What is your favourite less well known app/software?
Been awhile since I saw a thread like this and they're always good for at least one or two things I've never heard of before. Bonus points if the software is open source and cross platform. Extra bonus points if you link to where we can see it/get it.
My contribution: Destiny which is an anonymous, P2P, E2EE file sharing app - its basically a GUI for a Magic Wormhole implementation. Works on Linux (tarball or appimage), Win, Mac, Android (inc f-droid) and iOS. Only downside is it's not been updated for 2 years.
The "toys" that I use a lot are: PowerToys Awake: to keep my laptop awake even if I'm away from keyboard for a while.
Fancy Zones: to create my own layout of windows, especially on the ultra-wide monitor I have at work, it's easy to have 3 smaller windows next to each other according to my layout.
Mouse Utilities, I often can't find my mouse cursor, just pressing a hotkey will literally spotlight the cursor.
Quick Accent, especially for multi-lingual people this is really handy, though it takes a bit to get used to its working.
I use fancy zones, and also the one that finds your mouse cursor as I'm always losing it, and the always on top mode for when I don't want a teams call to vanish while I do something else
FancyZones is literally the only thing I'm missing from Windows after switching to Linux. I've looked around stack and reddit but have only found posts asking for that functionality, haven't found a solution. Is there a DE/window manager/etc that has similar functionality?
Isn't Fancy Zones just window tiling? KDE has a tiling built in (hit meta+t to set up and then hold shift while dragging a window) and there are a hundred way more nerdy tiling window managers.
The last version on the website is from 2017. I wonder what's going on? The repo seems to be alive.
I used it for years but switched recently to ShareX since Greenshot GUI can't really handle high screen resolution
Edit: Just checked the Blog. They didn't had time in the last years but it seems to pick up speed again now. A new version is coming.
Yeah, it's been solid/stable but no new developments until 1.3 is coming. You can download the pre-release version if you want to try it again, because that version has zoom options. I imagine that's what you missed, unless you meant something else with older versions not handling high res well
OmniDiskSweeper. Forget apps that help manage disk space with some ugly graph that's difficult to understand. This just lists files and directories with the heaviest / most space used from top to bottom in a file tree. Essential. Here's what it looks like:
It's an android app that uses your display to make a "glow" to light a room rather than using the camera flash like a torch.
It's in F-Droid.
Obviously the camera flash is more powerful if you're outside or whatever, but using the display this way is way better inside. That tiny little dazzling pin-prick of light is just... unpleasant.
With candle you can also set whatever color you like. Red is nice to avoid waking people or ruining night vision.
I discovered this app when we had twins and waking up to nurse them overnight. Gonna sound weird if you've not been through this but basically they won't really wake up they make a gentle sooky noise, and you put a bottle or boob in their mouth and they suckle while they sleep. If you turn a light on they're gonna wake up which is sub-optimal.
I fell down the everyday carry flashlight pipeline / rabbit hole instead. Not recommended if you don't want to ruin your perception of what's a great tint of light to you.
I love pipe pipe, especially the live comments view that emulates nico nico douga style. It's annoying for most since the comments obscure the video going past it, but it's a bit of a nerdy fun to me.
Qalculate is a fancy calculator available for Linux, MacOS and Windows. I use it for calculations that involve unit conversions, but it can do much more.
They have improved. You can do unit conversions, great binary/hex/oct calculation/visualization, do graphing, calculate dates. It honestly is very good.
Best of all, you can also install it using winget. Yes, package management through the cmd in Windows. Well, as long as you’re the admin of that computer. Don’t expect this to work with all corporate laptops.
https://logseq.com/ a personal knowledge base with markdown and has a whiteboard feature. I live in this program now. From daily little notes and reminders to full on script writing. It's a little clunky but it works with my brain. Other similar programs are notion, obsidian and anytype.
I can second logseq but it has a bit of a steep learning curve. Not impossible but you have to learn how logseq wants you to use their software and then it becomes powerful.
What's your take on how they want you to use their software? I throw down bullet points in the journal, tag them with big overarching themes, and link to old journal entries sometimes. Am I missing something important?
URLCheck on Android. Displays a popup on opening links allowing editing the URL before opening (with such features as removing chosen parameters with one button), applying transformations like Shitter→Nitter, http→https, sharing the URL, copying and selecting the application to open the URL in. Oh, and if you decide to open in Firefox or Fennec, you have the option to open in the incognito mode. Can't imagine using Android without it now. Absolute gamechanger
sl is a classic command line program for something harmlessly pointless
calibre for digital library software (cataloging books/docs/articles)
Comic book reader, it's a cbz/CBR comic book archive reader that tries to do the panel/smart auto zoom that used to be a part of comixology until Amazon bought it to kill it as competition to their shitty books app
BeeCount - A app to keep track of patterns while crafting. I like that I can have an overall row count, but make separate counters nested underneath for the same pattern (ex: You're on row x, but row a for a cable repeat).
Olauncher : A simple launcher for android. Less busy.
File converter in the context menu. Handles a lot of common formats, batch converting, nondestructive, and the presets are all customizable.
https://file-converter.io/
DGT GTD is an old Android app for task tracking. It is ugly and incredibly useful. Lives entirely in the phone, no cloud subscription, no paid plans, nothing.
I have used it forever. There is no good alternative.
The current app "Chaos Control" is a close contender, but pricey and cloud connected.