v0.2.6

Fixes

• Direct watchdog launches no longer open a console window. Release builds
  now run as a Windows GUI-subsystem process, so launching the watchdog
  directly (for example from a user-configured scheduled task) cannot expose a
  watchdog terminal for LeopardWM to tile or users to close.
  Crash supervision and Job Object daemon-lifetime coupling are unchanged.
• Windows input-method helpers no longer leave blank columns after sign-in.
  The IME and MSCTFIME UI helper classes are rejected during live and
  startup admission instead of remaining managed after becoming invisible.
• Windows session end no longer strands scrolled-away windows off-screen.
  Committed sign-out, restart, and shutdown now restore snap styles and visible
  window positions before the interactive session ends, preventing off-screen
  sentinel geometry from carrying into the next sign-in. Graceful daemon
  shutdown remains best effort after visibility recovery.
• Closing the console no longer strands scrolled-away windows off-screen.
  Console close and Ctrl+C / Ctrl+Break now restore windows parked at the
  off-screen sentinel before graceful shutdown, and the watchdog stays alive
  long enough for the daemon to finish that cleanup instead of killing it via
  the Job Object first.
• Trackpad modifier-scroll navigation no longer races through focus. Rapid
  wheel-message bursts are normalized and rate-limited while separated mouse
  wheel notches remain responsive.
• Battery animation preference is available and preserved in Settings. The
  option now controls battery and Windows power saver motion reduction without
  being reset by unrelated saves; disabling it takes effect at startup, while
  Windows Accessibility animation settings still override it.
• Layout Settings no longer overflows horizontally. The default width for
  new windows is now selected from a compact dropdown of configured width
  presets instead of an unbounded numeric index. Options show their percentage,
  and the selection stays valid as presets are edited or removed.
• Shell copy/move/delete progress dialogs are no longer tiled. Windows'
  file-operation progress window keeps a minimize button, so the style-based
  dialog check did not recognize it and reserved a column for it. It is now
  skipped by class and stays at its natural size.
• Automatic placement timeouts now show the correct paused state. When a
  five-second Win32 placement batch auto-pauses tiling, the tray immediately
  changes to Resume Tiling, its tooltip reports Paused, and a notification
  explains what happened. Logs now include every candidate window from the
  timed-out batch with best-effort class, title, and executable details, without
  claiming one was the blocker.
• Shell-open actions no longer invoke cmd.exe or block the daemon. Opening
  the config file, log folder, releases page, or settings links now uses
  ShellExecuteW on a dedicated COM-initialized worker, so shell association
  resolution cannot stall the event loop and characters like & or % are not
  reinterpreted as shell syntax or environment variables.

Improvements

• Read-only window admission diagnostic for bug reports. lwm doctor windows
  (and leopardwm-cli doctor windows) inspects live top-level windows and reports
  identity plus tile/skip verdicts for both the live-create and startup/refresh
  admission paths, without changing tiling behaviour. By default only windows that
  ADMIT on at least one path are printed (pass --all for every window). Optional
  --watch, --delay, and --include-titles help catch transient popups safely
  for public issue pastes. Live-create verdicts include the create/show WinEvent
  pre-gate so minimized and non-WS_VISIBLE windows report SKIP rather than a false
  ADMIT.
• Security policy accurately documents network and auto-start behavior.
  SECURITY.md now describes the optional GitHub update check (endpoint,
  frequency, what is and is not sent, and how to disable it) and the per-user
  auto-start registry key. Documentation-accuracy correction only; no behavior
  change.