hainproject / hain

An 'alt+space' launcher for Windows, built with Electron

Hain

An alt+space launcher for Windows, built with Electron.

I always dreamed of an alternative to Alfred on Windows, that is made with JavaScript. so, I made it.

Vision

It's a launcher with strict syntax (like terminal programs), it's not targeting to interpret natural language.
I believe the strict syntax can provide more powerful and fast response than to interpret natural language.

Features

• Searching Executable files very fast with Fuzzy Matching
• Plugins in Pure JavaScript

Downloads

Go to Releases, then you can download prebuilt binaries.

Usage

Run and press alt+space anywhere.

Themes

See THEMES.md

How to make Plugins

See Plugin Documentation

Development Requirements

• Node.js v8.9.x
• npm v5.6.x

See engines property in package.json

Install/Build from Source

# Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/hainproject/hain.git
# Go into the repo
cd hain
# Install dependencies
npm install

Run from Source

npm run dev

Build for Windows

npm run build

Build for Linux

npm run build-debian

Build for macOS

gulp build-darwin

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md

Credits

The name "Hain" is named by Hyunseop Lee, it means "a Servant" in Korean.
The app icon & gif are designed by Yunsung Lee.
It uses npmsearch.com for searching packages for now.

License

MIT

hain's Issues

Show current running Hain version?

maybe a /version command or just show in /about?

How to install development plugin

I cannot figure out how to make the plugin I'm working on load in the app. I've got a folder in hain-user/devplugins with index.js and package.json. Do I have to publish to npm? I'd rather not do that until I know it actually works.

Message for hpm empty list

It's possible to show a message when the list of package is empty ?

TypeError: Error Processing argument at index 0, conversion failure from

I get this error and trying to execute from the windows menu after pressing the windows key.

What's your proposed plugin API?

Hi,
I'm currently the author of Wox.
It will suppose js plugin in the future,
so a unified API would benefit user for both application.

Distribute via chocolatey

First of all: great job 👍!

I think this useful tool should definitely be distributed as a binary, e.g., via Chocolatey, as well. That would make it very easy to be obtained and integrated in system installation / provisioning routines.

If you need or want assistance or help I would love to contribute.

Symantec Endpoint Protection deletes the installer

Why?

Allow right-click to run as admin

Right now there is no way to launch an application as admin (correct me if I'm wrong, but I couldn't find it). Maybe adding support for right-clicking on the list would be a good idea? Additional options might include properties and open in explorer, not sure how easy it would be to add those, but run as admin should be possible, I think.

Create a json configuration for shortcut, etc

Add metod pluginContext.app.focusInput

This method would be useful for plugins such as the github

Problem with opening dev tools

In docs:

Note: You can see logging messages in Chrome Developer Tools in the app.
You can open Chrome Developer Tools by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I in the app.

I tried Ctrl+Shift+I, Alt+Shift+I, F12...
There are no results.

I am using v0.0.2-rc4 (HainSetup-ia32.exe)

Proxy?

Is there a way yet to get it to work behind a proxy?

hpm is just spinning currently

Separating Documentation

I think it would be better to separate the documentation for Hain into another repository.

Port to linux

Prior discussion happened in gitter chat https://gitter.im/appetizermonster/hain

Short brief: I've started hain by commenting out native addon code at app/platform-util/index.js

Current plan is to make a pull request after config file issue #13 will be resolved, as the current shortcut alt+space is not working on a Linux

Show most used results first

Remember user selected item and show first next time

File extensions should have lesser priority in fuzzy search

I don't know how one should implement it but for example searching for ffx should return Firefox before forfiles.exe because .exe (and other extensions) is too common and it should have lesser effect than the filename itself.

But of course simple name priority > extension priority would be wrong because then searching ffx will return C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Windows Fax and Scan.lnk before forfiles.exe.

Choose another directory for localstorage, plugins

current LocalStroage, plugins directory will be removed by squirrel installer, when you update the app.

Hide "Uninstall" entries in executable/link search

Searching for "Sauerbraten" may return the "Uninstall" result before the "Sauerbraten" result, which is typically the one the user wants.

(I'm referring to this game.)

Testing Plugins

The docs don't have any info on locally testing (Run your plugins) a plugin other than putting it in the appdata/hain-user/devplugins folder to which nothing happens when you do so, I've tried restarting hain, looking for my dev plugin in the list, in the 'install list' and still my plugins do not display anywhere.. how can I test this before publishing it?

How to index custom folders / files?

I want to run this: Z:/dropbox/my_project/run.bat

In Launchy I told it to index the dropbox folder, then I was good to go. What can I do here?

Search on web shortcut

It'd be interesting to have a shortcut to search the web, like /g search-term.

Add Clipboard api

Add an api to send and receive items from the clipboard. Also, an api to insert text into front most application like in Alfred

shell.openExternal should encode urls for default

Plugins can use shell.openExternal to open something in the web.
For now, it doesn't encode urls, so some browsers may misinterpret urls.

Don't delete query when reopen hain

Don't clear last query, just select it

Easily check if response object is empty?

I'm working on a plugin, and if the search doesn't return any results I wanted to add a search result that indicates that and tells them to search again, instead of not providing any feedback.

I feel like should be easy to check if there aren't currently any results, and then create this one, but not sure how to do it. Thanks for any help!

[Question] Does it selfupdate?

As in title. Does hain selfupdate? If not, can it be added? Afaik electron has some sort of ability to do it built in.

Allow a plugin to use its own shortcut

It would be nice to allow plugins to define their own keyboard shortcuts for direct access like in Alfred. A perfect implementation would consider repeat or double-tap key presses as shortcuts (e.g. alt + alt)!

Ideas for hain-package-manager

/hpm install

• show and sort by count of downloads #30
• don't show the plugins that are already installed

/hpm list

• show 'native' plugins (hain-plugin-filesearch, hain-plugin-math, ...) with versions too
• show last version for outdated plugins, update plugin when selected

[question]Why not just specify `target` to `electron` in the `webpack.config.js`?

Just curious, is there any reason behind this?

Thanks

Add Support for Windows Universal Apps / Metro Apps

As a windows launcher, this should be able to launch Windows Universal Apps.

Crash with Alt + Space

On Windows 10 with a 4k resolution monitor.

Alt + Space causes the following error to pop up.

It works if I go directly to the executable and run that.

How to debug Plugins?

How do you debug plugins when you are developing plugins?

Executable search only looks on the system drive.

I like a lot of people install some software off my small ssd and instead on a large hdd. Hain seems to only find files on the system drive and in certain directories making it almost useless. Allowing the user to change these paths without needing to rebuild would be great.

Can't restart hain itself

Does the hain-package-manager auto-update installed plugins?

Hey,

first of all, hain is amazing, thanks for making this 😄
Does the hain-package-manager automaticlly update my installed plugins?
If not I'll implement it to my plugins by myself.

thanks,
~ Kenneth

funny shortcut

It's funny Alfred uses alt+space when similar functionality is achieved in gnome-shell with the Windows key !

Fallback to calculator

Currently the workflow to the calculator, with my swedish qwerty layout, is
alt+space
shift+0 (equal sign)
some calculation

Could it be set to default to use the calculator if there are no other matches for the example query 1+1?

Usage geolocation and notifications api's

It would be great to be able to know the location and show notifications in the plugins.

Add functionality to open folders in file explorer?

This is awesome, and I like it a lot better than the launcher I've been using. The only feature missing I use a lot is to search for & open folders. Any chance you're planning to add this functionality?

Reload plugins without restarting app

Add user preferences

it doesn't kill worker process after quit

Please add Plugin "amzn" to plugin-docs.md

Could you please add my Amazon-Plugin (hain-plugin-amzn) to your plugin-docs.md ?
https://github.com/TheBuzzDee/hain-plugin-amzn/

Made another hain-plugin for my imagehosting site:
https://github.com/TheBuzzDee/hain-plugin-buzzpics

Pressing tab should auto-complete

Pressing tab in this situation should trigger an auto-complete, jus' like our beloved Alfred:

Could you add more run-like features?

I just checkout out hain and it is brilliant, however, I think you could add a lot more standard features
NB: I know most of these could be added as plugins, but it seems more convenient to ship them out of the box.

Features:

1. Environment variables - in run, you can type %appdata% and it would launch/run what the environment variable %appdata% is equal to (in this case, open C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming)
2. Ship a plugin that allows you to run /opendir <dir> to open a dir (another run feature - could be a plugin)
3. Most used/favourite apps - this would be quite good as it would let you quickly run your most used/favourite apps, rather than type them in each time
4. Add an /update command to apply hain updates.
5. Repo: Add a CONTRIBUTING.md so issues that you don't want don't happen (hopefully) and to give instructions about contributing

Hope you continue developing!
Thanks in advance.

Press alt+space again to close it

I think OS X spotlight was like that.

Port to OSX

Personally, I'd like to see this application take full advantage of the fact that it's written in electron. I see this application as having much more potential in the long run than Alfred.

Plugin Icon not working

When I add the following code to the index.js file in my plugin, the icon is not being displayed.

function search(query, res) {
  res.add({
    title: ...,
    desc: ...,
    icon: './icon.png'
  });
}

I see that it is looking for the icon at the following location file:///C:/Users/username/AppData/Local/hain/app-0.0.3/resources/app.asar/dist/icon.png

I get error file not found message shown in the developer console.

/hpm install - show and sort by count of downloads

It would be great to see the most popular plugins at once.

Demo gif key presses

Sorry that isn't really relevant to this repo, but is there any particular software at work to visually show the key presses in the demo gif?

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/appetizermonster/hain/master/docs/demo.gif