stack, and one to show all hidden windows in a tree view. NUtils also enables you to easily terminate a frozen program with a shortcut (Windows+F4 by default). Additionally, it allows screen reader users to make a window transparent to protect from unknown people looking over their shoulder. You can also change the title of a window, making sorting through windows with the same name much easier. This program is how I can keep my desktop organized without going crazy.
Non Visual Desktop Access(NVDA)
Nvda is the reason I can use my Windows Machine at all; it is a screen reader for the blind and visually impaired. It is highly extendable, with support for addons and custom dictionaries. Nvda is the highly flexible screen reader that makes my work possible.
Windows Terminal.
Windows Terminal is my terminal emulator of choice for Windows; it has many features, such as multiple tabs, profiles for different shells, and many keyboard shortcuts, which is always a blessing for us screen reader users. Windows Terminal makes my command line work a lot more pleasant.
Starship.
Starship is my shell prompt, for all my shells! It has so many features it would be impossible to cover them all here, but the ones I love the most are the git status, Python and Poetry status, and Starship's general ability to customize how my prompt looks, or in my case sounds. Starship gives me the information I need when working with the command line.
xplorer2:
Xplorer2 is my file manager of choice; it is so much faster than the Windows built-in file explorer, it's mind-boggling. Not only that, it also has a lot more features, such as dual-pane, flat browsing, and, as always, more keyboard shortcuts! It has so much more than that, but it would take days to go through everything it can do. Xplorer2 may be the only paid program on this list, but it definitely deserves its spot for its outstanding feature set.