New Mod: Smart Focus Desktop

[tetsudaux]

Adds a new mod that auto-hides desktop icons and toggles desktop with a click.

[tetsudaux]

Smart Focus Desktop 🎯

Reclaim your visual space. A distraction-free desktop experience for designers and minimalists.

Windows desktops often become cluttered, distracting you from deep work. Smart Focus Desktop transforms your wallpaper into a dynamic workspace that adapts to your context.

✨ The "Focus" Workflow

This mod introduces a seamless behavior to Windows Explorer:

1. Deep Work Mode: As soon as you open any window (Browser, Figma, IDE), your desktop icons automatically vanish. Your peripheral vision stays clean.
2. Access Mode: Need a file? Simply click once on any empty area of your wallpaper.
   • All windows minimize instantly (Win+D style).
   • Your icons reappear immediately.

🚀 Why install this?

• Zero Glitch: Uses native visibility rendering for maximum stability. No flickering, no black backgrounds.
• Performance First: Built with a high-performance polling engine (10ms) that consumes virtually 0% CPU.
• Smart Interaction: It intelligently distinguishes between a "Click" (to show desktop) and a "Drag" (to select files). It won't interfere with your normal usage.

---

Designed for stability and speed (V1.0).

[m417z]

Having a mod that polls for events every 10 milliseconds isn't ideal. Have you considered using mouse hooks (SetWindowsHookEx with WH_MOUSE_LL)?
You can look at the "Close Explorer on Esc" mod which does something similar with keyboard hooks:

windhawk-mods/mods/close-explorer-on-esc.wh.cpp

Line 162 in f1782d7

g_hook = SetWindowsHookExW(WH_KEYBOARD_LL, LowLevelKeyboardProc, hMod, 0);

[m417z]

The mod doesn't have a target process, so it will have no effect without additional configuration.

In fact, the mod doesn't use and doesn't need Windhawk's injection and hooking capabilities. On the other hand, I can understand that the ease of mod installation is appealing. Currently, Windhawk doesn't have a built-in functionality for something like that, but for now, I implemented some code that can be added to a mod to make it run as part of a separate windhawk.exe process:

Details

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Windhawk tool mod implementation for mods which don't need to inject to other
// processes or hook other functions. Context:
// https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk-mods/pull/1916
//
// The mod will load and run in a dedicated windhawk.exe process.
//
// Paste the code below as part of the mod code, and use these callbacks:
// * WhTool_ModInit
// * WhTool_ModSettingsChanged
// * WhTool_ModUninit
//
// Currently, other callbacks are not supported.

bool g_isToolModProcessLauncher;
HANDLE g_toolModProcessMutex;

void WINAPI EntryPoint_Hook() {
    Wh_Log(L">");
    ExitThread(0);
}

BOOL Wh_ModInit() {
    bool isService = false;
    bool isToolModProcess = false;
    bool isCurrentToolModProcess = false;
    int argc;
    LPWSTR* argv = CommandLineToArgvW(GetCommandLine(), &argc);
    if (!argv) {
        Wh_Log(L"CommandLineToArgvW failed");
        return FALSE;
    }

    for (int i = 1; i < argc; i++) {
        if (wcscmp(argv[i], L"-service") == 0) {
            isService = true;
            break;
        }
    }

    for (int i = 1; i < argc - 1; i++) {
        if (wcscmp(argv[i], L"-tool-mod") == 0) {
            isToolModProcess = true;
            if (wcscmp(argv[i + 1], WH_MOD_ID) == 0) {
                isCurrentToolModProcess = true;
            }
            break;
        }
    }

    LocalFree(argv);

    if (isService) {
        return FALSE;
    }

    if (isCurrentToolModProcess) {
        g_toolModProcessMutex =
            CreateMutex(nullptr, TRUE, L"windhawk-tool-mod_" WH_MOD_ID);
        if (!g_toolModProcessMutex) {
            Wh_Log(L"CreateMutex failed");
            ExitProcess(1);
        }

        if (GetLastError() == ERROR_ALREADY_EXISTS) {
            Wh_Log(L"Tool mod already running (%s)", WH_MOD_ID);
            ExitProcess(1);
        }

        if (!WhTool_ModInit()) {
            ExitProcess(1);
        }

        IMAGE_DOS_HEADER* dosHeader =
            (IMAGE_DOS_HEADER*)GetModuleHandle(nullptr);
        IMAGE_NT_HEADERS* ntHeaders =
            (IMAGE_NT_HEADERS*)((BYTE*)dosHeader + dosHeader->e_lfanew);

        DWORD entryPointRVA = ntHeaders->OptionalHeader.AddressOfEntryPoint;
        void* entryPoint = (BYTE*)dosHeader + entryPointRVA;

        Wh_SetFunctionHook(entryPoint, (void*)EntryPoint_Hook, nullptr);
        return TRUE;
    }

    if (isToolModProcess) {
        return FALSE;
    }

    g_isToolModProcessLauncher = true;
    return TRUE;
}

void Wh_ModAfterInit() {
    if (!g_isToolModProcessLauncher) {
        return;
    }

    WCHAR currentProcessPath[MAX_PATH];
    switch (GetModuleFileName(nullptr, currentProcessPath,
                              ARRAYSIZE(currentProcessPath))) {
        case 0:
        case ARRAYSIZE(currentProcessPath):
            Wh_Log(L"GetModuleFileName failed");
            return;
    }

    WCHAR
    commandLine[MAX_PATH + 2 +
                (sizeof(L" -tool-mod \"" WH_MOD_ID "\"") / sizeof(WCHAR)) - 1];
    swprintf_s(commandLine, L"\"%s\" -tool-mod \"%s\"", currentProcessPath,
               WH_MOD_ID);

    HMODULE kernelModule = GetModuleHandle(L"kernelbase.dll");
    if (!kernelModule) {
        kernelModule = GetModuleHandle(L"kernel32.dll");
        if (!kernelModule) {
            Wh_Log(L"No kernelbase.dll/kernel32.dll");
            return;
        }
    }

    using CreateProcessInternalW_t = BOOL(WINAPI*)(
        HANDLE hUserToken, LPCWSTR lpApplicationName, LPWSTR lpCommandLine,
        LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpProcessAttributes,
        LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpThreadAttributes, WINBOOL bInheritHandles,
        DWORD dwCreationFlags, LPVOID lpEnvironment, LPCWSTR lpCurrentDirectory,
        LPSTARTUPINFOW lpStartupInfo,
        LPPROCESS_INFORMATION lpProcessInformation,
        PHANDLE hRestrictedUserToken);
    CreateProcessInternalW_t pCreateProcessInternalW =
        (CreateProcessInternalW_t)GetProcAddress(kernelModule,
                                                 "CreateProcessInternalW");
    if (!pCreateProcessInternalW) {
        Wh_Log(L"No CreateProcessInternalW");
        return;
    }

    STARTUPINFO si{
        .cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO),
        .dwFlags = STARTF_FORCEOFFFEEDBACK,
    };
    PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
    if (!pCreateProcessInternalW(nullptr, currentProcessPath, commandLine,
                                 nullptr, nullptr, FALSE, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS,
                                 nullptr, nullptr, &si, &pi, nullptr)) {
        Wh_Log(L"CreateProcess failed");
        return;
    }

    CloseHandle(pi.hProcess);
    CloseHandle(pi.hThread);
}

void Wh_ModSettingsChanged() {
    if (g_isToolModProcessLauncher) {
        return;
    }

    // WhTool_ModSettingsChanged();
}

void Wh_ModUninit() {
    if (g_isToolModProcessLauncher) {
        return;
    }

    WhTool_ModUninit();
    ExitProcess(0);
}

Please do the following:

• Add the code above at the end of your mod code
• Replace Wh_ModInit and Wh_ModUninit in your code to WhTool_*, e.g. WhTool_ModInit
• Add the windhawk.exe target process

Please try it and let me know if it behaves as expected in all cases. If it is, let's adapt it. In the future, such functionality might become part of Windhawk.