[Feature] Support for pinning results

[rottakore]

Sometimes you just don't remember which games you have installed, having the option to pin them in a grid that appears before you type anything would be cool (like fluent search).

[TechySC23]

+1 i want this

[cibere]

Perhaps I don't understand, but this does not seem feasible. Theoretically it's possible, however I don't see an easy way to make the result's action work properly.

Would you be able to show an example of how this works with fluent search?

However, here is a mockup of how I understand your request:

1. "Pin" result in a result's ctx menu

2. Pinned results added to "home" / "root"

[onesounds]

@cibere This is about the feature shown in the attached screenshot (essentially a start menu replacement). We discussed this 3–4 years ago, and I even attempted to implement it last year. Fluent Search also includes this functionality by default. You can find the discussion logs in team chat history.

Several team members opposed this feature, so it wasn't developed. The current Home Page built in the dev branch is actually part of the foundational work to support this feature. It looks like Jack has ideas for triggering this via pinned items. (I asked about it, and jack said it’s possible.) Ultimately, it’s the same functionality with just a different view, but nobody really understood it, so convincing others was impossible.

If we give up on that particular tile view, it should be possible to implement the same functionality using the current Home Page. Even just with files and paths, it would already be quite useful. As of the current dev version, if we use a plugin like “Favorite,” the behavior is almost identical. We just need to add a built-in pinning feature.

Personally, I don’t want to work on this feature. If the team decides to go ahead with it, I’ll step away from that task. Every time I see this feature in other launchers, it really stresses me out, and I still feel a strong sense of frustration that we never got to build it.
I was one of the people who kept saying we needed this feature—precisely because Flow is essentially replacing the user’s Start Menu.

Anyway, that’s the background.

[Jack251970]

@rottakore @TechySC23 Hello! We will be supporting the home query feature (#3399) in the upcoming 1.20.0 release. Based on this implementation, plugin developers should now have everything they need to create plugins with the functionality you have requested.

[Jack251970]

@cibere Your concept is solid, but I am afraid it might introduce unnecessary complexity given Flow Launcher's current query model. Since all results are dynamically queried, pinning items to the home screen could lead to many problems, especially if the source plugins for those pinned results are later uninstalled. Flow Launcher would not have a reliable way to regenerate those results without their original plugins.

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[nsheshin]

absence of such functionality is the only thing that stops me from installing the launcher on win10

[01Dri]

@Jack251970 I'm thinking about implementing this. Your comment is really valid, and I believe this feature must be thoroughly tested.
I'm also thinking about the UI and creating a visual test. What do you think?

Example 1

Example 2

[jjw24]

Some people will prefer a grid view, is it possible to switch between both options?

As Jack has mentioned will need to cater for scenarios where the plugin is uninstalled. Maybe something like if you get an error from execution, ask if want to remove the result from pinned. Maybe take inspiration from other launchers or Windows Explorer how they handled removed plugin/directories (Windows)

[Jack251970]

@01Dri Hi, your UI looks excellent! I had also considered providing this function before but it was not realized in the end.

• I noticed that you consider the Home Page function to be different from the Pinned Result function. To be honest, I designed the Home Page function before to provide similar functionality of Pinned Result.

• And you have put pinned results on the top of the results under all queries. May I ask your idea on this? I think Pinned Result is to provide fixed results under certain fixed queries like empty query (this is what Home Page feature do). Why do we need to provide pinned results for all queries?

Finally, thanks for your contribution on this!