Playnest v3.21.1 - Silent-safe installer

Installer no longer risks a hidden Retry/Cancel dialog during a silent auto-update; it waits up to ~20s for the old process to exit. Includes all v3.21.0 update-flow changes.

Playnest v3.21.0 - Updates that actually arrive

Update checks now run 5s after launch, every 6 hours and after wake from sleep (was: once per launch). No Windows toast; one restart prompt per version plus a tray item; Restart now installs silently and relaunches. updater.log added. Hardened library export, cover-art batch and scanner error paths.

Playnest v3.20.2

Added

• Setup wizard's welcome step now shows a supporting illustration (AI-generated via Bloom, brand purple #7c5cff) inside a light card/frame.

See CHANGELOG.md for full history.

v3.20.1 - Language consistency: installer handoff + leak sweep

The installer's own language choice (English/Hebrew) previously never reached the running app - only the Windows OS display language did, as a fallback. Picking Hebrew in the installer while Windows itself was set to English produced an English first launch, contradicting the choice made two screens earlier.

Fix: the NSIS installer now writes a small marker file recording the language chosen in its language-selector dialog, on a fresh install only. The app reads and consumes that marker once on first launch, before falling back to the OS locale as it did previously.

Also fixed: several hardcoded English strings that could leak through even while the app ran in Hebrew - the setup wizard's scan log, most of the Settings panel's toasts, background scan/cover-art progress messages, the Windows taskbar jump-list, the background-rescan notification, and playtime/size/date formatting shown on every game card.

See CHANGELOG.md in the repo for the full technical breakdown.

npx tsc --noEmit clean, npm run build succeeds, npm test 95/95 passing.

Playnest v3.20.0 - Completion status, launch counts, gamepad navigation

Research-driven pass: compared Playnest against Playnite (the dominant open-source launcher in this category) and GOG Galaxy before picking what to add.

What competitor research found

• Playnite tracks a per-game completion/play status (Playing / Completed / On Hold / Plan to Play / Dropped) as an organizing dimension separate from tags/favorites/collections - a gap Playnest had no equivalent for.
• Playnite's controller-friendly "couch mode" only exists in a separate Fullscreen Mode, and GOG Galaxy has no controller/fullscreen mode at all - every interaction there needs a mouse and keyboard.
• Both Playnite and GOG Galaxy show a "times played" stat alongside last-played date and playtime.
• A full plugin ecosystem (Playnite's biggest differentiator) was deliberately left out of scope - a genuinely large build, not a small bolt-on.

Added

• Completion status: set Playing/Completed/On Hold/Plan to Play/Dropped on any game from its detail view. Shows as a corner badge on the card, filterable from the filter menu (applies across every view), and a new "group by" option.
• Launch count: every real launch now increments a launch counter (the field existed before but nothing ever wrote to it) - shown in the detail view.
• Gamepad/controller navigation (Settings > Controller Navigation, on by default): a connected Xbox/PlayStation-style controller's D-pad or stick moves focus through the library, A/Cross opens/activates, B/Circle goes back - reusing the grid's existing keyboard navigation instead of a second, separate UI mode. This means Playnest's normal window gets controller support neither competitor offers outside a dedicated fullscreen mode (Playnite) or at all (GOG Galaxy).

Verified

• tsc --noEmit: clean
• npm run build: succeeds
• npm test: 93/93 passing (including new tests for all three additions)
• Manual Electron launch: starts without error

Full Hebrew/English UI translations included for every new string.

Playnest v3.19.0 - Update-install toggle, honest UAC copy

Added

• Settings > Updates now has an "Install updates automatically on quit" toggle, wired to autoUpdater.autoInstallOnAppQuit. Every other tool in this portfolio already exposes this explicitly instead of hardcoding silent auto-install - Playnest was the odd one out.
  • Default is ON, matching Playnest's existing always-auto-install behavior. This preserves what current users already experience instead of silently changing it on upgrade.
  • Background downloading of a new version is unaffected by this toggle and always stays on; only the self-install-on-quit step is gated.

Fixed

• The update-ready dialog, tray notification, and Settings status text now honestly say a Windows permission prompt may appear during install, instead of implying a fully silent install. Playnest installs to Program Files (perMachine: true), and confirmed by reading electron-updater's and electron-builder's own source, that installer always carries RequestExecutionLevel admin in its manifest - so Windows shows a UAC prompt on every install, silent flag or not. Available in both English and Hebrew.

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 noreply@anthropic.com

Playnest v3.18.0

Settings clarity pass, wizard skip, install-language default

Changed

• Settings > Appearance and Manage Collections now have explanatory hint text, matching the muted hint style already used across the rest of the Settings screen (which was already organized into General / Library / System & Startup / Updates / About sections).
• Setup wizard's "scanning" step now shows a visible Skip button, matching the welcome/drives steps (Esc already worked from any step).

Fixed

• First launch now defaults the app's language from the OS locale (app.getLocale()) instead of always starting in English. electron-builder's NSIS installer language selector only affects the installer's own UI text - it has no supported way to pass that choice to the installed app - so this is the best real signal available. Applied once, on a genuine first run only, never overriding an existing choice. The wizard's own EN/עברית toggle was already non-blocking and stays as a quick way to double-check it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 noreply@anthropic.com

v3.17.0

Export Diagnostics

New "Export Diagnostics" button in Settings > About bundles the app's
error log, version info, redacted settings, and system info into one
.zip file for troubleshooting with support. The SteamGridDB API key is
never included in plaintext.

Also in this release

• Landing page now has an English variant with a language switcher.
• Installer now installs to Program Files (per-machine) with a
  "Launch Playnest now" option on finish, matching the rest of the
  product line.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Playnest v3.16.0

Playnest now installs to Program Files (per-machine, with admin elevation) instead of a per-user AppData install, matching every other tool in this suite. The installer's Finish page now also offers to launch Playnest immediately after install.

Playnest 3.15.0

Settings > Updates

Adds a real Updates section to the Settings screen, wired to Playnest's
existing electron-updater instance (the same one that already silently
downloads and installs updates in the background):

• Current installed version shown in Settings.
• "Check for updates now" button that triggers a real manual check.
• Live status text driven by the real update-checking event stream:
  checking, up to date, new version downloading (with progress), ready
  to install on next quit, or a quiet error state if the check fails.
• Persisted "last checked" timestamp across restarts.
• Full Hebrew and English translations.

Auto-download and silent install-on-quit remain on by default, unchanged.