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Poker Quality of Life Tools for Windows
NOSTRI
Member Posts: 1,459
in Poker Chat
I recently switched from a Mac to a Windows 10 PC for my main computer, a decision I made because the poker ecosystem is generally much better supported on Windows than on macOS. But macOS also has a lot of quality of life features that I underestimated how much I was benefiting from, so I've spent a lot of this week hunting down software to replicate some of those features and make my poker life easier.
I thought I would share some of the things I've found in case it helps anyone else.
AquaSnap
One really nice feature on macOS is that different windows snap together when you drag them around to move them, which makes arranging poker tables much easier. This feature is nonexistent on Windows, so I had to find something else that could do it.
Enter AquaSnap.
This is a window manager that does a lot of neat things, including window snapping. A nice bonus feature I didn't realise I wanted was that once you snap a set of windows together it has a function that allows you to move all of them at the same time.
FancyZones
A similar option for this is FancyZones. This lets you define a set of pre-defined "zones" on your desktop that you can "snap" windows into, and automatically resize them to fit in the process. I've had a few people recommend PlaceMint for a similar purpose but FancyZones is much easier to use.
Using this in combination with Aquasnap is probably redundant. I'm trying both out to see which I prefer.
Sizer
The first thing I do with a Sky Poker table when it launches is resize it down so it switches to the "mini player" view. Sizer makes that much easier, letting you define a window size and automatically resize any window to that size by right-clicking the window border.
This makes a good partner with AquaSnap but is probably not necessary to use with FancyZones since that handles resizing already.
Calca
I forgot how to count a long time ago and struggle with certain things that numerate people find easy, like converting a stack to big blinds or calculating pot odds. Something I've used with my Mac before that is also available on Windows is Calca. It functions like a Notepad document but you can also type equations into it. It can even do advanced operations like setting variables and functions.
Here's a screenshot example of how that can be used:
This isn't really practical when multi-tabling so I try not to rely on it too much but it makes life easier when dealing with difficult, non-round numbers.
Greenshot
We don't have access to hand histories that can easily be imported into tools like HRC or ICMizer on Sky and it's equally a pain to dig into Sky's hand history viewer to find a particular hand from an earlier session. I started taking screenshots of spots I want to review later so I can easily access the important information to manually enter into HRC later. Macs have built-in functionality for taking screenshots of a particular region or window on your desktop (as opposed to the entire screen) but it's not so easy on Windows.
Greenshot solves this problem nicely, allowing you to use a simple keyboard shortcut to instantly screenshot a window and save it to a predefined directory for review later.
Bonus: HH Viewer
This is a little web tool I made myself that makes Sky hand histories much nicer to review and share. You can paste a hand history into it and get a nice clean view plus the ability to save it as an image to send to people later or post on the forum.
For example:
Is anyone else using other software to make their poker life easier?
I thought I would share some of the things I've found in case it helps anyone else.
AquaSnap
One really nice feature on macOS is that different windows snap together when you drag them around to move them, which makes arranging poker tables much easier. This feature is nonexistent on Windows, so I had to find something else that could do it.
Enter AquaSnap.
This is a window manager that does a lot of neat things, including window snapping. A nice bonus feature I didn't realise I wanted was that once you snap a set of windows together it has a function that allows you to move all of them at the same time.
FancyZones
A similar option for this is FancyZones. This lets you define a set of pre-defined "zones" on your desktop that you can "snap" windows into, and automatically resize them to fit in the process. I've had a few people recommend PlaceMint for a similar purpose but FancyZones is much easier to use.
Using this in combination with Aquasnap is probably redundant. I'm trying both out to see which I prefer.
Sizer
The first thing I do with a Sky Poker table when it launches is resize it down so it switches to the "mini player" view. Sizer makes that much easier, letting you define a window size and automatically resize any window to that size by right-clicking the window border.
This makes a good partner with AquaSnap but is probably not necessary to use with FancyZones since that handles resizing already.
Calca
I forgot how to count a long time ago and struggle with certain things that numerate people find easy, like converting a stack to big blinds or calculating pot odds. Something I've used with my Mac before that is also available on Windows is Calca. It functions like a Notepad document but you can also type equations into it. It can even do advanced operations like setting variables and functions.
Here's a screenshot example of how that can be used:
This isn't really practical when multi-tabling so I try not to rely on it too much but it makes life easier when dealing with difficult, non-round numbers.
Greenshot
We don't have access to hand histories that can easily be imported into tools like HRC or ICMizer on Sky and it's equally a pain to dig into Sky's hand history viewer to find a particular hand from an earlier session. I started taking screenshots of spots I want to review later so I can easily access the important information to manually enter into HRC later. Macs have built-in functionality for taking screenshots of a particular region or window on your desktop (as opposed to the entire screen) but it's not so easy on Windows.
Greenshot solves this problem nicely, allowing you to use a simple keyboard shortcut to instantly screenshot a window and save it to a predefined directory for review later.
Bonus: HH Viewer
This is a little web tool I made myself that makes Sky hand histories much nicer to review and share. You can paste a hand history into it and get a nice clean view plus the ability to save it as an image to send to people later or post on the forum.
For example:
Is anyone else using other software to make their poker life easier?
Comments
This is a quality post. I use Placemint but find it fidgety so will look into the others. Don't know how I used to multi table without it
SnapZones looks class. I didn't know I needed this!
Great post @NOSTRI