WidgX

A modern desktop‑widget overlay for Windows. WidgX paints a set of customizable widgets directly onto your wallpaper (behind your icons and windows), with a visual designer for arranging them per monitor. It runs from the system tray and needs no administrator rights.

Built with WPF on .NET 8.

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Features

• Desktop overlay — widgets are drawn on the desktop "wallpaper" layer, so they sit behind your windows and stay out of the way. Click‑through everywhere except the widgets themselves.
• Visual designer — a WYSIWYG canvas that mirrors your monitor's real resolution (DPI‑aware), with drag/resize and PowerPoint‑style alignment snapping (edges and centers of other widgets, plus the screen center) with guide lines.
• Per‑widget styling — opacity (fades the card background and border, never the content), accent color (live preview + RGB sliders + swatches), font size, and a font picker with live previews of every installed font.
• Multi‑monitor — pick which monitor to render on; the picker shows the real model name and resolution (e.g. Dell U2720Q — 2560×1440 (Primary)).
• Dark glass theme throughout the widgets and the designer.
• Self‑contained distribution — the build bundles the .NET runtime, so the output folder runs on a machine without .NET installed.

Widgets

Widget	Description
Clock	Time, weekday and date. Reorder/toggle each line, per‑item font size, and a choice of date formats.
Calendar	Current month grid with today highlighted.
Weather + Forecast	Current conditions and a 5‑day forecast with weather icons (data from Open‑Meteo).
System Stats (CPU/RAM/GPU/VRAM)	Animated radial gauges for CPU, RAM, GPU and dedicated VRAM usage.
Now Playing	Current track from any media app, with album cover (circular spinning "record" disk or full square art), song progress, an optional color‑fade background sampled from the cover, and a marquee title when it doesn't fit.
Battery (BT / USB devices)	Battery level for connected devices — Bluetooth audio, controllers, and USB/HID peripherals. Show one device or all devices that report a level.
Todos	A modern checklist with due dates (custom dark date picker), completed‑item styling, and quick add.
Uptime	How long the machine has been running.

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Requirements

• Windows 10 version 2004 (build 19041) or newer.
• No administrator rights required. Autostart is registered under the current user (HKCU) only.
• To build from source: the .NET 8 SDK.

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Install

Download the latest WidgX-<version>-win-x64.msi from the Releases page and run it. It installs per‑user (no administrator rights) into %LocalAppData%\Programs\WidgX, adds a Start Menu shortcut, and registers an Add/Remove Programs entry. Alternatively, download the .zip, extract it, and run WidgX.exe directly.

WidgX checks GitHub for newer releases on startup and from the tray menu (Check for Updates); when one is available it shows a notification that links to the download.

Build & run

Quick build (recommended)

Run the build script from the repository root:

rebuild.bat

This publishes a self‑contained, Release win-x64 build (the .NET runtime is bundled) into the build\ directory. Launch it with:

build\WidgX.exe

Using the .NET SDK directly

dotnet run --project src\WidgX\WidgX.csproj

Or publish manually:

dotnet publish src\WidgX\WidgX.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true -o build

Build the installer

Install the free WiX v5 toolset once (dotnet tool install --global wix --version 5.0.2), then run:

installer\build-installer.bat

This rebuilds the app and produces a single per‑user MSI in dist\.

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Usage

1. Launch WidgX.exe. It starts in the system tray.
2. Right‑click the tray icon and open the Designer.
3. Add widgets from the palette, then drag/resize them on the canvas. Alignment guides appear while dragging.
4. Select a widget to edit its properties (position, size, opacity, accent color, font, and widget‑specific options) in the panel on the right.
5. Apply updates the live overlay without closing the designer; Save applies and closes; Discard closes without saving.
6. Enable "Run WidgX when Windows starts" in the Settings tab for autostart, and set your weather location there.

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Configuration & data

User data lives in %AppData%\WidgX\:

• layout.json — widget layout and per‑widget settings.
• settings.json — app settings (weather location, autostart, designer window bounds).
• todos.json — todo items.

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Project layout

src/WidgX/            Application (WPF, .NET 8)
  Overlay/            Desktop overlay window, monitor/DPI resolution
  Designer/           Designer window, snapping, custom controls
  Controls/           Reusable controls (radial gauge, color helpers, date picker)
  Widgets/            One folder per widget (view + service + registration)
  Themes/             Shared dark‑glass resource dictionary
  Persistence/        JSON storage for layout/settings/todos
tests/WidgX.Tests/    xUnit tests
docs/                 Design specs and plans
rebuild.bat           Self‑contained build script

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Testing

dotnet test

The suite covers the pure logic behind the widgets and designer (formatting, gauge geometry, color/hex conversion, alignment snapping, palette extraction, battery name normalization, monitor label formatting, and more).

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Notes

• The overlay is per‑monitor‑DPI aware; the designer canvas is sized in device‑independent units so it represents the screen correctly at any scaling.
• Media info uses the Windows System Media Transport Controls; Bluetooth/USB battery and device enumeration use the Windows device APIs; total VRAM is read via DXGI. All are read‑only and require no elevation.
• Weather requests are sent to Open‑Meteo's public API using the location you set.