v3.1.0

What's new

• Update checks now run every 30 minutes, not just at startup. If you leave the app running in
  the tray during a play session and a new version ships, it's downloaded in the background and the
  "Update now" link appears on its own — no need to restart to pick it up.
• Startup-crash diagnostics. If the app ever fails to launch, it now writes a full report to
  %LocalAppData%\PoeAncientsPriceHelper\crash.log and shows a dialog pointing you at it, instead of
  vanishing silently. This makes launch problems (like #27) actually reportable.
• A thank-you to our donors on the in-app Credits screen. 💛

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-win-Setup.exe below and run it (installs per-user, no admin).
2. Windows SmartScreen may warn because the app is unsigned — click More info → Run anyway.
3. Your antivirus may flag uiohook.dll (the global-hotkey library) — this is expected for a hotkey
   overlay and is safe to allow.

If you already have v3.0.0 installed, you don't need to do anything — the app will update itself.

v3.0.0

v3.0.0 — It updates itself now 🎉

We know the drill has been painful: every time there was a fix, you had to come back to the site,
download a zip, unzip it somewhere, launch it, and re-calibrate all over again. We hated that too.

This is the last time you do that by hand. v3.0.0 turns Poe Ancients Price Helper into a proper
self-updating app that remembers your settings.

What's new

• One-click auto-update. When a new version ships, an "Update now" link appears in the app —
  click it and it installs and relaunches into the new version instantly.
• Or don't lift a finger. Ignore the prompt and just close the app whenever you're done — the
  update is applied silently in the background, so you're already up to date next time you open it.
• Your settings are kept. Calibration, league, hotkeys and theme now live in a stable location and
  are preserved across every update. No more recalibrating after an update — ever.
• Real installer. Ships as Setup.exe instead of a zip; installs per-user (no admin needed).
• Updates are served straight from this repo's GitHub Releases — there is no separate update server.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-win-Setup.exe below and run it.
2. Windows SmartScreen may warn that it's unsigned — click More info → Run anyway.

That's it. From here on, the app keeps itself current.

Upgrading from v2.x (the old zip)

Run Setup.exe once. Because settings now live in a stable per-user location, you'll re-pick your
league and re-calibrate one final time. After that, updates are automatic and your settings persist
across them. You can delete your old unzipped folder afterwards.

Notes

• Requires Windows 10 version 2004+ or Windows 11 (for Windows OCR + WGC capture).
• Still unsigned, so SmartScreen / some AV may flag it (the global-hotkey component uiohook.dll is a
  common false positive). Expected — it's a self-contained, source-available build.

Credits

Auto-update is powered by Velopack (MIT). Full third-party credits are in
the README's Acknowledgements section. Price data from poe.ninja.

v2.2.0

v2.2.0 — Stable stacked-item prices + a Contributors credits screen

This release fixes the price label flickering between the unit price and the stack total on
stacked items, and adds a small Contributors screen so the people who help out get credited
in the app.

Big thanks to @exploitz86 — the stacked-price fix is based on their pull request (#24). 🙏

Fixed

• Stacked items no longer flicker between unit price and total. OCR occasionally drops the
  leading "Nx" quantity marker on a stacked row for a frame, which made the price label bounce
  between the per-unit price and the stack total. The app now tracks whether a quantity was read
  explicitly versus assumed, and keeps a short-lived (1.5s) per-item memory so a known stack holds
  its multiplier through a missed marker instead of snapping back. (From @exploitz86's PR #24.)

New

• Contributors credits screen. A new Credits link next to the version (bottom-left of the
  settings window) opens a small dialog thanking the people who've contributed, with links to their
  GitHub profiles. It follows your selected theme.

What we took from PR #24 (and what we left out)

@exploitz86's PR also bundled several other changes aimed at scrolling/latency. We shipped the
stack-quantity fix — the clear win — and left the rest out for this release, because they
traded the app's lightweight always-on design for behavior that needs more validation:

• A second OCR pass per frame plus halved scan intervals — together a large increase in
  CPU/GPU load for an overlay that runs continuously while you play.
• A confidence-gated render filter that could suppress legitimate (fuzzy-matched) single-item
  prices, and an added delay before single items show.
• Scroll-detection / de-duplication heuristics that are hard to verify without a lot of live testing.

We kept the parts with a clear benefit and a small, testable surface, and re-implemented them on top
of the current code with unit tests. Thanks again to @exploitz86 for the idea and the work — the
remaining pieces are worth revisiting later.

Due diligence

Because this builds on an external contribution, we reviewed the incoming changes before shipping:

• Security review — audited every code change: no new network calls, no process execution, no
  file writes, no reflection or new native interop were introduced. The change is confined to the
  OCR-to-display path. Nothing in the diff touches the disk, network, or system beyond what the app
  already did.
• Code-quality review — went through the diff for correctness and maintainability, simplified the
  merged logic, and added unit tests for the new quantity handling. The build is warning-clean and all
  96 automated tests pass.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v2.2.0-win-x64.zip below.
2. Unzip it anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd inside the PoeAncientsPriceHelper folder.

Self-contained — nothing to install, .NET is bundled.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004+ or Windows 11 (for the GPU capture + Windows OCR).

Notes

• Windows SmartScreen may warn (the build is unsigned) — "More info" -> "Run anyway".
• Antivirus may flag uiohook.dll — that's the global-hotkey library (SharpHook), expected.

v2.1.0

v2.1.0 — Fresh Fluent UI, theme switcher & a price-accuracy fix

A community release: the settings window gets a modern WPF UI (Fluent) look, a dark-theme switcher,
and a fix for items that have no trading data showing a misleading price.

Huge thanks to @dhaern (Raxxoor) — this release is built almost entirely on his pull request
(#23). 🙏

New

• Modern settings UI. Migrated from MahApps.Metro to WPF UI (lepoco) for a native, actively
  maintained Fluent / Windows 11 look on .NET 10.
• Theme switcher. 5 dark themes selectable from the settings window — Toxic (default),
  Midnight, Obsidian, Abyss, and Ember. Only the window background changes; the Start/Stop/Coffee
  button colors are untouched. Your choice is saved in config.json.

Fixed

• Items with no trading data no longer show a false "0 divines". poe.ninja returns no value for
  items that have no market data; these were being treated as a real price of 0 and could surface in
  the overlay as "0.00 d". Such items are now recognized and shown as a dim "no info" instead, so
  a known item with no price can't masquerade as a free one. (Thanks @dhaern.)

A note on fonts

@dhaern's PR also added a font selector with several bundled fonts (Fontin SmallCaps for an
authentic Path of Exile look, plus Angie SmallCaps and IBM Plex Mono). It was a genuinely nice touch
— but we left it out of this release for licensing reasons. This app ships as a redistributable
download, and a bundled font has to be redistributable too:

• Angie SmallCaps is a commercial FontFont (FontShop) — not free to ship.
• Fontin SmallCaps, despite being a "free" font, has a license that requires a paid extended/app
  license to bundle it inside an application.
• IBM Plex Mono (SIL Open Font License) would have been fine on its own, but the selector was
  dropped as a whole for consistency.

The overlay keeps its built-in Consolas font. We'd love to bring a font option back later using
only properly redistributable (OFL) fonts. Thanks again to @dhaern for the idea and the work.

Due diligence

Because this release is based on an external contribution, before merging we ran a full review of the
incoming changes:

• Security review — audited every code change (no new network calls, process execution, or file
  writes were introduced) and binary-inspected the bundled font files (valid font structure, no
  embedded executables or appended payloads, no anomalies of the kind a weaponized font would carry).
• Code-smell / quality review — went through the diff for correctness and maintainability; the
  build is warning-clean and all 87 automated tests pass.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v2.1.0-win-x64.zip below.
2. Unzip it anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd inside the PoeAncientsPriceHelper folder.

Self-contained — nothing to install, .NET is bundled.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004+ or Windows 11 (for the GPU capture + Windows OCR).

Notes

• Windows SmartScreen may warn (the build is unsigned) — "More info" -> "Run anyway".
• Antivirus may flag uiohook.dll — that's the global-hotkey library (SharpHook), expected.

v2.0.1

v2.0.1 — High-DPI overlay fix

A small patch fixing overlay placement on high-DPI multi-monitor setups, plus an easier way to
report problems.

Fixed

• Overlay drawn oversized / offset on a high-DPI monitor (#21). If you run PoE on a monitor set
  to a display scale above 100% (e.g. 125%) while another monitor is at 100%, the price overlay — and
  the F3 debug boxes — appeared too large and shifted away from the panel. Prices were still read
  correctly; only the drawing was off. The overlay window now stays Per-Monitor-V2 aware, so it's
  painted at true pixel size on any monitor scale. If your overlay landed in the wrong spot, this
  is the fix — grab v2.0.1 and you shouldn't even need to recalibrate.

New

• debug.cmd in the folder — double-click it to run with diagnostics (a console window plus a
  detailed scan_log.txt). If you ever hit a problem, run this, reproduce it, then send the log and a
  screenshot. The guide (README.html) has a short "Reporting a problem" section.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v2.0.1-win-x64.zip below.
2. Unzip it anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd inside the PoeAncientsPriceHelper folder.

Self-contained — nothing to install, .NET is bundled.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004+ or Windows 11 (for the GPU capture + Windows OCR).

Notes

• Windows SmartScreen may warn (the build is unsigned) — "More info" → "Run anyway".
• Antivirus may flag uiohook.dll — that's the global-hotkey library (SharpHook), expected.

v2.0.0 — Performance & Stability Overhaul

v2.0.0 — Performance & Stability Overhaul

This is a big one — a ground-up performance and stability rework contributed by the community
(huge thanks to @dhaern / Raxxoor for the PR #20). The app now uses a fraction of the CPU it
used to, captures frames on the GPU, and reads item names with the native Windows OCR engine.

What's new

• New OCR engine — Windows.Media.Ocr. Replaces Tesseract with the native WinRT OCR engine built
  for on-screen text. Items in the panel now detect quickly and reliably (Tesseract often missed a
  couple). No more tessdata files.
• GPU screen capture (WGC). Capture now runs on the GPU via Windows Graphics Capture, cutting CPU
  usage dramatically, with automatic fallback to the old GDI method if WGC isn't available.
  Configurable via CaptureBackend in config.json ("Auto" / "GDI").
• Lighter and faster all around — cached overlay rendering, faster panel detection, a price-key
  resolution cache, a length-bucketed fuzzy matcher, pre-compiled regexes, and parallel HTTP/2 price
  fetches.
• Stability fixes — overlay deadlock/concurrency fixes, atomic price snapshots, a GDI handle-leak
  fix, and a safer league-switch lifecycle.

Fixed

• Freeze when calibrating with the hotkey (#14). Pressing the calibrate hotkey (F4 by default)
  while the game was focused could freeze the app. The calibration overlay now reliably comes to the
  front so it can't get stuck behind the game. If you were hit by this, please grab v2.0.0.
• Per-monitor DPI kept correct on mixed-DPI multi-monitor setups (no regression of #8).

Kept

• The Mirror / Headhunter easter eggs are still here — re-introduced on top of the PR. :)

Our due diligence on this release

Because this was a large community contribution, we didn't just merge it blind:

• Security review — audited the full diff and the built binaries: no new network endpoints, no
  process execution, no hidden build scripts, no embedded payloads, and every dependency verified as
  a legitimate package on nuget.org. Clean.
• Build & tests — builds with 0 warnings and all 87 unit tests pass on .NET 10; the new
  capture/OCR pipeline was smoke-tested against Path of Exile 2.

This is what the PoE community is about — someone saw a tool they liked, put real work into making it
better for everyone, and shared it back. That's the whole spirit of it. Thank you @dhaern. 🙏

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v2.0.0-win-x64.zip below.
2. Unzip it anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd inside the PoeAncientsPriceHelper folder.

Self-contained — nothing to install, .NET is bundled.

Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004+ or Windows 11 (required for the new GPU capture + Windows OCR).

Notes

• Windows SmartScreen may warn (the build is unsigned) — "More info" → "Run anyway".
• Antivirus may flag uiohook.dll — that's the global-hotkey library (SharpHook), expected.

v1.1.8

What's new in v1.1.8

A targeted fix for multi-monitor setups where the screens run at different scaling factors.

• Calibration now works on mixed-DPI multi-monitor setups. If you had, say, a 100% primary
  monitor and a 175% secondary, calibrating on the high-DPI monitor produced a wrong region (size
  shrunk by the scale factor, origin off-screen), so the overlay showed nothing. The app now declares
  Per-Monitor-V2 DPI awareness at startup and captures the calibration box in true physical screen
  pixels, so the region matches exactly where you drew it.
• Calibration instructions stay on your primary monitor instead of occasionally rendering on the
  secondary screen.

Single-monitor and same-DPI setups are unchanged. Thanks to @ljere for the detailed report and for
verifying the fix on a real mixed-DPI rig (issue #8).

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v1.1.8-win-x64.zip.
2. Unzip anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd. No .NET install required.

See README.html inside the zip for the full guide (calibration, pricing, hotkeys, troubleshooting).

Note: Windows SmartScreen may warn (the app is unsigned) and antivirus may flag the global-hotkey
library - both are expected for an unsigned open-source tool.

v1.1.7

What's new in v1.1.7

Under-the-hood hardening - no new features, just a more robust app. Most of these came out of a
community code audit (thanks to @crichmond1989 for the thorough review).

• Price fetches can't hang anymore - if poe.ninja is slow or a connection stalls, the request
  now times out after 15s and retries on the next cycle instead of blocking for up to 100s.
• Your calibration is crash-safe - the config file is now written atomically, so a crash or
  power loss mid-save can no longer corrupt it and reset your region/hotkeys to defaults.
• No more stray debug_ocr.png - the diagnostic image dump is now only written in debug mode,
  so normal users no longer get a file rewritten in their folder while a panel is open.
• Removed some dead code and tightened shutdown so an in-flight fetch is cancelled cleanly.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v1.1.7-win-x64.zip.
2. Unzip anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd. No .NET install required.

See README.html inside the zip for the full guide (calibration, pricing, hotkeys, troubleshooting).

Note: Windows SmartScreen may warn (the app is unsigned) and antivirus may flag the global-hotkey
library - both are expected for an unsigned open-source tool.

v1.1.6

What's new in v1.1.6

• Uncut gem prices - Uncut skill, spirit, and support gems now show prices. Because a gem's
  value depends on its level, the helper matches the exact gem type and level shown on the item
  (e.g. Uncut Spirit Gem (Level 19) is priced as a level-19 spirit gem). If a gem's type or level
  can't be read cleanly for a moment - a blurry frame, or the panel still sliding into view - that
  row shows ? instead of guessing, and fills in the price as soon as it gets a clean read. This
  is deliberate: neighbouring gem levels can differ several-fold in value, so the helper would
  rather show nothing than a confidently-wrong price.
• Update notifications - on startup the app quietly checks GitHub for a newer release. If one is
  available, a red "Update available" link appears at the bottom of the window; click it to open the
  download page. If you're offline or already up to date, nothing happens and no link is shown.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v1.1.6-win-x64.zip.
2. Unzip anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd. No .NET install required.

See README.html inside the zip for the full guide (calibration, pricing, hotkeys, troubleshooting).

Note: Windows SmartScreen may warn (the app is unsigned) and antivirus may flag the global-hotkey
library - both are expected for an unsigned open-source tool.

v1.1.5

What's new in v1.1.5

This release is all community-reported issues:

• All hotkeys are now configurable (#4, #6) - Start/Stop, Debug overlay, and Calibrate each have
  their own rebindable key in the app. Defaults are unchanged (F5 / F3 / F4). Binding a key that's
  already used by another action is rejected.
• Minimize to tray (#2) - minimizing now sends the app to a system-tray icon and keeps scanning in
  the background. Double-click the tray icon (or right-click > Show) to restore; right-click > Exit to
  quit. The window's X button still closes the app as before.
• Multi-monitor support (#3) - you can now calibrate the region on any monitor, and the price
  overlay appears on the monitor your game is running on instead of only the primary one.
• Less overlay flicker (#5) - fixed a post-Escape re-flash where prices briefly reappeared for a
  moment after you closed the panel, and added brightness hysteresis so the overlay no longer blinks
  when the panel brightness hovers near the detection threshold.

Install

1. Download PoeAncientsPriceHelper-v1.1.5-win-x64.zip.
2. Unzip anywhere.
3. Double-click Start.cmd. No .NET install required.

See README.html inside the zip for the full guide (calibration, pricing, hotkeys, troubleshooting).

Note: Windows SmartScreen may warn (the app is unsigned) and antivirus may flag the global-hotkey
library - both are expected for an unsigned open-source tool.