Feature: index windows settings

[giggio]

Describe the solution you'd like

There should be a way to index Windows settings. For example, if I click on the Windows button and type vpn, Windows shows me vpn settings:

This does not work with Flow Launcher.

This is similar from Wox-launcher/Wox#2223, but using > ms-settings:network-vpn on Flow Launcher also does not work, and it is not searchable.
You get The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect..

Describe alternatives you've considered

Using Windows regular search. That is not an acceptable, otherwise I wouldn't even use Flow Launcher.

Additional context

Brought over from: jjw24/Wox#189

[jjw24]

@giggio does > ms-settings:network-vpn work with Wox's latest pre-release version?

[giggio]

@jjw24 I just tried, and yes, it now works if I use RunCommand in the Shell plugin (which is what I normally use). It does not work with CMD or PowerShell.
But it is still not indexable. If I do Alt+Space and write VPN, it does not find the command, but other vpn programs and files. And If I do Alt+Space and write > VPN it then finds it.
So, indexing the system settings is still desirable. Maybe it should be a plugin, like the "System Commands" plugin, or similar, that understands Windows Settings.

[pc223]

Probaly related 🤔

• Cannot find some control panel functions #255
• More Control Settings / Windows 10 Settings Wox-launcher/Wox#2875

[taooceros]

Seems that PT-Run is drafting this feature. Will take a look on that later.
microsoft/PowerToys#9137

[pc223]

PowerToys just merged 👀

microsoft/PowerToys#11663

[taooceros]

I believe there will be (or already is) quite significant amount of things that are included in 1.8.0, and it has been a while before our last release. Probably we may need to handle this after the release of 1.8.0, or unless another guy is trying to handle this.

[taooceros]

I have partially done this job. Once it has been tested, we can moved it to built-in plugin.

[jjw24]

Thank you, will assign this issue to you so no one else will double up on this work

[taooceros]

https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Plugin.WindowsSettings

[jjw24]

@Flow-Launcher/team do we want to merge WindowSettings above with the ControlPanel plugin?

[pc223]

@Flow-Launcher/team do we want to merge WindowSettings above with the ControlPanel plugin?

Yeah, I think we should add this new-style windows settings and hopefully the old school task links to ControlPanel plugin too.

@taooceros About the task links, what do you think about we generate all the task links out a JSON file similar to how powertoys did with the new-style settings?

So we can use this script to generate all the task links out, and after that use directly the JSON file to query.

https://gist.github.com/pc223/48e9a24ef595cec4465ed41bf880be5f

So we don't have to run Windows APIs on users system every query, only dependencies is a JSON file. (And this API I highly suspect will break in the future).

[taooceros]

They do have included control panel item in the json file.