Nucleus 1.0.0 (f80bbc3b7c58d27a0937cd5a36e8ea09a7b8ce14)

Full Changelog: 1.0.0...v1.0.0

Nucleus 1.0.0

Nucleus 1.0.0

A polished, always-running radial launcher for Windows. Press a global hotkey and a crisp, animated wheel pops up at your mouse cursor — click a segment to launch apps, open URLs, run commands, replay keystroke macros, or trigger built-in Windows actions. Everything is configurable from a real Settings window. No account, no telemetry, no ads.

Nucleus is the new name of Radial Wheel — settings from the old name migrate automatically on first launch.

Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + Space (or make Middle / Back / Forward mouse buttons your summon key). First launch walks you through a four-step welcome guide; replay it anytime from the tray → Show welcome….

Highlights

• Up to 4 rings, live-editable in Settings with a preview that uses the exact same renderer as the real wheel — 14 theme presets, per-segment colors, icons from Segoe Fluent / MDL2, Dashboard Icons logos, or your own images (PNG/JPG/GIF/WebP/BMP/ICO/SVG).
• Program icons for free — pick an installed program and the segment wears that program's real icon, pulled from the Windows shell.
• 9 action types: app · url · file · command · macro · sys (lock/mute/screenshot/Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth/…incl. audio-device switching) · setting (live toggles) · folder (branching fan) · recent (self-filling most-used fan).
• A real macro engine through SendInput: chords, type: Unicode text, wait=, mouse clicks/scroll, hold=, repeat= — fully bounded before a single event is injected, so no script can hang your input.
• Drag to select — sweep across the wheel, folders fan open as you pass, release to fire.
• Type to filter — summon and just start typing; the best match is selected, Enter fires it (folder contents included).
• App profiles — a different wheel per app: up to 8 profiles, each takes over the wheel whenever one of its programs has focus.
• Gaming mode — the wheel (and its hotkey) politely disappear while a fullscreen game or one of your listed programs owns the screen.
• Audio tab + mixer segment — switch output/input devices, master volume/mute, and a per-app volume mixer — inside Settings and as a flyout card beside the wheel.
• Settings that respect you: debounced autosave with rolling backups and one-click Undo, config-export packages that carry your custom icons (content-address verified), a Usage panel, soft synthesized hover/select sounds (off by default, zero audio files), and hot-reload — hand-edit config.json and the running wheel picks it up.

Installing

Setup (recommended): run Nucleus-1.0.0-b20-setup.exe — installs to your user profile (no admin), lives in the tray, and appears in Apps & features for clean uninstall (your config survives uninstall).

Portable: run Nucleus-1.0.0-b20-portable.exe from wherever you like.

First launch opens the welcome guide; on the installed app the last step can turn on start with Windows.

Heads-up: these builds are not code-signed (yet), so Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC" on first run — click More info → Run anyway. The app is Electron + koffi against user32.dll, and the source is right here — build it yourself and compare if you like.

Your data

Settings live in %APPDATA%\Nucleus\config.json (usage stats in state.json, custom icons in %APPDATA%\Nucleus\icons\custom). Uninstalling keeps everything; previous Radial Wheel settings are migrated on first launch.

Known caveats

• sleep uses SetSuspendState — if hibernation is enabled, Windows hibernates instead.
• A mouse-button summon rides a low-level hook; quit unhooks it, so Middle/Back/Forward go straight back to normal. Unexpected hook errors fail open — your click reaches the app, never eaten.
• If your summon combo is taken by another app at startup, Nucleus keeps running, warns via tray balloon, and flags it red in Settings.

Support

Nucleus is free, open and ad-free. If the wheel has earned a place on your desktop, donations fund more features, fixes and polish:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/kurtishight — same link lives in Settings → Advanced and the tray menu.

License

MIT — use it, modify it, share it, even sell copies. Bundled icons come from Segoe Fluent / MDL2, governed by Microsoft's font licensing.