A year since the last release, today we release the latest build of Nimi Places 20260211 codenamed 逆天 (Pinyin: nìtiān). Notably build brings support for packaged applications as well as improves the Internet shortcuts support.
Build brings also many fixes. Issue with respecting automatic updates policy as well as support for using custom update sources (advanced) have been fixed. Importantly context menu behaviour has been thoroughly revised, and many issues were fixed, including:
- fixing its positioning,
- input handling during its animation.
Other notable addition is support for conditionally loading containers only on specific system virtual desktop.
Importantly build reverts default Place type container theme to dark; its variant using accent color is now available through revised themes menu.
Worth of mention is a compile toolchain revision, which have caused an extra delay to release time. This was mostly due to time required to work on side-project work-codenamed Jade, which is now part of it.
Lastly distribution package have been revised as to provide stable: unpacking, installing and uninstalling experience. Significantly, now distribution package defaults to newer framework version to avoid missing framework prompts on newer operating systems. Nonetheless, it can still be used with older framework, but requires adding appropriate manifest configuration manually.
- Added AUMID support.
- Added avoiding writing default values, when packing Place type container theme.
- Added certificate installation to distribution package.
- Added copying instance executable configuration file for downloaded update package.
- Added creating shortcut for application on installation.
- Added digital signatures to project executables.
- Added distribution package removal, when uninstalling installed instance.
- Added grouping Place type container themes by name.
- Added keyboard navigation to settings list.
- Added multiplexing for time changed event.
- Added multiplexing network access requests prompts.
- Added non-classic applications thumbnail resolving support.
- Added packaged applications support.
- Added path type caching to shortcut cache.
- Added resolving foreground window title, when toggling window title observing.
- Added separate selection guarding for containers.
- Added settings window list key reusing.
- Added shared extension specialization support.
- Added showing container item properties, when double clicked, while holding ALT key.
- Added snapping to item coordinates when scrolling settings window list.
- Added support for activating first selectable menu item of opened sub-menu, when using mnemonic for navigating context menu.
- Added support for differentiating the Internet shortcuts icons by those protocol.
- Added support for re-opening context sub-menus on repeated mnemonics.
- Added support for resolving paths for indirect shell strings.
- Added support for resolving protocol or extension handlers ordered by MRUList.
- Added support for selecting context menu sub-menus by clicking.
- Added support for TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2.
- Added virtual desktop detection on modern operating systems.
- Changed for Place type container themes check to occur only once and for all container instances.
- Changed locks privileges.
- Changed settings window to position below taskbar if animated.
- Changed to always consider foreground window as active, when desktop is focused.
- Changed to continue processing dropped data, even when it contains unsupported item.
- Changed to enable title observing module during container loading, when needed, not after resolving it is needed.
- Changed to select items instead of updating hover, when requesting context menu for Place type container.
- Changed to show context menu sub-menus instantly, when selecting using mnemonics.
- Remove warning if could not start title observing as already warning if cannot observe focus changes.
- Revised and optimized observing for focus changes.
- Revised and unified painting bitmap intersections logic.
- Revised Place type container themes menu to directly change theme, without using events.
- Splitted out default theme base from default theme for Place type container.
- Unified and optimized verbs resolving for extensions.
- Unified base code for registry iterators.
- Unified caches restoring.
- Unified code for resolving protocol or extension handlers from registry.
- Unified context menu items activation and clicking handling.
- Unified external dialogs handling code.
- Unified muxers ignored list with cached list.
- Unified Place type container double click and delayed selection logic.
- Fixed advanced settings being checked even, when not used.
- Fixed applying updates automatically.
- Fixed batch item repaint requests for non-scrollable Place type containers.
- Fixed checking if registered for automatic startup using registry not working due to invalid key name.
- Fixed checking mouse coordinates not being converted to container space, when doing on-demand hover check.
- Fixed clearing shell queries cache created for other environment identifiers.
- Fixed collections used by shell queries types not being compacted.
- Fixed container bounds adjusting on system requests.
- Fixed container item generating containing extension dot, when using redirection.
- Fixed container item hover not cleared on all conditions needing it during handling mouse move.
- Fixed containers could not appear after loading, under certain conditions, after desktop z-order was adjusted by system.
- Fixed containers disappearing on interaction on certain conditions.
- Fixed containers item "more options" menu should not be available, when changing content is restricted.
- Fixed containers item cut should not appear when changing content is restricted.
- Fixed containers lock should not restrict tray notification context menu, unless locked with passphrase.
- Fixed context menu positioning, when positioning relative to bottom screen edge.
- Fixed default verb not considered, when resolving shell handler.
- Fixed dialog handles detection not incrementing use counters correctly.
- Fixed distribution package arguments processing.
- Fixed distribution package elevation.
- Fixed distribution package should delete individual container settings if not keeping those.
- Fixed dropped or pasted shell items should not be ignored, when not requesting linking.
- Fixed external container dialogs handling not ensuring incrementing use count.
- Fixed files content not being truncated after appending content.
- Fixed forcing Place type container theme to use colorization upon colorization change, due to ignoring its colorization use flag.
- Fixed graphics settings not adjusted for drawing context menu small selection, that is used on older operating systems.
- Fixed hour span control not being uninitialized since build 20250210 due to invalid condition.
- Fixed ID list not being released, when resolving shortcuts.
- Fixed inconsistency in handling redirection, when resolving container item paths upon requests.
- Fixed initializing started process details twice.
- Fixed internal message system using invalid message ranges.
- Fixed invalid sub-optimal API declarations.
- Fixed invalid using PIDL as string buffer, when retrieving shell display name.
- Fixed license agreement dialog checkbox text position to match button on newer operating systems.
- Fixed lock privileges logic for context menus.
- Fixed logic for resolving default icon for extensions.
- Fixed menu mnemonic being resolved on menu name instead of its text (which may caused crash).
- Fixed missing extension change check causing container items recreation on those rename, even if extension did not change.
- Fixed missing field in process startup structure.
- Fixed mnemonic for "Theme" and "Title" menu entries of Place type container context menu.
- Fixed naming caches "mutexes" and "muxers".
- Fixed needlessly adding separator for shell menu, when there were no menu items before it
- Fixed not considering different icon index on all conditions, when comparing generic and possibly non-generic icon file details.
- Fixed not requiring verifying password for opening settings window, when requested by initial setup.
- Fixed not selecting next item using unified path upon deleting item from settings window list.
- Fixed notification area balloon interaction.
- Fixed notifying that cleared selection, even if selected next item upon selected item deleting from settings window list.
- Fixed optimization for checking if position is within items area for Place type container.
- Fixed passing long on 64-bit systems as index for array element in generated dynamic code.
- Fixed Place type container compositor could not wake on certain conditions.
- Fixed Place type container double click selection logic.
- Fixed reading binary data from registry.
- Fixed redundant checking if container path is available, when checking if other conditions allow its loading.
- Fixed redundant container z-order adjustment on load.
- Fixed redundant in-memory cache checking, when resolving shared thumbnails synchronously.
- Fixed removing files and directories during update migration could fail under certain condition.
- Fixed requesting registry event notification even if just timed out, when observing for changes.
- Fixed resolving binary data from registry.
- Fixed resolving file path from FILE URL.
- Fixed resolving icons for items not in first category in windows settings list.
- Fixed resolving thumbnail resource type invalid extension could fail on short extensions.
- Fixed running window title observing toggling logic twice on containers reloading.
- Fixed setting container as wallpaper should not be available, when lock permission prevents changing and exposing content.
- Fixed setting container conditional display dialog caption twice.
- Fixed settings window animation should not be triggered by style changes.
- Fixed settings window list bitmaps not being released.
- Fixed settings window list bitmaps should not be generated if those size did not change.
- Fixed settings window list item order not preserved on those removal.
- Fixed settings window list scrollbar not reaching maximum.
- Fixed settings window possible flicker when showing by applying styling even earlier.
- Fixed surface effect not being applied when container is not visible, due to optimization.
- Fixed temporary fonts not disposed during resolving system fonts (fix ported from package project).
- Fixed temporary menu data not explicitly released on menu creation failure.
- Fixed thumbnailable state not being removed for non-thumbnailable container items using path redirection.
- Fixed uninstaller not deleting shortcut for automatic startup (used as fallback).
- Fixed updatable cache always resolving data for ignored entries.
- Fixed update dialog not working for custom sources, due to those invalid changes detection conditions.
- Fixed using delays for other events for various multiple events, when multiplexing.
- Fixed using fixed default icon size, instead of provided size, when generating fallback extension icon.
- Fixed wallpaper changes observing switching to pooling after first change, while should wait for signal.
- Removed direct settings window list painting during scrolling.
- Clarified and revised distribution package error messages.
- Clarified and updated Place type container theme specification.
- Increased settings window size on newest operating systems.
- Optimized caches saving.
- Optimized checking if given format is supported for clipboard and drag and drop operations.
- Optimized computing scaled sizes.
- Optimized containers viewport computations.
- Optimized memory allocation and storage access on caches restoring
- Optimized Place type container compositor to compose items surface directly in device context.
- Optimized Place type container newer compositor.
- Optimized registry access to know roots.
- Restored and revised context menu input disabling during animation (previous solution had been removed to resolve z-order issues).
- Revised and simplified stream reading methods request result reporting.
- Revised compile toolchain.
- Revised container item bounds snapping.
- Revised containers focus checking code.
- Revised context menu showing handling.
- Revised settings window list mouse events handling.
- Revised settings window list threaded use.
- Revised shortcuts resolving.
- Clarified container z-order logic.
- Converted dynamic code to compile time code.
- Corrected English localization.
- Made shell queries cache references resolving O(1).
- Other changes, fixes and updates.
- Partially unspecialized settings window list direct management methods.
- Ported application type window checking code from Nimi Visuals project.
- Ported multiplexing project dialogs code from Nimi Visuals project.
- Relaxed shell queries resolving internal queries checking.
- Reverted default Place type container theme to dark.
- Simplified dynamic code.
- Simplified window styles and params access.