Changelog.

General improvements. Custom folder launchers support.

New

• Open folders with: For people that don't use the default Explorer to open folders, Settings > General can now name another program. Empty keeps the Windows default.

Fixes

• The upload and download rates in the system vitals no longer count VPN tunnels, virtual switch ports and other virtual adapters a second time.
• Taskbar widgets and their panes can now open links, their own settings window and the power actions.

SDK/Authors

• A manifest setting may declare "type": "list": text rows the user adds, reorders and removes in the settings window, read back as an array of strings. Declare minAppVersion 0.3.7, since older apps refuse a manifest that uses it.
• dd.power.run accepts restartAdvanced, a confirmed restart into the advanced startup menu. Older apps answer INVALID_PARAMS for it: declare minAppVersion 0.3.7, or catch the rejection.
• settings.open, links.open, dialogs.pickDesktopItems and power.run work from a bar document and from its pane under the cursor-inside gate (the bar window, or the pane and its anchor). settings.open on a bar opens the Taskbar settings window and honours highlight.
• A bar manifest may no longer declare an explicit filePath, secretRef or instances field.
• The manifest reference now states the marketplace's limit of 32 settings entries; a preset name counts as one.

Per widget styling. Hide everything with a double click.

New

• Per-widget style: every widget's settings window now has a Style tab. Change its background, border, corner radius, text colors, accent or fonts, and only that widget changes; everything else keeps following the theme.
• Hide every widget at once: double-click an empty spot on the desktop, or pick Hide widgets in the tray menu. They clear away from the spot you clicked, keep running while they are gone, and come back the same way. Settings > General turns the double-click off.

Improvements

• Widgets now fade in and out as they show, hide, arrive and leave, one shortly after another instead of all at once. A widget no longer sits there as an empty tile while it loads.
• Theme builder: the eight tokens you change most come first; everything else sits under Advanced.
• Animation speed in Settings > General: off, fast, normal or slow. It times the widgets' own motion too.

Fixes

• A rare freeze right after sign-in is fixed. It left the app frozen with no taskbar at all, ours or the Windows one, and Explorer hung when the desktop was clicked. It came from the window library's handling of an Explorer restart signal at the moment the taskbar was being replaced.
• If the app ever stops answering for about ten seconds, it now gives the Windows taskbar back on its own and restarts, at most twice an hour. The desktop.watchdog entry in config.json turns this off.
• The taskbar's tray icons now load a few seconds after the taskbar appears, once the desktop has settled, instead of during startup.

SDK/Authors

• dd.theme.tokens() and the theme.tokens event now carry the instance's effective map, per-widget style included; dd.ui.token() already did. Nothing to declare: every token your CSS uses is covered.
• The motion tokens carry the user's animation speed, so anything timed with them follows it. Nothing to declare.
• When the user hides every widget at once, widgets stay mounted and running and only stop receiving input; widgets.setHidden still unmounts, and widgets.list and widgets.changed do not report the hide.

Drag to rearrange the taskbar, and widgets that shrink without breaking.

New

• Taskbar reorder: You can now drag any app or pin along the taskbar, same as in the normal Windows taskbar (might require updating the taskbars).

Improvements

• Widget scaling: Widget size now scales properly changes when using the scaling feature for big screens. So a widget scaled down doesn't break its layout.
• Popout panes follow their widget's Widget size.

SDK/Authors

• Taskbar widgets: the host now owns one ordered strip of pins and running apps. Read it and move a row with dd.bar.strip, and follow bar.strip.changed.
• <dd-apps sortable> gives a bar drag-to-reorder with no code: a cancelable dd-sort event on drop, and dragging and sorting states to style.
• Every reorder in <dd-apps> slides into place. Keep the entry host's transform free and put hover and press transforms on the parts.
• Below 100% Widget size a widget's pixels are larger than the screen's. Popout sizes and anchors stay in your own pixels; the host converts.

Smaller widgets for big screens, and a taskbar that stays on one display.

New

• Widget size: People with large displays (4k, ultrawide) can now choose to shrink the widgets on one screen from Settings > General. Pick 67% down to 33% per display.
• Taskbar on one display: If you have more than one display connected, you can now choose to show the taskbar on just one of them from Settings > Taskbar

Improvements

• License key entry got improved so manual entry is easier

SDK/Authors

• Widget settings can now be a date or a time, with a picker in the settings window.
• Text size: one shared setting, tiny to huge, for widgets that offer it.
• Week starts on: one shared setting for widgets that show a week.
• For widget authors: calendar date helpers and a measured text fit in the SDK.

Forecast data for widgets, and steadier polling.

New

• Widgets can read a weather forecast, the next hours or the next days, alongside the current conditions.

Improvements

• Editing a widget setting that feeds a data fetch now costs one request instead of one per keystroke.

Your games, on your dashboard.

New

• Games: widgets and taskbars can now show the games installed on this PC and start them, cover art and all. Steam and GOG to begin with, with nothing to sign in to.

Fixes

• The dashboard no longer freezes when Windows Explorer restarts while a taskbar is active.

Size your taskbar the way you like it.

New

• You can now scale your DeskDash taskbar from 50% to 200%. Right-click the taskbar and choose Taskbar Settings... to do so.

Improved

• When you update across several versions at once, this what's-new screen now shows each release you skipped, newest first, instead of only the one you landed on.

DeskDash can replace your Windows taskbar.

New

• Taskbars: DeskDash can now replace your Windows taskbar with one of its own, carrying your pinned and running apps. Open Add widgets in edit mode, pick Taskbars at the top, and press Use on one. Two come with this version, more are coming soon.
• The store has a Taskbars section beside Widgets, with the same Installed, Browse and Updates tabs, so new ones arrive the way widgets do.
• A taskbar is a widget like any other. It carries its own settings, and it asks for the same permissions: the start menu, your notification area, your open windows and your pinned apps, plus anything a desktop widget can use, such as the clock, media, sound and system readings. You choose what to grant when you install it.
• Right-click the taskbar for its settings, for the app settings, for edit mode and for Quit. Quit is there because your notification area hides along with the Windows taskbar while a bar runs.
• To get the Windows taskbar back, open the store's Taskbars section and click In use on the one you are running.
• Documentation and more taskbar capabilities follow over the next few days.

Improved

• Your widgets keep their place when the space a taskbar reserves changes.
• First run offers to hide your desktop icons, beside the launch at login choice.

Fixes

• Fixed app icons that sometimes came out blurry, or ringed with empty space, when a widget drew them large.

Show desktop works again while a borderless fullscreen game is in front, and the desktop right-click Edit item now starts DeskDash when it is closed.

Fixes

• Show desktop (Win+D) reveals the desktop again while a borderless fullscreen game or app is in front. Before, with DeskDash running, the press did nothing.
• Your widgets stay visible on the revealed desktop, and drop back behind your windows as soon as you bring one back.
• "Edit widgets" in the desktop right-click menu now starts DeskDash in edit mode when the app is closed. Before, the item did nothing until the app was already running.

Widget updates are one click in the store, and a new Updates tab shows everything waiting.

New

• One-click updates: the Update button in the store grid and on a widget's page updates immediately. A version that asks for new permissions still shows the confirmation first.
• Updates tab in the store: every installed widget with an update waiting, in one place, with a count on the tab.
• Widgets can send you to their settings: a widget's button can open its settings dialog with the relevant field highlighted.

Improvements

• Removing a widget is now a Remove button at the top of its store page; it removes the widget and everything it placed on your desktop in one step.
• Widget settings dialogs show a field only while it applies.
• Store covers load as lightweight thumbnails and the store's update check moves far less data.
• The updater no longer re-downloads an update it already has parked at Ready.

For widget authors

• dd.settings.open({ highlight }): open your widget's own settings dialog from a click, optionally flashing one field. Full rules in the API reference.
• Setting fields take a showIf condition in the manifest: the field shows only while another setting equals a given value.

The system stream now reports per-drive space, so storage widgets can show every drive.

New

• Drive space in the system stream: every fixed drive reports its capacity, used space and volume label, refreshed about every 30 seconds. Store widgets that monitor storage can now show each drive.

For widget authors

• system.vitals snapshots gain a drives array: mount, volume label, used and total MiB and a fill fraction per fixed drive, or null when enumeration fails. Full shape in the API reference.

Background images for widgets, pixel fonts with a Pixel Arcade theme, a widget request form, and a visualizer that can react to all sound.

New

• Background images: every widget with a Panel style setting gains an Image style. Pick it to choose a background image and a cover or contain fit.
• Request a widget: have some widget you want to see in DeskDash? Use the new Request a widget button at the bottom of the widget store and submit it. We'll review requests and add them to our roadmap.
• Pixel fonts: Pixelify Sans, Press Start 2P and Silkscreen ship with the app, joined by the new Pixel Arcade theme. Pick them in Settings > Themes.
• The visualizer can react to all sound: a new setting makes the bars follow audiobooks, games and anything else that plays without a media player.

Improved

• Secret dropdowns in widget settings gained a + button that opens the secrets vault with a name already suggested; the new secret is selected for you when you return.

For widget authors

• dd.image.load returns a user-picked image file as a data URL with no permission needed; the panelStyle preset applies it through dd-panel automatically.
• Audio widgets may declare a boolean anyAudio setting; the host reads it and lifts the media-session gate while it is on.
• Three new bundled font ids for manifest pins and themes: pixelify-sans, press-start-2p, silkscreen.

Fixes license activation behind strict security software and makes the app log safe to share.

Fixed

• License activation and the marketplace now work on PCs where antivirus, VPN or company software inspects secure connections.

Improved

• Connection failures now log their exact cause, so one log line is enough to diagnose them.
• Log files have been cleaned up to show only important information

For widget authors

• A widget can opt out of the right-click menu with contextMenu false in its manifest; right-clicks then pass through it in view mode.

A small maintenance release.

Improved

• Widgets created from the Developer page now offer your own settings by name in your code editor.

Changed

• The license check now reports how many widgets you have and how many are switched on

Making your own widgets just got a lot easier

New

• Developer mode: a switch in Settings > General for anyone who wants to write their own widget. It adds a Developer page, shows errors on widgets that break, and lets you open the browser developer tools on one. Off by default, and nothing changes if you leave it off.
• Create widget: one button on the Developer page writes a complete working widget you can edit straight away. It comes with everything your code editor needs to help you: what you can call and what it does, which colors and sizes are available, and a red underline when you mistype something. Nothing to install and nothing to build.
• Widget documentation is now on the website. Open it with the button below, or from Settings > Developer.

Control the way DeskDash looks

New

• Theme builder: design your own theme in Settings > Themes. Start from the current look, adjust colors, fonts, spacing and effects with a live preview on your desktop, and save it as a personal theme you can edit or delete any time.
• Bundled fonts: Audiowide, Nunito and Nunito Sans now ship with the app, so themes and widgets can rely on them on any machine. Ask for more fonts you want to see included, and we can add them to the bundle.
• Release notes: bigger updates now introduce themselves, like this one. You can turn these screens off, and the full history is always at desktop-dashboard.com/changelog.
• Today widget: the date set large across the widget, one or two lines of weekday, month, day number or year. Ships with the app.

Improved

• The Themes page leads with a Create theme card, and the Automatic wallpaper theme sits at the front of the gallery.
• Widgets can bundle their own font files, declared in the manifest and verified on load.
• The Neon Rain theme uses the new display face for headline text.

DeskDash 0.1.7

Updates apply when you restart, and only then

An update that arrives while you are using DeskDash no longer installs itself out from under you. It downloads, verifies, and waits at Restart to update. Restarting is what applies it: the next launch installs it on its own, no second click. In a hurry? Clicking the tray item or the button in Settings still updates right away.

DeskDash 0.1.6

A simpler setup guide

Every step is one line now, with pictures where they help. Adding widgets shows the tray icon you click, and a new last step points at support.

Your widgets live somewhere you can find

New installs keep widgets and themes in Documents\DeskDash instead of a hidden app-data folder. Existing installs are untouched: your current folder stays exactly where it is, and you can move it any time from Settings > General.

In-app update control: the edit palette now has a Check for updates button with live status (checking, downloading, restart to apply), including the real error message when a check fails. Update behavior itself is unchanged: nothing installs until you click.