Command-Center

A personal Windows desktop control center - every tool, URL, folder, script, and system command in one keyboard-driven hub.

Overview

Command-Center eliminates the fragmentation of scattered bookmarks, pinned apps, folder shortcuts, and scripts by consolidating every tool into one always-available desktop hub. A remappable global shortcut - Ctrl+Shift+Space - brings it to the foreground from any application; find what you need, launch it, and get back to work.

Items are organized hierarchically: Groups represent working domains (e.g. AutoHotkey, N8N, Data Analytics), Cards are thematic collections within a group, and Items are the launchable entries inside each card. Every item type - URL, software, folder, terminal command, or Windows system action - is first-class.

Item hierarchy:

graph TD
    KS["⌨ Ctrl+Shift+Space"] --> CC["Command-Center"]
    CC --> HOME["Home - Favorites · Recents"]
    CC --> GRP["Group (e.g. Daily Routine)"]
    GRP --> CARD["Card (e.g. Dev Tools)"]
    CARD --> I1["URL"]
    CARD --> I2["File"]
    CARD --> I3["Folder"]
    CARD --> I4["Command"]

Home screen - pinned favorites and recent launches at a glance:

Group page - cards and items, dark mode:

*The groups, cards, and items shown in these screenshots were put together to demonstrate the interface *

Features

Core Launcher

4 item types - URL, File, Folder, and Command (terminal with args + working directory)

File launches any file with an OS default handler:

Category	File Types
Executables	`.exe` `.bat` `.cmd` `.msi` `.ps1`
Documents	`.pdf` `.docx` `.xlsx` `.pptx` `.txt` `.csv`
Media – Video	`.mp4` `.mkv` `.avi` `.mov`
Media – Audio	`.mp3` `.wav` `.flac` `.aac`
Images	`.jpg` `.png` `.gif` `.svg` `.webp`
Scripts	`.py` `.ps1` `.js` `.sh` `.ahk`
Archives	`.zip` `.rar` `.7z` `.tar.gz`
Dev / Config	`.json` `.yaml` `.env` `.xml` `.ini`

System actions via Command - lock screen, sleep, calculator, and other Windows system actions are set up as Command items using the Quick Templates system (11 categories, 57 built-in templates)
Global shortcut - Ctrl+Shift+Space shows/hides the window from any app (remappable in Settings → Shortcuts)
System tray - closing the window hides to tray; the process stays alive and reachable at all times. Right-click the tray icon for quick access to Show/Hide, Launch at Startup toggle, Reload, and Quit
Fuzzy search - searches item labels, paths, and tags via Fuse.js; full-text note search via SQLite FTS5. Results grouped by group → card; keyboard navigate with ↑/↓, launch with Enter, dismiss with Escape

Drag-to-reorder items - drag items within a card to reorder them; drag across cards in the same group to move them. A grip handle slides in on hover (left of the icon). Sort order persisted to the database on drop
Drag-to-reorder cards - drag cards within a group to reorganize their layout. A grip handle appears on hover in the card header. Card order persisted to the database on drop

Sidebar

Group navigation - drag-reorderable group pills with per-group accent color and custom icon
Custom section dividers - right-click any group pill → Insert divider after to add a named ── LABEL ── separator line between groups. Dividers are drag-reorderable alongside groups, and right-click a divider to rename or delete it. Useful for splitting a long group list into logical sections (e.g. Work, Personal, Tools)

Home Screen

Pinned favorites - drag-reorderable; right-click any item → Pin to Home
Recent launches - auto-populated, last 20 items with relative timestamps and favicons

Item Form

Horizontal type selector - URL / Open File / Folder / Command displayed as a compact pill tab row; active type highlighted with accent fill
Quick Templates - 11 template categories (Shells, Dev Server, Git, Packages, System, Network, Docker, Python, Node, Ports, SSH) with 57 built-in templates; one click fills all three command fields instantly. Templates that require a working directory show a set dir indicator
Notes and tags - 450-word note per item with word counter; unlimited tags (searchable via FTS5)

Group Manager

Inline filter - real-time search across group names, card names, item labels, and paths; matching groups auto-expand and card panels auto-open
Expand / Collapse all - single-click to expand or collapse all groups; separate button to open or close all item panels simultaneously
Undo - a 5-second toast with a countdown bar appears after every bulk delete or bulk move; one click reverses the operation completely
Empty group badge - groups with no cards display a quiet "Empty" pill so dead-weight entries are instantly visible without expanding
Item counts in move dropdown - the "Move items to card" dropdown shows the current item count next to each card name

Webview Popup

BrowserView-based popups - each item set to "Open in Webview" opens a standalone BrowserWindow with a BrowserView inside, giving websites their own isolated Chromium renderer process separate from the main app
One popup per URL - opening the same URL focuses the existing popup instead of spawning a duplicate
Up to 5 concurrent popups - opening a sixth reuses the oldest popup window (each popup uses ~80–200 MB RAM)
Session isolation - all popups share a single persistent partition (persist:webview) with its own cookies, localStorage, and cache, fully separated from the main app session. Sign in to a site once and stay signed in across popup sessions
Editable URL bar - shows the page title while idle; click to see and edit the raw URL; Enter navigates, Escape cancels

More webview details

Right-click context menu - back, forward, reload, and open in default browser; back/forward are disabled when unavailable, evaluated at click time for accuracy
Eject to browser - opens the current URL in the default system browser and closes the popup
Always-on-top pin - toggles setAlwaysOnTop so the popup floats above all other windows
Protocol guard - will-navigate blocks file://, javascript:, data:, and any other non-HTTP/HTTPS navigation in the BrowserView
Task Manager friendly - window title format "Page Title - hostname" makes it easy to match a popup to its RAM entry in Windows Task Manager
CPU savings - frame rate drops to 1 fps while minimized, returns to 60 fps on restore

Icon System

Four input methods per item, all resolved to a local file at runtime - no network calls at launch:

Method	Icon source	Description
Auto / Favicon	`auto` / `favicon`	Fetches and caches the site favicon for URL items
Auto - fetch by URL	`favicon`	Type any URL in the Auto tab to fetch its favicon directly via `favicon.vemetric.com`
Emoji	`emoji`	650+ Unicode emoji with keyword search and grid picker
Library	`library`	1,460 Lucide icons with a per-item custom hex color
File - upload	`custom`	Local image picked from disk
File - URL	`url-icon`	Remote image URL downloaded and cached locally
File - base64	`b64-icon`	Base64 string pasted directly; decoded and saved as file
File - favicon	`favicon`	Type any URL in the File tab to fetch and save its favicon locally

Settings & Customization

Dark / light theme toggle
Font size (medium / large) and density (compact / comfortable)
Launch on startup, minimize to tray
Remappable global shortcut

Data & Privacy

100% local - all data in %APPDATA%\Command-Center\; no cloud, no telemetry, no accounts
Auto-backup - snapshot on every write, rolling 10 kept; full export/import via .zip
Item notes + tags - each item supports a 450-word note and unlimited tags, all FTS5-searchable

Performance & Scale

Items load per-card and cards load per-group - only the active group is ever in the DOM, regardless of total DB size. The practical ceilings for smooth operation are:

Dimension	Smooth ceiling	Notes
Total items in DB	~5,000	SQLite + Fuse.js index; no degradation until ~20,000
Groups in sidebar	~50	Pills render all at once; 100+ starts to feel sluggish
Cards per group	~20	All cards in active group render simultaneously
Items per card	~50	No virtual scroll; 100+ items in one card becomes heavy

A typical heavy setup - 20 groups × 8 cards × 30 items = 4,800 items - runs without any noticeable overhead.

Tech Stack

Library	Version	Role
Electron	30	Desktop shell, BrowserWindow, BrowserView, IPC
React	18	UI framework
TypeScript	5	Type safety throughout (strict mode)
Vite + electron-vite	5 / 2	Build tooling, HMR
Tailwind CSS	3	Styling via design tokens
better-sqlite3	9	Local SQLite database, WAL mode
Fuse.js	7	Client-side fuzzy search
@dnd-kit	6 / 8	Drag-and-drop reordering
lucide-react	0.378	1,460 icons, loaded on demand
jszip	3	Export / import ZIP archives

Architecture

Security Model

contextIsolation: true, nodeIntegration: false - renderer has no direct Node.js access
All system calls route through typed IPC channels defined in electron/preload.ts
All IPC inputs are sanitized via electron/utils/sanitize.ts before use

Key Design Decisions

Decision	Rationale
SQLite over JSON	Queryable, crash-safe, FTS5 full-text search
BrowserView over `<webview>`	Own process, non-blocking, stable API
State-based routing	No react-router needed in a single-window app
Dynamic Lucide loading	Barrel import excluded from Vite pre-bundle; icons loaded individually to avoid ~1 MB startup overhead
Auto-backup on every write	Never lose more than one operation
Custom asset protocol	`command-center-asset://` maps to `%APPDATA%\Command-Center\` with path traversal protection
Mixed flat DndContext for sidebar	Groups and dividers share one `DndContext` so dividers drag alongside groups without breaking sort order
Single DndContext for card grid	Cards and items share one `DndContext` in `CardGrid`; `data.type='card'` discriminates card drags from item drags so both reorder paths coexist without conflict

Data Paths

Path	Contents
`%APPDATA%\Command-Center\command-center.db`	Main SQLite database
`%APPDATA%\Command-Center\backups\`	Auto-backup snapshots (rolling 10)
`%APPDATA%\Command-Center\assets\icons\`	Uploaded and URL-fetched icons
`%APPDATA%\Command-Center\assets\favicons\`	Cached favicons

Source Layout

src/
├── components/
│   ├── cards/          # Card grid and card header
│   ├── groups/         # Group pills, color picker, icon picker
│   ├── items/          # Item rows, form panel, icon picker, context menu
│   ├── layout/         # AppShell, TopBar, Sidebar, WebviewPanel, SearchResults
│   └── ui/             # Shared primitives (ConfirmDialog, UndoToast)
├── context/            # FavoritesContext, SettingsContext, ThemeContext
├── hooks/              # useCards, useGroups, useItems, useSearch, useRecents, useWebview
├── pages/              # HomePage, GroupPage, GroupManagerPage, SettingsPage, …
├── types/              # Shared TypeScript interfaces (Item, Group, Card, AppSettings, …)
└── utils/              # ipc.ts, lucide-registry.ts

Getting Started

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version
Windows	10 or 11 (x64)
Node.js	v18+ (v22 recommended)
Visual Studio Build Tools	2022 with Desktop development with C++ workload (download)

Visual Studio Build Tools are required by better-sqlite3 to compile the native SQLite binding against the installed Electron version.

Install

git clone https://github.com/wsnh2022/command-center.git
cd command-center
npm install

If better-sqlite3 fails to compile after install:

npm run rebuild

Development

npm run dev

Note: If icons appear broken on first launch, stop the dev server and restart. The command-center-asset:// protocol registers at app startup and cannot be hot-reloaded mid-session.

Production Build

npm run dist

Outputs to release/:

File	Description
`Command-Center Setup 0.1.0-beta.exe`	NSIS installer (~86 MB, includes Electron runtime)
`Command-Center 0.1.0-beta.exe`	Portable executable (no install required)
`win-unpacked/`	Unpacked build directory

Quit the app from the system tray before running npm run dist. An open process holds a file lock on the .exe and electron-builder will fail with EBUSY. Delete the release/ folder if it exists - Windows Defender may lock the previous build.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
`Ctrl+Shift+Space`	Show / hide window (global - works from any app)
`Ctrl+S`	Focus search bar from anywhere in the window; selects existing text so you can type immediately
`↑` / `↓`	Navigate search results
`Enter`	Launch selected search result
`Escape`	Close search overlay / dismiss modals

The global shortcut is remappable in Settings → Shortcuts.

Context Menus (right-click)

Target	Actions available
Any item row	Open in Webview, Pin / Unpin, Select, Edit, Copy path, Move to card, Delete
Webview popup content area	Back, Forward, Reload, Open in browser
Group pill in sidebar	Rename / Edit, Delete, Insert divider after
Custom sidebar divider	Rename, Delete
System tray icon	Show / Hide window, Launch at Startup (checkbox), Reload, Quit

Roadmap

v0.1.0-beta - feature-complete for daily use.

Feature	Status
Core launcher (URL, File, Folder, Command)	✅ Shipped
Global shortcut, system tray, minimize to tray	✅ Shipped
Fuzzy search (Fuse.js) + full-text note search (FTS5)	✅ Shipped
Favorites + recents home screen	✅ Shipped
Icon system (emoji, library, custom, favicon, base64)	✅ Shipped
Drag-to-reorder items within and across cards	✅ Shipped
Drag-to-reorder cards within a group	✅ Shipped
Sidebar custom dividers with drag reorder	✅ Shipped
Group Manager (inline filter, bulk actions, undo)	✅ Shipped
Webview popup (BrowserView, session isolation, eject, pin)	✅ Shipped
Import / Export (ZIP archive) + rolling auto-backup	✅ Shipped
Global shortcut remapping	✅ Shipped

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss significant changes. For bug reports, include your Windows version, Node.js version, and steps to reproduce.

A note on how this was built

Built with AI assistance (Claude Code). The AI was a fast executor. Every decision, judgment, and direction came from the human behind it.

Author

Built by wsnh2022 - Automation Engineer and Electron desktop developer based in India. Portfolio: wsnh2022.github.io

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 40 Commits
electron		electron
public		public
roadmap		roadmap
screenshots		screenshots
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
.npmrc		.npmrc
README.md		README.md
RELEASE_NOTES.md		RELEASE_NOTES.md
electron.vite.config.ts		electron.vite.config.ts
index.html		index.html
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
postcss.config.js		postcss.config.js
tailwind.config.ts		tailwind.config.ts
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
tsconfig.node.json		tsconfig.node.json

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