Launchbox

Launchbox is a modern, lightweight Windows desktop application launcher built with WinUI 3 and .NET 10. It integrates seamlessly with your system tray, providing instant access to your favorite shortcuts from one or more folders with a global hotkey.

Features

• ⚡ Fast Access: Instantly toggle the launcher with a configurable global hotkey (default Alt+S).
• 🖥️ System Tray Integration: Runs quietly in the background, accessible via a tray icon.
• 📂 Multi-Folder Sources: Configure multiple shortcut folders with add, remove, reorder, and rename support in Settings.
• ⌨️ Keyboard Navigation: Type anywhere to search, Enter to launch the focused shortcut. Drag-and-drop to reorder shortcuts; reordering is disabled while a search filter is active.
• 🗂️ Flexible View Modes: Display shortcuts merged alphabetically or grouped by source folder, with collapsible groups for better organization.
• 🎨 Modern UI: Built with WinUI 3 with an acrylic backdrop for a native Windows 11 look and feel.
• 🌍 Localization: Automatically uses your Windows language, with support for 13 languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese).
• 🔗 Support for Various Shortcuts: Handles standard application shortcuts (.lnk) and Internet shortcuts (.url), including web URLs and app-protocol shortcuts for Steam, Discord, Spotify, Xbox, and more.
• 🖼️ Custom Icons: Override any shortcut's icon by placing a .png or .ico file in the .icons directory alongside your shortcuts.
• ⚙️ Settings: Dedicated settings window for hotkey, shortcut folders, view mode, startup behavior, and window management.
• 🚀 Run at Startup: Optionally launch Launchbox on Windows startup via MSIX StartupTask.
• ↔️ Resizable Window: Freely resize the launcher with minimum size enforcement and work-area clamping. Enable Keep Centered to snap the window to the center of your active display each time it opens.
• 📌 Draggable Window: Reposition the launcher window by dragging; position persists across sessions.

Installation

Launchbox is distributed as a packaged MSIX installer for x64 and ARM64 Windows systems.

1. Download the latest release from the Releases page.
2. Double-click the .msix file to install.
3. Once installed, Launchbox will start automatically.

Development Setup

To build and run Launchbox locally, follow these steps:

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) or Windows 11
• Visual Studio 2022 (17.8 or later) with the following workloads:
  • .NET Desktop Development
  • Universal Windows Platform development (optional, but recommended for WinUI templates)
• .NET 10.0 SDK
• Supported architectures: x64 and ARM64

Building from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/mikekthx/Launchbox.git
   cd Launchbox

2. Restore dependencies:

   dotnet restore Launchbox.sln

3. Build the project: Note: You must specify a supported platform (x64 or ARM64) as WinUI 3 does not support AnyCPU.

   dotnet build Launchbox.csproj -p:Platform=x64

4. Run the application:

   dotnet run --project Launchbox.csproj

Testing

The project uses xUnit for unit testing. Run tests with:

dotnet test Launchbox.Tests/Launchbox.Tests.csproj

Contributing

I welcome any contributions! Please follow these guidelines:

1. Fork the repository and create a new branch for your feature or bugfix.
2. Ensure your code adheres to the project's coding standards. We enforce dotnet format in our CI pipeline.
   • Run dotnet format locally before committing to catch style issues.
3. Submit a Pull Request with a clear description of your changes.