PermaNotes v1.5.0 🚀

PermaNotes v1.5.0 is a major update introducing a live markdown formatting engine, interactive checklists, 8-way smooth window resizing, smart clipboard sanitization, a refreshed 3D visual identity, and critical stability fixes for Windows desktop integration.

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✨ What's New & Major Highlights

⚡ 1. Live Markdown Syntax Triggers

Type naturally using Markdown shorthand — PermaNotes now converts syntax in real-time when you hit Space or Enter:

• Headings: # , ## , ### ➔ Instantly formats paragraphs into Heading 1, 2, or 3.
• Horizontal Dividers: --- or *** + Enter ➔ Inserts a clean inline divider rule.
• Interactive Task Lists: [] , [ ] , or [x] ➔ Creates clickable checklist items (☐ / ☑).
• Inline Formatting: **bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~, ==highlight==, and [text](url) automatically apply formatting on space.
• Smart Arrow Replacements: Automatically converts --> to →, ==> to ⇒, and ---> to ⟶.

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☑️ 2. Interactive Checklists & Task Items

• Single-Click Toggling: Click anywhere on a checkbox glyph (☐ / ☑) to toggle completion status.
• Pixel-Perfect Hitboxes: Improved character bounding-box calculations to ensure 100% of the checkbox glyph is clickable.
• Smart Cursor Isolation: Hovering over checkboxes displays a clean Arrow pointer, bypassing WPF's default text-editor I-beam cursor. Clicks immediately adjacent to the checkbox accurately position the text caret without false toggles.

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🪟 3. 8-Way Smooth Perimeter Window Resizing

• Full Perimeter Handles: Notes can now be resized from all 8 directions (Top, Bottom, Left, Right, and all 4 corners).
• Zero DWM Flickering: Replaced native WindowChrome resizing with custom hardware-accelerated WPF Thumb controls, eliminating desktop DWM composition glitches and transparent window crashes.
• Batched Coordinate Updates: Resize operations batch Left, Top, Width, and Height adjustments to prevent layout redraw churn.
• Minimum Size Constraints: Notes enforce a clean 200×150 px minimum dimension and respect note-locking state.

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📋 4. Intelligent Clipboard Paste Sanitization

• External Background Stripping: Pasting rich text copied from browsers, IDEs, Slack, or Teams automatically strips foreign white/dark background highlight fills while preserving text hierarchy, styles, and deliberate yellow user highlights.

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🎨 5. Refreshed 3D Branding & High-DPI Windows Assets

• Modern 3D App Icon: Rebuilt Assets/icon.ico with 7 embedded resolutions (from 16×16 to 256×256).
• Store & Shell Asset Refresh: Updated all Microsoft Store tiles, Windows scaling assets (scale-100 through scale-400), and target sizes (targetsize-16 through 256) with the modern 3D branding.

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🛠️ Bug Fixes & UX Enhancements

• Desktop Wallpaper Layering (Z-Order Fix): Resolved an issue where clicking desktop-attached notes could cause them to slip behind the wallpaper (removed the disruptive WM_WINDOWPOSCHANGING Z-order block in DesktopWindowService.cs).
• Scrollbar Cursor Isolation: Mouse cursor properly switches to standard Arrow over scrollbars, thumb sliders, and repeat buttons rather than forcing the high-contrast I-Beam.
• Expanding Slim Scrollbar: Notes feature an ultra-thin idle scrollbar profile that smoothly expands on hover and drag for effortless grabbing.
• Lock State Integration: Locking a note (Ctrl+Shift+L or 🔒) disables all 8-way resize handles in addition to the text editor.

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🌐 Documentation & Web Portal (docs/)

• Promotional Landing Page: Added a standalone static GitHub Pages site in docs/index.html featuring feature overviews and responsive previews.
• Dynamic GitHub Releases Dropdown: Integrated a direct download menu fetching latest .msixbundle and .zip assets via the GitHub Releases API.
• Frosted Glass Sticky Navbar: Implemented a sticky header with backdrop-filter: blur() frosted-glass effect.

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⚙️ Build System & Project Configuration

• Process Termination: Updated build.ps1 to automatically terminate running PermaNotes instances before build/packaging to prevent file locking.
• Compiler Warning Cleanup: Suppressed WFAC010 in DesktopNotes.csproj while preserving required PerMonitorV2 High-DPI settings.

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📦 Package Artifacts

Package	Description
PermaNotes_v1.5.0.exe	Standalone portable executable (Zero installation required)
PermaNotes_Setup_v1.5.0.exe	Inno Setup Windows Installer
PermaNotes_v1.5.0.msix	Windows MSIX Package

PermaNotes v1.4.2 🛠️

This patch focuses on CI/CD reliability improvements and Microsoft Store distribution readiness.

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🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed GitHub Actions Build Pipeline: Resolved a critical issue where the automated release workflow was using hardcoded local %LOCALAPPDATA% paths for dotnet, causing builds to fail on cloud runners. The build scripts now use the standard dotnet command available in the system PATH.

• Fixed Installer Build Reliability: Resolved an edge case in build.ps1 where the executable rename step would throw an exception if a previously built versioned .exe already existed in the dist/ folder.

• Fixed Inno Setup Uninstall Warning: Added a RunOnceId to the [UninstallRun] section to prevent the process termination command from potentially running multiple times during interrupted uninstalls.

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⚙️ CI/CD Improvements

• Unified Build Pipeline: The GitHub Actions release workflow now delegates to the local build.ps1 and build_msix.ps1 scripts directly, ensuring parity between local and cloud builds.

• Wildcard Release Artifacts: The release workflow now uses glob patterns (PermaNotes_v*.exe, PermaNotes_Setup_v*.exe, PermaNotes_v*.msix) to automatically pick up versioned output files, removing the need to update the workflow on every version bump.

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📦 Downloads

File	Description
PermaNotes_v1.4.2.exe	Standalone portable executable (no install required)
PermaNotes_Setup_v1.4.2.exe	Standard Windows installer
PermaNotes_v1.4.2.msix	Microsoft Store package

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Full Changelog: v1.4.1...v1.4.2

About PermaNotes

Lightweight WPF (.NET 8) sticky notes app that pins notes directly to your desktop layer.
100% offline — no accounts, no telemetry.

PermaNotes v1.4.0

This release introduces major quality-of-life improvements, including the highly requested Click-Through Mode, a sharper UI, and a complete overhaul of how note windows stack and transition on your desktop.

✨ New Features & Enhancements

• Click-Through Mode: You can now make notes completely transparent to mouse clicks! This allows you to interact with windows directly beneath a note while keeping your important text visible on screen.
  • How to use: Click the new "Pin" icon in the top right of any note, or toggle it directly from the Note Manager. (Note: The small pin icon itself remains clickable so you can easily turn the mode back off).
• Smooth & Natural Scrolling: We've custom-tuned the scrolling behavior inside note windows. The mouse wheel speed has been scaled down by 30%, replacing jarring, blocky text jumps with a much more controlled and pleasant scrolling experience.
• Intelligent Note Stacking (Z-Order): Spawning multiple notes on your desktop is now significantly smarter. New notes will automatically and correctly stack on top of your older notes, rather than frustratingly hiding underneath them.
• Crisp UI & Text Rendering: We've enforced layout rounding, pixel snapping, and ClearType text rendering across all application windows (Note Manager, Settings, Search, etc.). Text and borders will now appear razor-sharp and perfectly aligned on all monitor scales.
• Smart Empty Note Cleanup: Creating a new note and immediately closing it will no longer permanently clutter your Note Manager! If a note is titled "New Note" and has no content, the app will instantly and completely delete it the moment you click the 'X' button. (Note: If you manually rename the note, the app will safely save it, even if it is empty).

🐛 Bug Fixes

• "Always on Top" Sticky Bug: Fixed a highly disruptive issue where disabling "Always on Top" or "Click-Through" would cause a note to become permanently stuck hovering over normal Windows applications. Notes will now correctly and cleanly drop back down to the desktop layer.
• Z-Order Hook Interception: Fixed a deeply-rooted bug where the application's internal Z-order guard (which keeps notes behind normal apps) was aggressively blocking intentional window transitions.
• Desktop Attachment Reliability: When notes are attached to the desktop background layer upon startup or state change, they are now explicitly forced to the absolute bottom of the Z-order stack. This guarantees they will never randomly overlap your active applications.

About PermaNotes

Lightweight WPF (.NET 8) sticky notes app that pins notes directly to your desktop layer.
100% offline — no accounts, no telemetry.

PermaNotes v1.1.1 🩹

This is a hotfix release to address a deployment issue in our automated CI/CD pipeline.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Asset Deployment Fix: Fixed an issue where the compiled binary assets (PermaNotes.exe and PermaNotes_Setup.exe) failed to upload to the GitHub release page due to repository immutability constraints during the v1.1.0 release process.

(Note: There are no new application features or code changes in this version; it is functionally identical to v1.1.0. If you have already built v1.1.0 from source, you do not need to update.)

📥 Installation

To install or update, simply download PermaNotes_Setup.exe from the Assets below and run the installer. (If you prefer the portable version without an installer, you can download PermaNotes.exe directly).

About PermaNotes

Lightweight WPF (.NET 8) sticky notes app that pins notes directly to your desktop layer.
100% offline — no accounts, no telemetry.

PermaNotes v1.1.0

This release introduces a major new feature, the Note Manager, alongside significant enhancements to rich text editing, keyboard productivity, and overall UI organization!

🚀 New Features

🗂️ Note Manager Dashboard

• Added a brand new Note Manager accessible from the System Tray or Context Menu.
• Centralized View: See all your notes in one place, whether they are open on your desktop or closed.
• Live Search: Instantly filter your notes by title.
• Quick Actions: Double-click to bring a note to the front, toggle its open/closed state, spawn new notes, or permanently delete notes right from the manager.
• Visual Status: Quickly identify note colors and open/closed status via visual indicators.

📝 Enhanced Rich Text Formatting

• Highlighting: Easily toggle a yellow highlight on selected text to emphasize important points.
• Strikethrough: Cross out completed items or old ideas (S̶).
• Font Size Controls: Added absolute font sizes (10px - 32px) to the context menu, and relative increase/decrease buttons to the format popup.
• Undo/Redo: Convenient undo (↶) and redo (↷) buttons have been added to the floating format popup.

⚡ Productivity & Shortcuts

• Insert Timestamp: Quickly insert the current date and time (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm) with a single click or shortcut.
• Read-Only Lock: Prevent accidental edits by locking a note into read-only mode using the header 🔒 icon.
• Power User Keyboard Shortcuts:
  • Ctrl + N : New Note
  • Ctrl + H : Toggle Highlight
  • Ctrl + Shift + X : Toggle Strikethrough
  • Ctrl + Shift + L : Toggle Note Lock
  • Ctrl + T : Insert Timestamp

🎨 UI Improvements

• Context Menu Redesign: The right-click menu has been meticulously reorganized into logical categories (Clipboard, Format, Insert, Note Actions, App) for a cleaner and more intuitive experience.
• System Tray: Replaced the old "Search Notes" option with the more powerful "Note Manager".

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About PermaNotes

Lightweight WPF (.NET 8) sticky notes app that pins notes directly to your desktop layer.
100% offline — no accounts, no telemetry.

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Thank you for using PermaNotes! Enjoy the update!

PermaNotes v1.0.0 🎉

Welcome to the first official release of PermaNotes!

PermaNotes is a lightweight, always-on-desktop sticky note application for Windows. Notes behave like classic desktop widgets — they stay securely on your desktop when you press Win + D (Show Desktop) but sit politely underneath your normal application windows.

✨ Features

• Desktop Persistence: Notes live at the desktop layer, keeping your workspace clutter-free while ensuring your notes are always a Win+D away.
• Rich Text Editing: Style your text with Bold, Italic, Underline, and 🖍️ Yellow Highlight.
• Full Customization: Choose from 9 built-in note colors or use the interactive Custom Color Picker (complete with a color wheel) to find your perfect shade.
• Dynamic Contrast: The app features smart contrast calculation. If you pick a dark custom background color, your text and icons automatically switch to white so they remain perfectly legible.
• Robust Auto-Save: Every keystroke and window movement is securely auto-saved. Your notes will restore exactly where you left them, even after a restart.
• Multi-Monitor Support: Place notes anywhere across multiple monitors. Orphaned notes are automatically recovered to your primary display.
• Opacity Controls: Dial back the opacity of any note to let your desktop wallpaper shine through.
• System Integration: Includes a system tray icon for quick access, an optional "Always on Top" mode per note, and a global Ctrl+Alt+N hotkey to create a new note from anywhere.

📥 Installation

PermaNotes runs entirely in user-space with no administrator privileges required.

To install, simply download PermaNotes_Setup.exe from the Assets below and run the installer.
(If you prefer a portable version without an installer, you can download PermaNotes.exe directly).