v1.8.9

What's New

• Backup & Restore: back up your widget layouts and installed plugins, and restore them on any PC.
• Smarter Now Playing: picks the best media session automatically instead of always using the current one.
• Admin page rework: redesigned admin page with fixed nav alignment; signups are now open.
• Profile page speed-up: skeleton loading and faster profile page rendering.
• Create a Widget guide: new developer guide on the website for building community widgets.
• Explore scroll fix: the page keeps your scroll position when the widget grid rebuilds.
• Sharper MSIX icon: 256×256 source with targetsize variants so the icon is never blurry.

v1.8.8

What's New

• Search in Explore: a search field above the grid, matching on name, author, description and category.
• Sorting: Newest, Most Liked, Most Installed or Name, from a menu beside the search field.
• Likes: each Explore card has a heart in its preview corner. Tap to like a widget; the count slides out beside it on hover and for a moment after a tap. Liking needs an account — the same one you upload with.

v1.8.7

Fixed

• A widget that needs a newer Desk Widgets now says so. Installing Now Playing on an older version showed a compiler error about MediaSession.Seek instead of a readable message. The app's check was right, but the plugin API number had not been raised when the seek feature was added, so the check saw nothing wrong. Reported by @arfanevan014.

For widget authors

The plugin API is now version 3. If your widget uses something added recently — MediaSession.Seek among them — publish it declaring API 3, and people on older versions will be told to update rather than shown a compile failure.

Files

• DeskWidgets.exe — the standalone app, what the website's Download button gives you.
• DeskWidgets-Setup.exe — the installer, if you would rather have Start menu and uninstall entries set up for you.
• DeskWidgets.msix — the Store package, for reference and sideloading. It is signed with a development certificate, so Windows will not install it until that certificate is trusted on the machine. To just use the app, install from the Microsoft Store, where Microsoft signs it.

v1.8.6

Desk Widgets is now on the Microsoft Store. Installing from there means no SmartScreen warning, and updates arrive on their own.

Fixed

• Community widgets could not be installed in the Store build. Every attempt failed with "It doesn't compile with this version of Desk Widgets". Packaged builds now keep widget sources where the compiler can read them. If you installed from the Store, update to 1.8.6 and widgets will install normally.
• Crypto showed a percentage labelled "24h volume" that was not volume at all. It now shows the real 24h value traded, such as $1.42B.
• Widget previews in Explore were different sizes depending on who uploaded them.
• Store builds no longer check GitHub for updates — the Store handles that.

Added

• Every widget now has its own page, so a link you share shows that widget's name and picture instead of a generic card.
• A privacy policy: https://whoissaaif.github.io/desk-widgets/privacy.html
• Reminders scrolls, and Now Playing has better artwork and seeking (thanks to the contributor on #69).

Note

1.8.5 was the first Store release and was never published here. It is the version with the widget installation bug, so 1.8.6 replaces it.

About the files

• DeskWidgets.exe — the standalone app. This is what the website's Download button gives you.
• DeskWidgets.msix — the Store package, for reference and for sideloading. It is signed with a development certificate, so Windows will not install it until that certificate is trusted on the machine. To just use the app, install from the Microsoft Store instead, where Microsoft signs it.

v1.8.4

What's new

• OLED Pixel Shift — new setting that shifts all widgets ±2 px every 5 minutes to prevent burn-in
• Settings toggles (Start with Windows, High Priority, OLED Pixel Shift) now show subtitles explaining what each one does
• Theme choices (System, Light, Dark) show a subtitle describing their behavior
• Double-clicking a widget card in the library shows a toast confirming it was added
• Dragging a locked widget shows a "no" cursor during the lock flash
• Widget removal now shows a confirmation dialog

Bugs fixed

• Config.Save() no longer blocks the UI — failed writes set a pending flag instead of sleeping on the UI thread
• Toast dismiss race condition fixed (double-dismiss between auto-dismiss and Show)
• Opacity animation: cancel running animation on new pick, preventing re-entrant stack overflow
• WidgetWindow.Render() guards against re-entrancy from synchronous animation callbacks
• ICS parser hardened: per-event try-catch, TryParse for RRULE values, guard against short date strings
• WidgetRegistry: thread-safe enumeration with locking
• MediaSession: catch COMException from stale session replacement
• Event handlers iterate a snapshot of the widget list, preventing InvalidOperationException during crash handling
• Fix resource leaks in Picker TextBox, AlertDialog icon bitmap, PopupMenu Process handle
• InputDialog preserves DialogResult across fade-out animation
• Resize writes config only on mouse-up instead of per pixel
• GIF profile photos on the account page are kept animated instead of being flattened to a single frame
• DesktopBackdrop builds asynchronously on first launch to avoid UI freeze

Downloads

• DeskWidgets.exe — single-file portable app, no install needed
• DeskWidgets-Setup.exe — installer with Start menu shortcut and uninstaller

v1.8.3

Bug fix

• Fixed a crash (ArgumentOutOfRangeException) when a mouse move or key event arrived after a right-click menu was already closing

v1.8.2

What's new

Animations everywhere

Every interaction now has a smooth, polished animation:

• Menus fade in and out instead of popping
• Widgets scale up and fade in when placed, reverse when removed
• Dialogs fade in and out
• Drag & drop shows a subtle glow while moving a widget
• Library pages slide in on navigation
• Sidebar selection and toggle switches animate smoothly
• Widget opacity changes are now gradual transitions
• Lock Position flashes a brief blue border as confirmation
• Update badge fades in after checking for updates
• Toast notifications — a new slide-in notification near the system tray

Infrastructure

• New Anim utility class: shared 12ms timer, ease-out quadratic interpolation
• New Toast class: layered-window notification with slide-in and auto-dismiss

All animations are lightweight (no per-frame allocations) and only run during their brief duration.

v1.8.1

Fixes

• Start with Windows no longer silently breaks when toggling High Priority — autostart now falls back to the registry Run key if the scheduled task cannot be created, instead of losing both mechanisms
• Library toggle re-reads actual state after writing, so it always reflects the true autostart status
• Scheduled task logon trigger uses a 5-second delay for more reliable startup

v1.8.0

What's New

• Inno Setup installer with custom welcome/finish pages, URL protocol registration, and "Start with Windows" option
• MSIX packaging support with startup task API for packaged installs
• Free resize for all widgets with corner drag handles
• Auto-update: checks GitHub releases, downloads and replaces the exe in-place

Fixes

• Community widgets now appear immediately after reinstall (delayed plugin load raises WidgetRegistry.Changed)
• --background mode no longer opens the library when config is empty
• Uninstaller preserves community widget plugins across reinstall

Other

• Explore page loads faster with direct REST queries and batch previews
• Server: re-invite expired accounts, index on approved versions for faster explore queries

v1.7.1

Fixes

• Widgets no longer vanish on Win+D. "Show desktop" raises the desktop window to the top of the z-order; widgets, pinned to the bottom, ended up behind the wallpaper until Win+D was pressed again. They were never actually minimized. Widgets are now owned by the desktop window, so they ride up with it and stay on screen.