Panel - Autohotkey-based GUI for common Windows elements

Joonikko

Shades, eternal shades.
|K3| Member
|K3| Media Team
During the summer I worked at a small IT shop doing basic installations of computers for clients. Since 99% of the computers went to random places, things such as volume licensing or AD weren't an option for easy installation and setup.

Microsoft kept rearranging the Control Panel & Settings application in every update, so it was pretty infuriating to try to do anything and had to keep searching for basic settings, so I decided to create a simple program/GUI in Autohotkey. I call it Panel, the missing GUI for Windows.

Source code and compiled exe's are available in the Github repository

35483587-a3d60e56-044c-11e8-8742-53e540236ee1.png


It's made with Autohotkey and the installation functionality uses the Chocolatey package manager.

Features

- GUI with buttons to quickly access settings, folders etc. (that do not constantly move or rearrange. Hint hint, Microsoft)
- Ninite-style GUI for installing applications via Chocolatey
- To use the installation feature, you need to have Chocolatey installed or install it with clicking the CMD- or PS Install buttons, which will run the command to install Chocolatey.
- KDE-style alt+drag window moving and resizing. Original script by Jonny from Autohotkey script showcase

Hotkeys

- Global
- alt+§ WindowShade
- alt + left/right mouse button Move and resize windows
- ctrl + q Send alt-F4
- ctrl + h minimize window
- Windows Explorer
- F1 up 1 directory
- Panel
- F1 cmd.exe
- F2 Run… -prompt
- F5 reload Panel
- F6 reload Panel as admin
- F7 run WUMT.exe (Windows Update Minitool, needs to be in the same directory as Panel)
- F8 Run portable CCleaner (needs to be in the same directory)
- F9 Windows Update
- F12 Open Folders panel that stays on top of other windows
- alt + q UAC settings
- alt + w Control Panel
- alt + d Task Manager
- alt + F1 Turn display off

Any comments, suggestions or improvement ideas?
 

WaLLy

Lieutenant General
|K3| Executive
Very nice tool! I would use it but I have no need for it right now. Thankfully Winclone program I use on Mac keeps everything the way I had it setup when the image was made.

My suggestion for your app, move the Log Out, Reboot, Shutdown buttons away from other buttons. I have a tendency to be a speedy-clicker and would hate to have the app reboot/shutdown the PC because of it. Other than that, I like it. Good job!
 

Joonikko

Shades, eternal shades.
|K3| Member
|K3| Media Team
Yeah, I heard that suggestion at work too, but logging out & rebooting were one of the most common tasks I did, so I didn't move it. I'll probably add a configuration option, confirmation dialog or just move it to a different tab.
 

WaLLy

Lieutenant General
|K3| Executive
I was just thinking of giving it some spacing between those 3 buttons and the bottom row. No need to move them to another page. Just needs a bit of space, that’s all.
 
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