FAQ

FAQ

Do I need WidBar installed to develop a widget? Yes. WidBar is the host that launches your process and renders the preview — without it there's nothing to run against. Install it from the Microsoft Store.

What can I put in the taskbar preview? Rasterisable XAML: shapes, text, images, borders, gradients. Not swap chains or media (CanvasControl, MediaPlayerElement, SwapChainPanel) — those render blank because there's no live surface to capture. Use them in the flyout instead. See Preview, flyout & settings.

How big can the preview be? You ask for a width via PreviewLogicalWidth (logical pixels) and WidBar fits it into a free taskbar space; height follows the taskbar. Design something that reads at a glance — it's a taskbar slot, not a dashboard.

The same widget is placed twice — how do I keep the copies separate? One process hosts both, but CreatePlugin() runs once per copy. Keep all state in instance fields (never static) and tell the copies apart with IWidgetContext.InstanceId.

Where should I cache data? IWidgetContext.DataDirectory — a per-plugin folder that's already created for you.

How do settings work? Implement IConfigurableWidgetPlugin. Your settings are JSON in whatever shape you like; WidBar stores it per instance and gives it back via IWidgetContext.SettingsJson. Override OnSettingsDraftChanged for live preview while the user edits.

Can I use third-party or native libraries? Freely. You run in your own process, so add whatever you need — there's no shared load context to conflict with WidBar or other widgets. They ship as ordinary app payload.

I changed my code but WidBar still shows the old version. You need to deploy (register) the package, not just build it — and close the running …ExtensionApp process first, otherwise the files are locked and the deploy silently fails.

Running the exe shows a little info window instead of my widget. It was started without WidBar. Widgets only render inside the host; that window is the SDK telling you so.

How do I push an update? Bump WidBarPluginVersion (and the package version), rebuild, and resubmit to the Store. Users get it through normal Store updates.

Which architectures should I target? x64 and arm64 — what Windows 11 actually runs on.

How do I get into WidBar's in-app showcase? Open a PR adding your entry to andelby/winbar-showcase. Details on Packaging & publishing.

Where are the logs again? widbar-sdk.*.log under your package's LocalCache\Local\Temp, and the host log at %LOCALAPPDATA%\…\Logs\widbar.log. More in Debugging.