Helpy

A Windows utility for display controls, screenshots, audio recording, and local text files. Built with Python, native Windows APIs, and an HTML/CSS/JavaScript interface in pywebview.

Features

Notepad and opening files

• Open several text files in separate tabs, create new notes, save, and save as another file.
• Find text with Ctrl+F, match counts, next/previous navigation, and a match-case option. Enter/Shift+Enter or F3/Shift+F3 moves between matches. Navigation is limited to the first 10,000 matches to keep large searches responsive.
• Switch between editable text and a formatted Markdown preview with headings, lists, tables, quotes, and fenced code blocks.
• Enable or disable syntax highlighting. Language detection follows the extension, with a manual language selector.
• Syntax modes include Markdown, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, XML, YAML, C/C++, C#, Java, Shell, PowerShell, SQL, Rust, and Go. Other supported text files open as plain text.
• Smooth cursor movement, optional blinking, and line, block, or underline cursor styles.
• Clean tabs reload when the file changes on disk. Tabs with unsaved edits keep those edits and show a conflict notice, with actions to reload, save a copy, or explicitly overwrite the disk version.
• Closing a dirty tab or quitting/restarting Helpy asks whether to save or discard edits. Closing the main window still hides Helpy to the tray and keeps the tabs open.
• Files are read locally; editor libraries are bundled and work offline. Markdown is sanitized. Embedded images are omitted and links display their destination instead of navigating the app.

Enable Settings → Notepad → “Open with Helpy” in File Explorer to add the context-menu entry. This does not change default file associations. On Windows 11, look under Show more options. Turn the setting off to remove the entry; re-enable it after moving the app or its source folder.

In v1.4.2, Explorer sends files directly to the running app, including when it is hidden in the tray. Files open immediately on receipt rather than waiting for the editor's periodic disk check. An existing menu pointing to the same app location is upgraded automatically at launch. Opening a file while Helpy is fully closed still requires normal application startup.

Supported text extensions: .txt, .md, .markdown, .log, .json, .jsonc, .yaml, .yml, .toml, .ini, .cfg, .conf, .csv, .tsv, .xml, .html, .htm, .css, .scss, .js, .jsx, .ts, .tsx, .py, .pyw, .sh, .bat, .cmd, .ps1, .sql, .c, .h, .cpp, .hpp, .cs, .java, .rs, .go.

Text files are limited to 2 MB. UTF-8 and BOM-marked UTF-16/UTF-32 are supported; encoding, byte order, and the detected line-ending style are preserved on save. Legacy encodings and binary content are rejected rather than silently converted. Mixed line endings are normalized to the detected style when saved.

Supported images: PNG, JPEG, BMP, WebP, and ICO, up to 40 MB when opened externally. They open in the existing image viewer, with copy, reveal, delete, and editing actions. ICO previews use the largest frame; overwriting an edited icon regenerates its fitting size variants in ICO format. Images are not text tabs.

Shortcut	Notepad action
Ctrl+O	Open files
Ctrl+N	New note
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+Shift+S	Save as
Ctrl+W	Close current tab
Ctrl+F	Find in the current file
F3 / Shift+F3	Next / previous search match
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / redo in the editor

Unsaved tabs are kept in memory, not restored after a crash or Windows shutdown. Save work you want to keep.

Display and color

• Switch resolution and refresh rate, with a timed Keep/Revert prompt for changes made in the display UI.
• Save named presets, select among attached monitors, and test custom modes supported by the driver.
• Adjust gamma, brightness, contrast, and RGB balance per monitor.
• NVIDIA digital vibrance, with saved colors reapplied on launch.

Screenshots and editing

• Rebindable region and full-screen shortcuts; region capture defaults to Win+Shift+S.
• Region capture reuses a selector initialized in the background. It passes the captured screen in memory instead of saving a temporary PNG and launching a separate process for each selection.
• Fullscreen-game-aware capture: exclusive fullscreen uses an instant full-screen shot rather than a selection overlay.
• Save screenshots to your chosen folder and copy them to the clipboard.
• Optional notification and capture sound, with fullscreen sound controls.
• Gallery with thumbnails, unseen badges, search, sorting, and multiselect deletion to the Recycle Bin.
• PNG, JPEG, and WebP output with quality settings.
• PNG saves use faster lossless compression (potentially larger files, unchanged image quality). Captures are copied to the clipboard before file encoding finishes.
• Image viewer with navigation, zoom, panning, and fullscreen view.
• ICO files are also included in the gallery when saved in the screenshot folder.
• Brush, highlighter, arrows, rectangles, text, pixelation, blur, crop, and undo; save a copy or overwrite.

Audio

• Select a microphone, record, and play back audio.
• Live level meter, peak marker, and scrolling waveform.
• Save recordings as WAV.
• Native Windows recording path, compatible with microphone processing configured through Equalizer APO.

Appearance and performance

• Automatic Windows theme, light, or dark appearance.
• Separate switches for interface animations, smooth scrolling, smooth text cursor movement, background blur, and shadows.
• A low-end preset turns off those visual effects together; each can be turned back on independently.
• Existing low-end settings migrate to the individual switches.
• Optional launch at startup, minimize to taskbar, close to tray, and tray restart/quit.
• GitHub update checks and changelog. The executable can download and install a release; the source script cannot self-update.

Run from source

Requires Windows 10/11, Python 3.10+ with Tcl/Tk, and the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime.

python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python helpy.pyw

Open files from a terminal:

python helpy.pyw --open "C:\Notes\example.md" "C:\Pictures\image.png"

If Helpy is already running, files are forwarded to that instance. To apply a display preset without opening the UI:

python helpy.pyw --apply "Gaming"

Build when needed

build.bat

The script creates an isolated .venv-build environment, checks requirements, generates icons, and packages dist\Helpy.exe. Keep the app closed when replacing that executable. Helpy.spec is generated by the build and is not a maintained source file.

build.bat --check
build.bat --clean
build.bat --help

--check only checks Python and Tcl/Tk; it installs nothing and builds nothing. Normal builds reuse the PyInstaller cache. --clean requests a fresh build.

Local data

Settings live in %APPDATA%\Helpy\:

File or folder	Purpose
settings.json	Hotkeys, appearance, performance, capture and audio settings
presets.json	Display presets
colors.json	Per-monitor colors
unseen.json	New screenshot badges
sounds\	Capture sound
open-requests\	Temporary requests forwarded from another instance
helpy.ico	Persistent icon for the optional Explorer menu

Documents stay in their original locations. The Explorer integration uses the current user's registry and does not require changing default apps.

Notes

• The X button hides Helpy to the tray. Use Quit Helpy to exit.
• While Helpy runs, its default Win+Shift+S binding takes precedence over Windows Snipping Tool. Change the binding or quit Helpy to restore the Windows shortcut.
• Custom display modes must be accepted by your driver and monitor.
• Microphone recording needs Windows permission for desktop apps to access the microphone.
• Source and build changes do not publish a GitHub release automatically.