TranslucentTB releases and changelog

New features

• Add CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F1 shortcut to reset dynamic state (thanks to @Wahid7852)

Bug fixes

• Make the app more resilient against re-entrency, reducing crashes.
• Fix bugs where the app would not be able to update the taskbar on certain monitors.
• Watch for package updates in the TAP
• Avoid ExplorerHooks in modern XAML taskbar
• Fix a few resource leaks in the TAP
• Fix the application not closing if you had a window previously interrupt shutdown

Bug fixes

• Use a thread for initial XAML diagnostics initialization, to hopefully solve time out issues
• Make MultitaskingViewVisibilitySink agile to hopefully reduce issues with desktop switching and Win-Tab
• Add functionality to allow killing Explorer when the package gets uninstalled, which should solve issues when the app is immediately reinstalled after being uninstalled
• Fix compatibility issues with application that fake a taskbar

Various improvements/changes

• Support taskbar preview via window messages

Bug fixes

• Use increasingly higher values for VisualDiagConnection when initializing XAML diagnostics
  • Should solve most "element not found" issues hopefully...

Various improvements/changes

• RTL languages are now supported
• Support for Hebrew locale
• Updates to Traditional Chinese localization
• Add app version in error dialog titles

Bug fixes

• Fix portable build trying to import a version of VCLibs that didn't exist.

New features

• Reintroduce the Blur feature on XAML-based taskbars (Windows 11 22H2 and up)
  • It is possible to control the radius of this effect via the blur_radius property in the JSON configuration file. This property has no effect on non-XAML based taskbars (for example, Windows 10 and Windows 11 21H2).
  • Users restoring the classic taskbar on Windows 11 22H2 and up (for example through ExplorerPatcher) cannot use this, because the blur composition attribute has been removed from the operating system.

Bug fixes

• Fix crashes on application close related to DispatcherQueue
• Fix Search opened on newer Windows 11 builds
• Rework how XAML diagnostics is initialized to hopefully reduce the error rate

Various improvements/changes

• Support for Korean locale.
• This release migrates from the Azure Code Signing private preview to the public Microsoft Trusted Signing service. Unfortunately as part of this migration, the certificate subject changed slightly (an accent was added to the e in Québec).
  • Because of that, this releases uses a new GUID for the tray icon. Your preferences related to the tray icon will be reset.
• Make the hide_tray option hidden to avoid users unintentionally hiding the tray icon.
• Add a new hidden copy_files option that disables the copying of DLLs to a temporary folder.
• PDBs are now hosted using Azure DevOps Symbol Server and use SourceLink.

Tagged in git without a GitHub release page. Its changes shipped in the next release.

This release is signed with Azure Code Signing! Future releases will be using ACS as well. ACS creates short-lived certificates for signature so the thumbprint is not fixed, however the certificate subject will always be the same.

Bug fixes

• Fix portable builds not working if the TranslucentTB temporary directory didn't exist.
• Fix erroneous "Couldn't configure TAP to restore taskbar appearance once TranslucentTB dies." message in the log.
• Make Start opened, Search opened and Task View opened states work on newer builds of Windows 11.
• Fix crashes with GlazeWM and the Magnifier app.
• Increase the timeout for the XAML TAP to hopefully reduce the amount of "The wait operation timed out" and "Element not found" messages being seen.

Various improvements/changes

• Support for Ukrainian locale.
• Improvements to German and Chinese translations.
• This releases uses a new GUID for the tray icon, because the ACS certificate subject is different than the previous certificate. Due to this, your preferences related to the tray icon will be reset.
• Remove the ttb: protocol, as it was an experiment for something that didn't end up working.

This will be the last release with the current code signing certificate (thumbprint 748540faf0a6932030e4987d83b1737cb0282a21) as it expires soon and renewal prices have become too high. I am investigating alternatives like Azure Code Signing. Stay tuned.

Bug fixes

• Fix the taskbar not being assigned the right monitor when it was set to auto-hide and two monitors where stacked on top of each other
• Copy ExplorerTAP DLL to %TEMP% in portable mode to allow ejection of a USB key once TranslucentTB is exited.
• Fix the app crashing if it was started before Explorer
• Retry injecting the TAP in case of failures, hopefully should reduce the amount of errors being seen

Various improvements/changes

• Improved several translations
• Add a ttb: protocol that starts the app
• Add inactive window state rule

This is a release targeting support for Windows 11 Moment 2, as well as adding several improvements in the process.

Bug fixes

• Support the Windows 11 Moment 2 taskbar
• Fix newly created windows thinking they where the active window when this wasn't the case
• Fix hide tray being hit twice not showing the dialog anymore

Various improvements/changes

• New supported languages:
  • German
  • Spanish (United States)
  • Turkish
  • Indonesian
  • Russian (Russia)
• Improved Simplified Chinese translation
• Localize more user-facing strings
• Add hidden configuration options to override the language used by TranslucentTB
• Add hidden configuration options to disable the new XAML context menu
• Update WinUI to 2.8.4
• Add a tooltip when the titlebar text overflows in windows

This is a release targeting support for Windows Sun Valley 2, as well as adding several improvements in the process.

New features

• Localization support

TranslucentTB can now be localized in different languages. Take a look at the contributor's guide if you want to submit your own translation! Currently supported languages are:

• Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)
  • Japanese
  • English (United States)
• Portable mode

On Windows 11, TranslucentTB can now run without needing to be installed. Download the TranslucentTB-portable-x64.zip file below to get started.

• Rules

Exposed in the configuration file only, rules allow you to customize the taskbar's appearance in a per-app manner: depending on the highest Z-order maximized window or the currently active window.

• Remove the taskbar line/border

On Windows 11, you can now remove the taskbar line or border depending on which state is active.

Bug fixes

• Fix battery saver mode being active despite the user having disabled it.
• Made some changes that should significantly help with TranslucentTB not working after the computer resumes from sleep or when a display is unplugged or plugged in.
• Fix poor tray icon contrast in high contrast modes like "Desert".
• Hide empty document errors when the configuration file is empty.
• Fix tray icon turning blurry when the system DPI changes.
• Fix search opened and Start opened states on Windows 11.
• Fix an issue where TranslucentTB's settings could end up being wiped when shutting down the computer.
• Fix TranslucentTB crashing if you uninstall it while the welcome dialog is open.

Various improvements/changes

• Allow blur to be picked again on Windows 11 RTM when KB5006746 is installed.
• Remove blur on Windows 11 SV2. This feature has been removed from the OS by Microsoft. It's likely not coming back.
• When blur is not available on the user's system, automatically upgrade them to acrylic.
• Enable XAML context menu on Windows 10 build 19041-19045 if KB5007253 is installed.
• Update WinUI to 2.8.
• Use the new Segoe UI Variable font on Windows 11 for XAML UI elements.
• Various code cleanups and modernization.

• Add battery saver state, disabled by default
• Fix error message being missing in logs when US english locale is missing
• Fix acrylic being broken on Windows 11
• Fix crash when a second instance is launched
• Restore blur option on Windows 11 build 22449 and higher
• Update to stable release of WinUI 2.7, reducing download size tenfold.

You can download this release from the Microsoft Store, or by downloading and opening the TranslucentTB.appinstaller file below.

This release is a major rewrite (yet again) of the application! A lot of changes occured, so here's a list of the major changes:

• Rewrite the entire UI in UWP XAML (hosted via XAML Islands), giving the TranslucentTB UI a much more modern look.
  • On Windows 11, the context menu is also an UWP XAML flyout.
  • New welcome UI, giving the user links to our Liberaypay page and Discord server.
  • Unfortunately results in increased memory usage :(
  • Acrylic!
  • As a consequence, the minimum version is build 18362 (AKA 1903)
• New Fluent icon
• Light theme support: the TranslucentTB tray icon turns black when Windows light theme is enabled.
• Dark theme context menu is also available.
• Changed config file format to a standard JSON file.
• Changes to the config file are now automatically reloaded when the file is changed on disk.
• Instead of being constantly looping, TranslucentTB is now lazy and DLL injects into Explorer
  • Flickering when start opens is completely gone!
• New defaults which address common user complaints
• The Peek button can now still be used even when not visible
• Increase reliability of hotplug detect. This should fix most cases of secondary monitors not being detected.

There are a few known issues as well! Many affecting Windows 11 only:

• There is a thin line on the taskbar in Windows 11. This is not a TranslucentTB-caused issue, this line is present even when it isn't running. It's just harder to notice.
• Acrylic color does not work correctly. It seems Microsoft changed the API in 11 and I've yet to figure out how it works now. #1C230F00 (or just using the normal appearance) works pretty decent for now.
• Start Menu opened does not reliably detect on which monitor the Start Menu is opened in Windows 11. This mode is disabled by default in Windows 11, but can still be turned on. It will be fixed in a future update.
• Search opened does not work in Windows 11. It has been hidden from the context menu in Windows 11. It will be fixed in a future update.
• Blur causes significant lag when an Explorer window is dragged under the taskbar. This is a bug in Windows 11, it cannot be resolved by TranslucentTB. It has been hidden from the context menu in Windows 11, but can still be enabled by editing the config file. Resolved in Insider build 22449.
• Opening the app again when the welcome page is opened results in the welcome page being skipped.
• In some very rare occassions, the app may crash on monitor hotplug. This is being investigated.
• The XAML context menu in Windows 11 is missing some icons or uses outdated icons.
• Restoring Discord from its tray icon does not change the taskbar's appearance accordingly until the window is dragged around or resized.

You can download this release from the Microsoft Store, or by downloading and opening the TranslucentTB.appinstaller file below.

NOTE: We switched to using exclusively MSIX for the app, so if you've installed it from the regular installer previously, you're encouraged to uninstall it, as it won't happen automatically.

Tagged in git without a GitHub release page. Its changes shipped in the next release.

Tagged in git without a GitHub release page. Its changes shipped in the next release.

Tagged in git without a GitHub release page. Its changes shipped in the next release.

Fix cortana detection in newer Windows builds.

To download, click on this link or select TranslucentTB-setup.exe below

This addresses issue #265.

This addresses issue #258.

This addresses the following issues:

• #192
• #199: if hardware isn't capable of providing DirectX 11 support, WARP will be used.
• #209: temporary workaround until next version, in the context menu click on Advanced > Refresh taskbar handles.
• #228
• Silent error at first run about checking if a file exists.

NOTES FROM THE PREVIOUS RELEASE STILL APPLIES. In short, download TranslucentTB-setup.exe and close version 3 before upgrading from it.

Fixes:

• A couple of CPicker crashes
• Task Manager and general slowdowns while TranslucentTB is open
• Settings aren't being saved on shutdown
• Softkills (taskkill /im TranslucentTB.exe) now works

Changes:

• Added save settings context menu entry

NOTES:

• If you download from GitHub, download TranslucentTB-setup.exe. The other four downloads are debugging symbols and source code archives to aid developers.
• Please close the older TranslucentTB version before upgrading. See the changelog for the reason why.

I am proud to announce, after a year-long hiatus, the next release of TranslucentTB! This version is also available freely on the Microsoft Store. By downloading it from the Microsoft Store for free, you benefit from background auto-updates for future releases and settings sync between devices at no additional cost.

Major changes:

• Command line arguments have been removed, the config file and dynamic windows blacklist now resides in %AppData%\TranslucentTB (and are backwards compatible with V3) and pretty much everything is configurable via the tray icon context menu.
• Fixed an issue where the config wouldn't load at startup.
• New integrated color picker.
• Added Fluent taskbar mode.
• Fixed bug where UWP apps would make dynamic windows get "stuck" in the maximized state.
• New dynamic modes: dynamic Timeline and dynamic Cortana.
• Improved reliability of dynamic Start.
• Each dynamic state has now its own color and effect customization instead of being hard-coded to a mode.
• This release and the new color picker are per-monitor high DPI aware. The context menu shouldn't look tiny anymore on high DPI monitors.
• We switched from an event to a mutex for single-instance detection. This also allows the installer to detect when TranslucentTB is running. When upgrading, it is required to close the older version before as it will cause a invalid handle error while trying to open the new version. This is because events and mutexes share the same namespace in the kernel object manager (as such a mutex cannot have the same name than an event, because they would conflict), and it's not possible to open an event as if it was a mutex.
• Added error handling and logging everywhere.

This release is also the place of lot of internal changes that decouples and refactors code and will allow us to further evolve in a much more flexible and faster way.

After a long hiatus, we have released a new version. This version comes with several new features:

• Dynamic Start (different states when start is open/closed)
• Improved Virtual Desktop support
• Dynamic Windows (different states when a Window is maximized or desktop is shown, __this is in Preview__)
• More tray options
• Optional tray
• Start with Windows (tray and command line option)
• Elegant exiting

All of the above changes have kept processor usage and RAM usage roughly the same as previous releases.

Please read Known issues and already filed bug reports before opening a new issue. If you don't have a Github account, and don't want to make one, you can also email me ‮.em.shnahte@nahte

‭ Please file issues here though, I'd prefer not to be swamped with emails. Thanks.

Thanks so much to @charlesmilette, @denosawr, @MrAksel, and @ghost1372 for contributing! This release would not have happened without them.

__Please note: you must manually stop the previous running TranslucentTB before starting the new version__. This will be the only time that is needed. You may also want to update the references to startup executables you made.

If you have any questions, feel free to chat with us on Gitter, or Discord.

Cheers!

Ethan

Thanks everyone for the awesome feedback and contributions!

This version adds several new features:

• multi monitor support
• command line options
• clear taskbar option
• colorful taskbar option
• unicode support.

These changes keep RAM usage under 2MB in my tests, and CPU usage still near 0%. I also did a battery test and found no significant change in runtime with the program running and without.

Also, thanks to eveyone who contributed, I cannot thank you enough!

You can download by clicking below on TranslucentTB.zip, or clicking here (direct download!).

Please see known issues before filing a bug report. Thanks!

Please also note that you must open start to reset the taskbar if you exit.

Ethan

This is actually not the first version, It uses a clear taskbar instead of the older translucent one.