Add Taskbar Virtual Desktop Switcher v1.0 by sb4ssman · Pull Request #3932 · ramensoftware/windhawk-mods

sb4ssman · 2026-04-28T20:16:53Z

Summary

Adds a new mod: Taskbar Virtual Desktop Switcher (taskbar-vd-switcher).

Injects a grid of numbered buttons into the system tray — one per virtual desktop — for direct switching without opening Task View. Buttons auto-arrange into rows based on taskbar height and update live as desktops are added, removed, or switched.

Features

Five placement positions within SystemTrayFrameGrid (after clock, before clock, before OmniButton, before notification icons, after Show Desktop)
Auto-sizing grid — row count detected from taskbar height, or set manually
Live updates via IVirtualDesktopNotificationService — highlighting, button count, and desktop names all update without restart
Tooltips — hover shows the desktop's display name (read from registry Desktops\{GUID}\Name, falls back to "Desktop N")
Label formats — numbers, roman numerals, filled/empty dots, or custom comma-separated labels
Full visual customization — active/inactive background color, text color, font size, corner radius, opacity, shine gradient, border color/thickness, padding, bold active label
Hide when single — optionally suppress the bar when only one desktop exists

Technical notes

Hooks IconView::IconView from Taskbar.View.dll for injection timing (pattern from vertical-omnibutton)
SystemTrayFrameGrid uses Grid column layout; injection inserts a ColumnDefinition and shifts existing element columns rather than relying on Children insertion order
SwitchToDesktop uses COM vtable calls with build-specific IIDs (pattern from taskbar-empty-space-clicks)
Registry reading for desktop state from session-scoped VirtualDesktopIDs / CurrentVirtualDesktop (pattern from taskbar-desktop-indicator)
Supports explorer builds 22000–26100+

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Injects a grid of clickable buttons into the system tray — one per virtual desktop — for direct switching without Task View. Features: - Auto-sizing grid (rows detected from taskbar height) - Five placement positions within SystemTrayFrameGrid - Live highlight updates via IVirtualDesktopNotificationService - Buttons appear/disappear as desktops are added or removed - Tooltips show Windows desktop display names (from registry) - Configurable colors, font, opacity, corner radius, border, shine, padding, label format (numbers / roman / dots / custom) - Hide when only one desktop exists Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

taskbarDllHooks for taskbar.dll taskbarViewDllHooks for Taskbar.View.dll (two sites) Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

…rays The validator can't infer the dotted filename from the variable name; explicit comments are required per the validation script's guidance. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Rename taskbarViewDllHooks -> taskbarViewHooks. The module is identified by the // Taskbar.View.dll comment; variable name should not also encode it per Windhawk validator rules. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Reference three screenshots from the lab repo via GitHub raw URLs, showing default taskbar, tall taskbar (auto-rows), and multi-mod setup. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

m417z · 2026-05-01T21:52:34Z

+        if (_wcsicmp(base, L"Taskbar.View.dll") == 0) {
+            // Taskbar.View.dll
+            WindhawkUtils::SYMBOL_HOOK taskbarViewHooks[] = {{
+                {LR"(public: __cdecl winrt::SystemTray::implementation::IconView::IconView(void))"},


In newer builds, this function was moved to SystemTray.dll, see:
#3926

Some mods were updated to support both older and newer builds. Please consider updating your mod as well.

m417z · 2026-05-01T21:59:02Z

Thanks for the submission, great mod.

Two things I noticed in a quick test session:

Sometimes only half of the button is clickable, see video below
Disabling the mod crashes explorer

neEeoBjdAh.mp4

sb4ssman · 2026-05-01T22:25:53Z

Thanks for the feedback. I will investigate.

New features: - Grid layout controls: fill order (column-first/row-first), fixed rows/columns/grid modes, smart layout variants (balanced/pack vertical/pack horizontal) - Short group alignment: center/end/start for partial last column or row - Master button: optional Task View launcher, placed as a column (before/after) or sliver row (top/bottom), with configurable width/height - Label formats: roman numerals, dot indicators, custom comma-separated labels - Active bold, per-state text colors, shine effect, border thickness/color, corner radius Bug fixes: - Crash on mod disable: replaced unsafe RunAsync retry with WaitForSingleObject stop-event pattern - Buttons persisting after disable: DoUninitRemove now walks the live XAML tree by name - Short column vertical centering: use RowSpan + Margin.Top instead of integer row offset - Sliver row shifts buttons: Margin compensation restores vertical center alignment Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Salyts · 2026-05-02T20:26:46Z

@sb4ssman, Great mod. How about adding the options “Next to the Start button” and “Above the Start button” to the position settings? It would look great with the “Hide Start button” mod enabled.

sb4ssman · 2026-06-17T15:06:23Z

@sb4ssman, Great mod. How about adding the options “Next to the Start button” and “Above the Start button” to the position settings? It would look great with the “Hide Start button” mod enabled.

Thank you! I haven't have much time to spend on mods, but I think I've got settings that will let you achieve the effect you want. Working on getting it polished and published.

Refine the submitted VDS mod for the current review pass: - harden taskbar XAML discovery across SystemTray.dll, Taskbar.View.dll, and ExplorerExtensions.dll - defer injection until tray XAML is loaded and clean up Loaded revokers on unload - make notification-thread shutdown pump sent messages to avoid unload deadlocks/crashes - move desktop switching off the UI thread to avoid click-time XAML reentrancy - add Start-adjacent placement modes and master-button/grid layout refinements - reduce repeated layout logging during Start-overlay positioning

sb4ssman · 2026-06-17T17:03:39Z

Updated the PR branch with v1.5.

This pass addresses the earlier stability/clickability concerns and adds the requested Start-area placement options:

hardened injection timing so the tray XAML is loaded before modifying it
improved unload/settings-change cleanup for notification threads and WinRT revokers
moved desktop switching work off the taskbar UI thread to avoid reentrant XAML updates during clicks
added Start-adjacent modes: left of Start, over Start, and right of Start with reserved space
added the master button/sliver layout options and tightened grid positioning/logging

Annotate the multi-module SystemTray hook array and rename the local hook variable so pr_validation.py can identify the target modules.

m417z · 2026-06-17T18:48:08Z

The non-clickable buttons are still an issue: #3932 (comment).

I can merge it without the fix, but getting it fixed in a future update will be nice.

sb4ssman · 2026-06-17T19:26:34Z

Moving the mouse away and back seems to relieve it. Fixing it is a priority. I've got a few more mods on deck too.

sb4ssman and others added 5 commits April 28, 2026 13:16

Fix PR validation: rename SYMBOL_HOOK arrays to indicate target module

66d81ee

taskbarDllHooks for taskbar.dll taskbarViewDllHooks for Taskbar.View.dll (two sites) Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Fix PR validation: add Taskbar.View.dll comments above symbol hook ar…

99fe80f

…rays The validator can't infer the dotted filename from the variable name; explicit comments are required per the validation script's guidance. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Add screenshots to WindhawkModReadme

8f43841

Reference three screenshots from the lab repo via GitHub raw URLs, showing default taskbar, tall taskbar (auto-rows), and multi-mod setup. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

m417z reviewed May 1, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread mods/taskbar-vd-switcher.wh.cpp Outdated

Comment thread mods/taskbar-vd-switcher.wh.cpp Outdated

Comment thread mods/taskbar-vd-switcher.wh.cpp Outdated

m417z mentioned this pull request May 2, 2026

Add Vertical OmniButton mod #3859

Open

Fix VDS symbol hook validation

6c567d3

Annotate the multi-module SystemTray hook array and rename the local hook variable so pr_validation.py can identify the target modules.

m417z merged commit 5e4d697 into ramensoftware:main Jun 17, 2026
3 checks passed

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Add Taskbar Virtual Desktop Switcher v1.0#3932

Add Taskbar Virtual Desktop Switcher v1.0#3932
m417z merged 8 commits into
ramensoftware:mainfrom
sb4ssman:sb4ssman-taskbar-vd-switcher

sb4ssman commented Apr 28, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

m417z May 1, 2026

Uh oh!

m417z commented May 1, 2026

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented May 1, 2026

Uh oh!

Salyts commented May 2, 2026

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026 •

edited

Loading

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

m417z commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

Conversation

sb4ssman commented Apr 28, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Summary

Features

Technical notes

Uh oh!

m417z May 1, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

m417z commented May 1, 2026

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented May 1, 2026

Uh oh!

Salyts commented May 2, 2026

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

m417z commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

3 participants

sb4ssman commented Apr 28, 2026 •

edited

Loading

sb4ssman commented Jun 17, 2026 •

edited

Loading