Changelog

**Todo experience rebuilt**: Replaced the dense single-page workflow with a card-based task list and a dedicated full-widget detail view. The detail title is a resizable multiline field, metadata actions use a compact horizontal toolbar, and task cards display up to ten lines.

**Todo scheduling and organization**: Added eight color markers and filters, due date, reminder, recurrence and attachment workflows, recurring-task history handling, and context-menu shortcuts. Reminder and recurrence stay disabled until a due date exists.

**Todo selection and batch actions**: Added box selection and batch copy, delete, color, reminder, due-date and recurrence commands. Removed native ListView selection residue after opening or returning from details, including the add-task card focus state.

**Quick Capture redesign**: Reworked notes into a spacious card list and body-only full-widget editor. Added paper/material styles, image add and replace actions, thumbnails, image-specific copy controls, pin state feedback, and optional creation-time display.

**Quick Capture sorting and batch actions**: Added animated drag sorting for regular and pinned notes while preserving drag-out copy behavior. Added batch copy, delete, pin and paper commands, and fixed stale image previews after returning from details.

**Responsive widgets**: Reduced the minimum widget size from 200 x 200 to 150 x 150. Refined Weather layouts for small and medium sizes. Music now switches to an artwork-first layout below 180 px, keeps controls and the title readable, centers artwork cropping, reuses title marquee behavior, and applies a slower nonblank artwork transition.

**Music simplification**: Removed all spectrum/rhythm visuals, settings, ViewModel state and related code. Unified solid playback icons, button sizing and rounded-rectangle hover surfaces across minimal and medium layouts.

**File and context-menu improvements**: Simplified the native-style vertical menu order, kept Open and Extract text from image, renamed the Explorer command to Open file location, removed Show more options, and placed Delete last. Added file multi-selection actions and ensured commands close their flyouts immediately.

**Widget title editing**: Rename commands now enter a focused editor immediately. Double-clicking any widget title starts editing, while clicking the remaining title area commits and exits.

**Dynamic Z-order fixes**: Reworked tray and hotkey activation so all widgets raise together without a one-second flash, repeated activation hides them consistently, and subsequent foreground changes are managed naturally by Windows. Clicking a title raises all widgets; clicking content raises the current widget.

**Settings and reset behavior**: Global reset now preserves language, startup and feature-widget switches, resets Quick Capture creation-time visibility and resize snapping correctly, clears per-widget title-style overrides, and uses confirmation dialogs for destructive feature-widget resets. Feature-widget menu wording now represents enable/disable rather than deletion.

**Default settings updated**: New installs and global reset use Comfortable density, Mica material, Thin border, Round corners, segmented Todo and Quick Capture tabs, and hidden Todo footer counts.

**Performance and memory**: Reduced unrelated Todo refreshes caused by organizer history writes, suppressed redundant settings broadcasts for file operations, tightened cancellation-token and event cleanup, removed music spectrum allocation paths, and improved repeated language/material/theme change behavior.

**Reliability fixes**: Fixed Quick Capture clearing removing the add-note entry, image-plus-text copy behavior, created-time visibility, image persistence between list and detail views, completed Todo checkmark contrast, overlapping Todo cards, feature-widget reset completeness, and several tray/hotkey layer edge cases.

**Tests**: Expanded coverage for Todo recurrence, persistence and batch changes; Quick Capture image, ordering and reset behavior; settings defaults; organizer notification suppression; responsive Music layout; and Weather layout thresholds.

**Weather widget**: Added a full-featured weather widget with four layout modes (Mini, Compact, Standard, Detailed), city search with offline `cities.json` database and Windows Location API, auto-location, hourly and weekly forecasts, sunrise/sunset times, UV index, precipitation probability, humidity, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, rich skin backgrounds, and configurable refresh interval. Standard view activates at 250×215 and above. Horizontal scrollbar and mouse wheel support for the hourly temperature list. Week forecast fills remaining space and is scrollable even on small widgets. Loading animation with rotating refresh icon and content hiding during refresh.

**Resize snap guide**: Added `ResizeGuideOverlayService` that detects edge alignment (8px threshold) with other widgets and work area boundaries during widget resize, showing accent-colored highlight bars on matched edges. Integrated into `WidgetWindow`, `QuickCaptureWidgetWindow`, and `ContentWidgetWindow`.

**Quick Capture fixes**: Widget reset now properly clears all internal data via `QuickCaptureService.ClearAsync()`. Fixed blank display on first tab switch — data now appears immediately instead of requiring multiple switches. Added `ScheduleTransitionSafetyFallback` to `PlayItemsViewTransition` for more reliable content transitions.

**Settings defaults unified**: Default appearance changed to Mica material, Medium border, Round corners — consistent across new installs, reset-to-defaults, and `AppSettings` initial values. Global reset (`ApplyDefaultPreferences`) now restores `CustomAccentColor` to `#0078D4` and `FocusClickedWidgetOnRaise` to `false`. Todo widget single-widget reset now restores `TodoReminderEnabled` and `TodoDefaultReminderOffsetMinutes`. Weather widget single-widget reset now clears `WeatherLatitude` and `WeatherLongitude` to prevent inconsistent location behavior.

**Widget title font size**: Content widget titles now dynamically compute `TitleTextSize` and `TitleIconSize` from user settings (`TextSize`/`IconSize`) instead of using fixed values. Added `RefreshMetrics()` method to update title metrics when settings change.

**Memory leak fix**: `TodoWidgetViewModel` now implements `IDisposable`, and `TodoWidgetContentAdapter` properly disposes the ViewModel on widget disposal, preventing memory leaks.

**Delete widget button**: Added delete widget option to the "more" menu for all widget types, not just file widgets. Fixed `ContentWidgetWindow` more flyout placement.

**Settings UI expansion**: Added standalone material type selector (Mica / Acrylic / Solid) and border style selector (None / Thin / Medium) to the Appearance settings page.

**Widget layer improvement**: Added `SetWindowToDesktopLevel` method in `WidgetLayerService` that pushes windows to desktop level without using `HWND_BOTTOM`, preventing widgets from being hidden by Win+D while staying at desktop level.

**Localization simplification**: Shortened drag-and-drop diagnostics text across both Chinese and English for clearer, more concise messaging.

**FolderWatcherService optimization**: Replaced `CancellationTokenSource`-based debounce with `DispatcherQueueTimer`, reducing thread-pool task creation for file system change notifications.

**Code refactoring — WidgetWindowBase**: Extracted a new `WidgetWindowBase.cs` (1027 lines) consolidating window setup, backdrop management, layer/Z-order control, drag/resize logic, and display-change restoration. `ContentWidgetWindow` and `QuickCaptureWidgetWindow` now inherit from this shared base, eliminating duplicated window management code.

**Code refactoring — WidgetWindow**: Split `WidgetWindow.xaml.cs` (~5000 lines) into 6 partial classes: `Rename` (335 lines), `Menus` (677), `ItemSurface` (364), `Clipboard` (249), `Selection` (397), `DragDrop` (806). Main file reduced to 2828 lines.

**Code refactoring — WidgetManager**: Split `WidgetManager.cs` (3532 lines) into 4 partial classes: `WidgetManager.TrayAnimation.cs` (353 lines, tray show/hide animation), `WidgetManager.ZOrder.cs` (376 lines, Z-order/layer management/mouse hook), `WidgetManager.Storage.cs` (595 lines, managed storage/folder mapping/orphan cleanup), `WidgetManager.FeatureWidgets.cs` (889 lines, Music/Weather/Todo/QuickCapture feature widgets). Core file reduced to 1383 lines.

**Log rotation**: Added `TryRotateLogFileIfNeeded` with a 5MB size threshold — automatically backs up to `.bak` and cleans up old logs.

**Atomic settings writes**: `SettingsService.SaveToFileOnlyAsync` now writes to a `.tmp` file first, then moves it to the final path, preventing configuration corruption from interrupted writes.

**Onboarding redesign**: Simplified onboarding animation API and refined the first-run experience.

Replaced the fixed 16ms `DispatcherQueueTimer` in widget tray animation with `CompositionTarget.Rendering`, which is driven by the system VSync. Animations now run at the native display refresh rate — 60fps on 60Hz screens, 144fps on 144Hz screens — eliminating visible stutter on high-refresh-rate displays.

Replaced the triple `Task.Delay` backdrop refresh pattern with a single staged `DispatcherQueueTimer` (80ms → 240ms → 580ms), reducing thread-pool scheduling overhead and keeping all refresh work on the UI thread.

Removed an empty `PointerMoved` handler from widget item surfaces and added state guards to `PointerEntered`/`PointerExited` so hover surface updates are skipped while the window is closing, animating, or hidden.

Stopped the music widget's progress, visualizer, and transition timers when the widget is deactivated, and restarted them on activation, eliminating unnecessary CPU usage when the widget is not visible.

Added a 200ms debounce to `UISettings.ColorValuesChanged` in `ThemeService` so system accent color and theme changes no longer trigger redundant `RefreshAppearance` calls.

Reduced the icon cache limit from 500 to 200 entries and set `DecodePixelWidth` before `SetSourceAsync` for both icons (48px) and image thumbnails (80px), lowering memory usage from decoded bitmaps.

Improved Todo reminder reliability with per-task reminder offsets, snooze state persistence after app restart, and safer reminder grace handling for overdue tasks.

Added native notification actions for Todo reminders, including completing a task directly from the notification and choosing snooze options from the reminder surface.

Refined recurring Todo behavior so completed recurrence history can be folded under the active recurring task instead of filling the main list with repeated completed rows.

Improved Todo and Quick Capture multi-select workflows, including rectangle selection from blank list space, formatted copy, drag-out text packages, and Escape-to-clear behavior.

Improved Quick Capture tab switching responsiveness by delaying heavier list refresh work, reducing UI-thread churn, stabilizing empty-state layout, and using a softer content transition.

Updated Quick Capture clipboard defaults so automatic clipboard capture starts disabled by default, and disabling Quick Capture also disables automatic clipboard and image capture.

Expanded automated coverage for Todo reminders, recurring tasks, Quick Capture clipboard settings, multi-select behavior, and settings defaults.

Improved the Todo widget with due times that keep hour/minute/second precision, native Windows reminder notifications, overdue suffix labels, completed-item sorting, click-to-copy, multi-select copying, and formatted clipboard output.

Added Todo and Quick Capture drag/drop conversion so text can be moved between the two feature widgets more naturally.

Added configurable Todo and Quick Capture tab styles, allowing each widget to use either the indicator-style tab bar or the segmented-button style.

Added configurable top-right widget hover actions under Appearance -> Window appearance details. Users can choose 1 to 3 actions from lock position, lock size, add, more, and delete.

Refined widget action icons with Fluent icon shapes, better lock-state icons, compact-title sizing, and clearer rendering. Resetting title styles now clears per-widget overrides so widgets follow the global title style again.

Improved Music widget details, including a horizontal system-volume flyout, light-theme styling fixes, click-away closing, wider slider behavior, and album-ambience corner alignment with the widget corner setting.

Added an optional file path tooltip switch under File widgets -> File display.

Improved Direct and Microsoft Store update-channel behavior and wording, including Store-aware manual checks and clearer Direct fallback guidance.

Expanded tests for Todo reminders, clipboard formatting, settings defaults, update behavior, and title-style reset behavior.

Fixed the in-app update installation handoff after an update has been downloaded.

Runs `DeskBox.Updater.exe` from a detached local update-helper directory before starting the installer, so the installer can safely overwrite the DeskBox install directory.

Updated installer packaging so old versions can update without the running updater locking `DeskBox.Updater.*`.

Added a configurable desktop widget layer mode under Settings -> General. Users can keep the existing Dynamic behavior or switch to Desktop pinned mode.

Improved Desktop pinned behavior so visible widgets are reattached to the desktop layer after Show Desktop / Win+D and display-topology refreshes.

Updated Settings navigation icons to Fluent color icons and refined several Settings layouts for more consistent spacing and card hierarchy.

Removed redundant ToggleSwitch on/off text while preserving the native WinUI switch visual style.

Removed extra decorative icons from the widget title icon setting and update-status rows.

Upgraded the Direct/Inno build baseline to .NET 10 and Windows App SDK 2.2.

Updated installer runtime dependency detection to .NET 10 Runtime x64 and Windows App Runtime 2.2 x64.

Improved monitor-aware widget positioning for display topology changes, DPI changes, external display plug/unplug, and 1080p-to-4K display swaps. Visible widgets now restore against the current monitor work area, while hidden widgets are rechecked before being shown.

Added configurable desktop widget title icons with color, filled mono, line mono, hidden, and localized text-label modes. Color icons are now the default for both new installs and restored default preferences.

Added title-style selection to the file widget blank-area context menu, matching the existing title-bar menu behavior.

Refined Settings organization by moving the widget title icon preference under Appearance -> Window appearance details.

Aligned new-user defaults, reset defaults, and invalid-value fallbacks for animation and title-icon preferences. The default widget animation is now consistently `SlideFade`.

Moved Quick Capture default-view normalization into the Quick Capture settings normalization path.

Expanded automated coverage for settings defaults, widget title icon defaults, Quick Capture default-view normalization, and monitor-aware widget positioning.

Changed the project license from MIT to GPL-3.0-only for future source code and releases. Previously published MIT-licensed DeskBox versions remain under the MIT License.

Completed the first large widget architecture refactor after 1.1.10: widgets now share a `WidgetShell`, content host, content factory, registry, session manager, window factory, and diagnostic path instead of keeping each widget type as a separate window implementation.

Introduced the feature-widget foundation used by Todo, Quick Capture, Music, and future content widgets, including content providers, persisted widget kinds, lifecycle handling, positioning, z-order/session behavior, and settings integration.

Added the Todo widget as a first-class desktop widget with local storage, task completion, filtering, inline editing, full-screen editing, custom due times, and coverage for store/view-model/content-adapter behavior.

Added the Music widget with Windows media session integration, playback controls, playback mode switching, system volume control, responsive waveform styles, compact-card layout, long-title marquee behavior, and optional album-color ambience.

Reworked Quick Capture on top of the newer content/widget infrastructure, with more consistent input and editing surfaces, safer recent-content refresh behavior, cached thumbnails for recent image previews, and reduced duplicate preview loading.

Unified widget chrome and editing details across file and feature widgets: title bar metrics, title styles, inline editors, full-screen editor surfaces, hover/pressed states, empty states, tooltips, action buttons, segmented controls, and light/dark icon behavior.

Reorganized Settings around the new architecture: feature-widget controls, appearance groups, file-widget display options, interaction/global hotkey controls, music rhythm options, Quick Capture preferences, and clearer localized labels.

Improved managed-storage and widget lifecycle maintenance, including safer cleanup/restore paths, default managed storage handling, session persistence, and diagnostics around widget windows.

Expanded automated coverage for the refactor with tests for content factories, widget registry/session/positioning, content window factory, Todo storage/view models, chrome mode resolution, feature-widget settings, storage cleanup, and Quick Capture thumbnail behavior.

Updated release metadata, installer versioning, documentation, and dependency notes for the 1.2.0 build. The installer continues to check for .NET 8 Runtime x64 and Windows App Runtime 2.1.3 x64.

Fixed Quick Capture recent clipboard monitoring after restart: clipboard event listening now initializes on the UI thread and `Refresh()` safely marshals back to the UI dispatcher when needed.

Fixed Quick Capture list scrolling when recent content grows beyond the widget height by constraining the list area to the remaining widget space.

Added the phase-1 widget architecture refactoring plan to document the next stable refactor path before starting the architecture work.

Fixed clipboard monitoring not persisting after restart: `QuickCaptureEnabled` now defaults to `true`.

Fixed widget z-order: widgets now follow natural Windows z-order instead of being pushed to bottom. Added 2s safety auto-restore timer.

Fixed QuickCapture z-order consistency with WidgetWindow: both now use `ClearTopMostOnly`, `BringAllVisibleWidgetsToFront`, and 300ms deactivation guard.

Improved QuickCapture UI: Sticky Notes style input, search moved to tab bar, expand button for full-screen editing, input only visible on Records tab.

Fixed toggle switch text localization: deferred to `SettingsRoot.Loaded` for proper control resolution.

Fixed tray menu font: explicit `FontFamily` fallback when `DefaultMenuFlyoutItemStyle` not found.

Fixed widget animation: removed scale effect from SlideFade and ScaleSlide effects for pure slide-in.

Fixed global hotkey (F7) not working after packaged install.

Fixed delete widget crash: added `_isClosing` guard to `ApplyBackdropPreference`.

Fixed hotkey toggle: `ShouldHideWidgetsForTrayToggle` now hides when widgets are visible.

Fixed app not launching and tray menu losing WinUI styling on other computers: caused by `EnableMsixTooling` being disabled. Restored to `true` for proper WinUI resource resolution.

Fixed global hotkey (F7) not working: `OnLaunched` was called multiple times, creating a new `GlobalHotkeyService` that overwrote the already-attached instance. Now reuses existing instance and adds late-attach fallback.

Fixed toggle switch style consistency: all toggles now use `SettingToggleSwitchStyle`.

Fixed settings window staying on top when opened from tray right-click.

Fixed settings window staying on top when opened from tray right-click menu. Removed always-on-top logic and let Windows handle z-order naturally.

Improved widget z-order reliability: reduced safety auto-restore timer from 5s to 2s.

Fixed clipboard monitoring not persisting after restart: changed QuickCaptureEnabled default to true so clipboard monitoring starts automatically on first install.

Fixed widget z-order issue where widgets could get stuck on top after interaction: added 5-second safety timer that auto-restores widgets to desktop layer if they remain topmost without user interaction.

Improved toggle switch style consistency across all settings: removed visual padding and aligned all toggles to the right edge.

Simplified corner radius options: removed "System default" option, keeping only Small radius, Round, and Square corners. Default remains Small radius.

Fixed widget z-order issue where widgets would stay above fullscreen browser after batch raise. Widgets now properly hide behind other windows when clicking outside.

Optimized startup initialization: theme refresh and clipboard service now initialize in parallel, reducing launch time by 2-3 seconds.

Added error handling to critical async event handlers (file drop, drag completion) to prevent unhandled exceptions from crashing the app.

Added `SafeFireAndForget` helper method for safe async execution in event handlers.

Optimized widget animation performance: replaced per-frame Win32 P/Invoke opacity calls with GPU-accelerated Visual.Opacity, cached Composition Visual, and enabled Windows-native cubic bezier easing curves.

Simplified animation settings: removed redundant direction-specific effects, added a single "Slide direction" dropdown and "Easing intensity" control with None/Light/Standard/Strong options. Direction dropdown is disabled for effects that have no slide component.

Fixed animation effect inconsistency between file widgets and Quick Capture widgets: both now support the same set of effects with identical parameters.

Added image thumbnail previews for image files in widgets instead of generic file type icons.

Fixed single-click file open not working when "Double-click to open" is disabled.

Fixed right-click triggering single-click open instead of showing the context menu.

Fixed widget click events being consumed by box selection logic, preventing ItemClick from firing.

Removed "Focus clicked widget only" setting due to unreliable z-order behavior across different widget types. All widgets now always show and hide together.

Improved default settings: animation effect defaults to Fade, speed defaults to Standard.

Optimized Quick Capture tab switching performance: added equality guards to item view model updates, replaced O(n²) collection diffing with dictionary-based O(n) lookup, and cached tab/item action button brushes to eliminate per-switch allocations.

Added a new setting "Focus clicked widget only" for batch widget raise behavior. When enabled, clicking one widget hides all others; when disabled (default), all widgets stay visible together.

Fixed Z-order inconsistency during batch raise from tray: widgets no longer fall behind fullscreen applications when clicking one widget, and the previously-clicked widget no longer stays on top unexpectedly.

Unified Z-order behavior between file widgets and Quick Capture widgets to prevent asymmetric deactivation handling.

Fixed internal dragging for shortcut files (`.lnk`) in managed widgets. DeskBox now keeps its own path-based drag metadata even when Windows cannot convert a shortcut into a `StorageItem`.

Added drag-and-drop diagnostics in Settings with one-click repair for DeskBox compatibility flags, startup entries, and shortcuts. If Windows 10/11 cannot drag files into widgets, run this repair first.

Improved Explorer drag/drop compatibility for managed and mapped widgets, including native shell message allowance, legacy shell format fallback, and more useful drop diagnostics.

Fixed widget sorting stability with natural name ordering, deterministic tie-breakers, and correct insertion when new files are added while a sort mode is active.

Improved Quick Capture text editing: saved text now opens the inline editor on double-click, while the context menu can edit text in Notepad and sync changes back.

Changed the default tray icon style to colorful for new installs and restored defaults.

Improved first-run onboarding so it is marked complete after the first install launch and no longer reappears just because widgets are empty.

Improved installer and uninstall behavior: current-user install remains the default, the install folder can be changed, startup can be selected during setup, and uninstall can optionally keep or remove local DeskBox app data.

Reworked Settings into a cleaner Windows-style structure with fewer top-level categories, native ComboBox/NumberBox controls, toggle on/off labels, drill-in rows, and a clearer Quick Capture settings entry.

Added widget item sorting by name, size, item type, and date modified, with per-widget persistence and repeat-click ascending/descending behavior.

Improved widget menus by separating title-bar widget management from content-area file actions, including view switching, sorting, paste, refresh, and mapped-folder actions.

Improved Quick Capture tabs, title buttons, hover actions, copy feedback, and shared show/restore behavior with regular widgets.

Improved drag/drop compatibility, empty-widget drop handling, managed-vs-mapped drag captions, z-order restoration, icon hydration retries, and Chinese IME support during file/folder rename.

Changed the installer to current-user installation by default and added automatic migration from older Program Files administrator installs to reduce Explorer drag/drop permission conflicts.

Added clearer guidance for Explorer drag/drop failures: DeskBox should not be run as administrator, because Windows can block file drops from non-elevated Explorer windows into elevated DeskBox windows.

Refined first-run onboarding with shorter Windows-style copy and simpler setup choices.

Improved Windows 11 23H2 drag/drop compatibility by launching DeskBox after install as the original user instead of inheriting the installer elevation level.

Improved Explorer drag/drop handling for file widgets by accepting link-style requested operations when the widget can safely resolve them into the configured managed action.

Improved drag hover captions so managed storage widgets show "managed widget" and mapped-folder widgets show "mapped folder" as distinct targets.

Improved Quick Capture copy feedback by replacing per-row copy bubbles with a stable bottom-centered toast.

Improved Quick Capture clipboard writes with short automatic retries when Windows temporarily locks the clipboard, reducing first-click copy failures.

Tightened Quick Capture title button sizing and hover action styling so More, Delete, and item actions match the regular widget controls more closely.

Fixed Quick Capture click-to-copy feedback, copy failure messaging, and several post-1.0.7 polish issues around mapped widgets and drag prompts.

Improved tray and global-hotkey behavior so file widgets and Quick Capture are raised, hidden, and restored as one group.

Added a light WidgetManager restore path that keeps DeskBox widgets together after menu interactions and restores the group only after the user moves back to another app.

Improved full-screen app behavior: F7 can raise widgets again when they are visible but covered, and a keyboard-hook fallback prevents apps such as Axure from consuming the configured hotkey first.

Improved widget show/hide animation with linear timing, shorter default duration, and group-aware off-screen slide distances so adjacent widgets move out consistently.

Improved Quick Capture layout, hover actions, tab switching, copy/open behavior, image previews, and inline editing for long text.

Added system-open behavior for Quick Capture items: single click copies with feedback, double click opens text, links, or images in the user's default app.

Added orphan managed-storage folder management so removed widget folders can be restored, opened, moved back to Desktop, or deleted from Settings.

Improved managed and mapped widget safety with duplicate-name guards, folder recovery handling, mapped-folder rename sync, icon refresh stability, and file-name display fixes.

Improved performance and responsiveness around directory refresh, clipboard capture, tab switching, list rendering, and temporary topmost confirmation.

Added Quick Capture as an optional feature widget for local text, link, screenshot, and recent clipboard capture workflows.

Added Quick Capture Records, Pinned, and Recent views with hover actions, compact search, drag-out support, image thumbnails, and save-to-file-widget actions.

Added upload-friendly storage access: managed storage can be pinned to Quick Access, opened from the tray, and mirrored with folder shortcuts for file pickers.

Improved drag/drop and clipboard behavior so file drags stay file-first, path copying is explicit, and DeskBox's own clipboard writes are ignored by Recent capture.

Improved file widgets with custom Explorer icon refresh, filename extension display controls, shortcut-arrow settings placement, and clearer migration progress/result feedback.

Improved tray/global-hotkey layering so widgets stay temporarily raised until the user clicks another app, and Settings can join the temporary topmost layer when opened during that state.

Improved Quick Capture polish with scoped-search messaging, target-widget refresh/highlight after saving, compact edit dialogs, tighter tab/action layout, and theme-aligned styling.

Improved first-run onboarding scaling for high-DPI setups and fixed several small layout, acrylic, and refresh edge cases.

Rebuilt first-run onboarding with a DeskBox logo intro, a five-step guide, looping right-side feature scenes, and Chinese, English, light-mode, and dark-mode support.

Added an optional global hotkey that triggers the same show, hide, and temporary-raise flow as the tray left-click action.

Improved Settings and tray access with managed-storage opening, Quick Access pinning, download-link actions, and maintenance controls.

Improved storage and mapping workflows, including default storage migration, mapped shortcut sync, orphan managed-folder cleanup, and steadier drag/drop behavior.

Removed remaining stale blur-toggle plumbing and release animation/window references more promptly after Settings or onboarding closes.

Improved tray left-click behavior so raised widgets stay on top while the pointer moves, then return to desktop level only after the user clicks another non-DeskBox window.

Added follow-up topmost confirmation when raising multiple widgets from the tray so every visible widget is brought forward consistently.

Improved tray right-click menu positioning by anchoring the WinUI menu from the actual tray icon rectangle and keeping it out of the tray icon hit area.

Added automatic backdrop refresh retries after widget show, tray reveal, theme, and appearance changes to recover acrylic surfaces that occasionally render as flat gray.

Reworked Settings into a left-side navigation layout with dedicated General, Appearance, Widget layout, Animation, Storage, Interaction, Maintenance, and About sections.

Added configurable widget show/hide animation effects and speed presets in Settings, with Chinese and English labels.

Reworked tray animation execution to use smoother frame pacing, real window movement for slide effects, and composition-driven opacity/scale transitions.

Reduced widget animation flicker by avoiding duplicate item transitions during mapped-folder reveal and by restoring the final visual state consistently.

Improved tray left-click behavior so visible desktop-layer widgets hidden behind other apps are raised temporarily instead of being hidden immediately.

Improved tray-launched Settings behavior so the Settings window opens temporarily on top and clears topmost state after focus leaves.

Improved temporary foreground behavior for newly created widgets, widget dragging, and folder picker ownership.

Added performance logging support and coverage for the performance logger.

Added Chinese and English localization across widgets, settings, tray menus, onboarding, dialogs, notes, empty states, and status messages.

Added a language selector in Settings and refreshed localized text dynamically when the user changes languages.

Reworked onboarding to expose important setup choices directly in the flow, including managed-drop behavior, the default storage path, folder mapping, and startup launch.

Improved onboarding visuals, right-side step animations, and repeated scene playback so each step better matches the feature being introduced.

Fixed startup-launch behavior so DeskBox starts silently to the tray after reboot instead of opening Settings.

Improved tray behavior so right-click "Show all widgets" temporarily raises widgets just like left-clicking the tray icon.

Improved widget show/hide animation with a unified right-to-left motion, removed per-widget cascade timing, and reduced mapped-widget flicker.

Improved mapped-folder reveal behavior by suppressing duplicate item transitions during window animation.

Improved light-mode styling in onboarding and settings, including text contrast, surface colors, and the active-step indicator shape.

Improved widget selection behavior so selecting an item in one widget clears selections in other widgets.

Improved drag-selection responsiveness and reduced repeated visual work during rectangle selection.

Improved shortcut handling so broken `.lnk` files use the native Windows resolve/delete prompt when opened.

Improved file operations around cut/copy, mapped folders, desktop drag-out refresh, and shell clipboard data.

Updated README to Chinese by default, added an English README switch, and refreshed release documentation.

Added a Windows-native onboarding guide, with an entry in Settings for replaying it.

Improved tray reveal behavior, widget show/hide animations, and temporary foreground behavior.

Improved default settings, reset-to-defaults, live appearance preview, and display density controls.

Improved widget file interactions including drag and drop, cut, rename, delete confirmation, and keyboard shortcuts.

Fixed installer dependency detection for .NET 8 Runtime x64 and Windows App Runtime 2.1.3 x64.

Improved installer shortcut icons and overwrite-install behavior while preserving user settings and managed files.

Initial public test release.