Winlestia v0.9.0

Winlestia 0.9.0

Winlestia is a free, open-source desktop shell for Windows 11, bringing a Caelestia-inspired interface, dynamic themes, glass effects, a customizable dock and powerful desktop tools. It replaces the surface of Windows, not the system: a dock instead of the taskbar, with a dashboard and glass panels on top of your normal desktop. The interface is a port of Caelestia. Licence: GPL-3.0.

Highlights

• Dashboard with media (and audio bars), performance and workspaces pages. Ctrl+F1.
• Command palette (Ctrl+F2): calculator, emoji, wallpapers, open windows, Windows Settings pages, indexed file search, session actions with confirmation.
• Dock with virtual-desktop indicator, window previews and optional automatic tiling.
• Quick controls with a Wi-Fi network list and per-display brightness (DDC/CI).
• Wallpaper switcher with live preview and per-display targeting; the colour palette can follow the wallpaper (Settings, Appearance, Theme, Automatic; the default Porcelain theme is fixed and does not).
• winlestia command line to drive the running shell from scripts.

Since 0.8.0

Added: Wi-Fi panel; brightness per display, with OSD for brightness and microphone; dashboard audio bars; fullscreen quiet mode; full-screen wallpaper switcher; palette entries for windows, Windows Settings, files and session actions; settings search; dock desktop + button and desktop close; tiling keyboard shortcuts and exclusions; "active window only" accent border; the winlestia command; optional, reversible terminal integration.

Changed: wallpaper collection replaced by 10 images supplied by the maintainer, shipped unmodified; Automatic theme default glass transparency is 5 %; panel text stays legible on bright wallpapers in the Automatic theme; data folder is %LOCALAPPDATA%\Panneaux (the former project name, kept on purpose), migrated at first launch; start-up through a per-user scheduled task; wallpaper applied through the Windows desktop wallpaper interface; messengers loaded on demand; several start-up and idle-time performance improvements; French, English and Spanish strings.

Fixed: desktop indicator refresh, OSD icon, a settings tile read after its delegate was destroyed, wallpaper palette over a live-wallpaper configuration, a binding loop in the Media panel, start-up log errors; the dashboard now shows the display name chosen at install (it used to show the Windows account name); upgrading no longer aborts while the shell is running; interface strings completed in English and Spanish, and the dashboard calendar follows the app language.

Full list: CHANGELOG.md.

Requirements

• Windows 11, 64-bit (x64). Not for Windows 10.
• No administrator rights: per-user install in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Winlestia.
• Nothing else to install. An Internet connection is needed only if you tick the optional terminal integration (it downloads Clink 1.9.35 from its official page and checks a pinned SHA-256).

Install

1. Download Winlestia-Setup-0.9.0.exe from the assets below.
2. In PowerShell: Get-FileHash .\Winlestia-Setup-0.9.0.exe -Algorithm SHA256. The value must match the installer SHA-256: c9c406669bd9e7205aba2c3458fb23b727cd53b74b1991bc0456d06152442834.
3. Run the setup (its wizard is in French only). Updating from an older version works the same way: the setup closes the running shell itself and keeps your settings.

SmartScreen. The binaries are not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen will probably show "Windows protected your PC". After checking the SHA-256, choose More info, then Run anyway.

Step-by-step guide: docs/INSTALL.md. Shortcuts: docs/SHORTCUTS.md.

If the taskbar does not come back

Wait a few seconds (a watchdog restores it), press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, use the Start menu shortcut "Restaurer la barre des tâches Windows", or run RETABLIR_BARRE_WINDOWS.exe in Glass-v5. All options: docs/TROUBLESHOOTING.md.

Known limitations

• The installer wizard is in French only.
• English and Spanish are translated for the shell panels; some rarer system-derived labels may still appear in French. The language follows the Windows display language and can be forced with the language key (auto/fr/en/es) in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Panneaux\Caelestia\language.json. Fallback text is French.
• Not tested on a clean machine or VM, nor after a real reboot or sign-in (the scheduled-task launch was tested manually).
• Binaries are not signed, so SmartScreen may warn.
• Windows 11 x64 only. Temperature is in Celsius only.
• There is no notification centre: only the on-screen indicator and toasts. Windows notifications can be switched off from the tools panel.
• Window preview quality in the dock depends on what each application exposes to Windows.
• Weather: with no city set, your approximate location comes from your IP address through wttr.in; the forecast comes from Open-Meteo. Temperature is in °C only.
• Bundled wallpapers: the 10 images were supplied by the maintainer and are not covered by the GPL-3.0 licence; rights remain with their owners (see assets/wallpapers/CREDITS.txt). A rights holder can ask for removal through a GitHub issue.
• Automatic tiling is off by default.
• Tested on a real Windows 11 Home machine with a single 3440x1440 display, not on a clean virtual machine. Other display layouts, scalings and Windows editions have had less testing.
• Enterprise (802.1X) and hidden Wi-Fi networks are not handled in the Wi-Fi panel.
• The optional terminal integration prints a welcome banner in French, showing your session and computer names.
• When you confirm a wallpaper in the switcher, the previous wallpaper can flash briefly before the new one appears.
• The wallpaper switcher also lists images from Pictures\Wallpapers, Pictures and the Windows wallpaper folders, not only the bundled set.
• CPU temperature can show N/A, depending on the hardware.

What was tested

Tested by hand and by script on one Windows 11 Home machine (single 3440x1440 display), with the installer built from a clean checkout:

Check	Result
Install, first start, dock replaces the taskbar	Pass
Upgrade from 0.8.0 with the shell running	Pass
Main panels open (settings, clipboard, tools, audio, mixer, capture, palette, dashboard)	Pass
Theme change and wallpaper-driven palette	Pass
Global shortcuts Ctrl+F1, Ctrl+F2, Ctrl+Alt+Space, Ctrl+Alt+W	Pass
Autostart task created, launched manually with the shell closed	Pass
Taskbar restored after normal close, after a killed process, and by --restore-taskbar and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace	Pass
Uninstall with the shell running (user profile and wallpaper kept)	Pass
Clean machine or VM; real reboot and sign-in	Not run
Other display layouts and scalings	Not run

These tests ran from an MSIX-packaged parent process, which redirects %LOCALAPPDATA% writes for its child processes; autostart was exercised from Task Scheduler, outside that redirection.

Reporting a bug

Use the bug report form with your Windows build, display setup and log lines with personal data removed. Security issues: see SECURITY.md, not a public issue.

Notes

Native helper binaries (GlassBackdrop.dll, ProcessAudio.dll, RETABLIR_BARRE_WINDOWS.exe, SECOURS_BUREAU.exe) are built from the C++ sources in src/backend/*.cpp. Third-party components are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.