Switching Modern -> Win7 at runtime broke the UI. SettingsService.applySkin
toggled the `.win7` class the moment the setting changed — harmless when there
was one component tree, and a broken window as soon as there were two. The tree
is bootstrapped once from the preload-baked __APP_SKIN, so the live flip painted
7.css onto shadlike markup that has no .window.glass, no .title-bar, no
menu[role=tablist] and no <table> ListView. The CSS landed on a tree that cannot
receive it.
A reload would not have helped, and neither would anything short of a restart:
- The preload is a persistent WebKitUserScript injected at DOCUMENT_START, so
its string is frozen at webview construction — loadURL() re-runs it with the
OLD __APP_SKIN. updatePreloadScriptToWebView exists in the FFI but is
reachable only from electrobun's internal <electrobun-webview> handler.
- titleBarStyle/transparent have no setters; a live window cannot be re-framed.
win7 -> modern is the dangerous direction — the modern tree draws no title
bar, so it would land in a frameless transparent window with no way to move,
minimize or close it.
- Recreating the main window is also out: exitOnLastWindowClosed is true, the
main rpc is captured by six push closures, the tray captures `win`, and
listeners cannot be removed.
So: applySkin is deleted outright, from setSkin AND from applyAll — the latter
matters independently, since applyAll runs on the settingsChanged push and was
therefore breaking every open editor and manager window too. Clicking a skin now
only persists it.
Also fixed a second leak found while tracing this: manager-window and
editor-windows build from `currentSettings()`, the LIVE snapshot, so a window
opened after a pending change would boot the new tree and frame while main still
ran the old one. `initSessionSkin` now freezes the skin at startup before any
window exists, and buildPreload/chromeOptions read that pinned value —
chromeOptions loses its parameter so no call site can get it wrong.
The options row shows the saved value as pending (skinPending() compares
settings.skin() against APP_SKIN) with the hint retexted in all 7 locales; it
said "Reopen the window to change its frame", which described the deleted
design.
Verified: tsc + build:ui clean; both skins boot correctly from a persisted
setting (win7 frameless, modern with the native frame). The live flip is now
impossible by construction, which is the check that matters here — the UI bundle
contains no classList write for win7 at all, the only writer is buildPreload,
and sessionSkin has exactly one assignment site.
Not verified: the click itself and the pending hint appearing, which need an
interaction pass — no window automation is available here. Both are present in
the built bundle.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
architecture.md gains a "UI layout: one core, two skin trees" section — the
folder map, the barrel contract that lets main.ts stay ignorant of both trees,
why duplicate selectors across trees are safe, and where a new rule belongs
(core / a skin / shared tokens). Its "Window kinds" section now describes
two-axis root selection, and the "Skins" section is no longer stale prose about
a deleted design: it covers the stylesheet split and the two-phase nature of a
skin change (CSS live, tree and frame at next window open).
gotchas.md gains a section for the split, all of it earned during the work:
`.win7` cannot be renamed because 7.scoped.css is precompiled against that
literal; reach core through @core/* rather than relative paths, which is what
let 67 imports survive two relocations; @font-face url() rebases when a
stylesheet moves and fails silently; the @layer statement must stay first;
duplicate selectors across trees are safe; and ngtsc type-checks components
nothing imports, so a green build does say something about the inactive skin.
Also corrected the component paths that moved under skins/, and the
updater.service.ts link that moved under core/. Checked every ../ link in
docs/ resolves.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
The status bar's transfers summary is a text toggle, but 7.css painted it as
a full Aero push button — a stray bordered slab sitting in the status line.
Marked it w7-flat, the per-button escape hatch that existed for exactly this
and had never been used.
It did not work, for a reason worth keeping: 7.css restates border-color at
`.win7 button:not(:disabled):not(:hover)` = (0,3,1), which outranks
`.win7 .w7-flat` = (0,2,0). The .w7-toolbar arm of the same rule only ever
won that fight by tying on specificity and landing later in the same layer —
an accident w7-flat did not share. Split the rule: `background:
revert-layer` stays in `skin` (it must land on `utilities`), and the
paint-suppression literals move to `skinfix`, where layer order settles it
instead of a specificity arms race.
Docs updated in the same change per the working agreement — architecture.md
gains the tabs contract, the w7-flat/w7-toolbar split and the frame
transparency invariant; gotchas.md gains a win7-skin section (unlayered beats
every layer, the (0,3,1) border-color restatement, overflow-x clipping the
y-axis, 7.css's hardcoded light literals, exact selectors) plus the two
Angular traps this round hit: a duplicate `class` attribute is silently
dropped, and a backtick inside a component template's HTML comment terminates
the TS template literal.
Also recorded the verification trap that cost three wrong readings today:
`bun run start` leaves the old instance running and `import -window` grabs
the OLDEST match, so screenshots silently come from a stale build — this is
what made the w7-flat fix above look like a no-op when it was already
correct. Kill and count instances before capturing. And `pkill -f
'electrobun dev'` matches the shell running it and kills your own command.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
main retired electrobun's native context menu (a documented no-op on Linux) in
favour of an HTML one on every platform. Merging that here needs the menu to
look right under the Win7 skin as well.
Conflicts, all resolved by keeping both sides:
- src/bun/index.ts — createAppRPC keeps the branch's mainWindow getter, drops
main's removed contextMenu dep.
- ui/src/app/app.ts — imports both TitleBar and ContextMenu.
- ui/src/app/platform.ts — kept the branch's version (its IS_MAC_CHROME accounts
for the frameless win7 chrome, and MOD_LABEL correctly keys on the real
platform rather than the chrome), plus exporting IS_MAC and adding IS_LINUX
for the menu's per-OS shell wording.
Aero menu (branch-only): 7.css has no menu component, so it is hand-authored
across both layers — the row <button>s shed their push-button slab in `skin`
(revert-layer only reaches `utilities` from there), and the square-cornered
slab, hairline border and gradient selection band are stated in `skinfix`.
Built strictly from existing --w7-* vars, never literal hex, so the
hand-written dark Win7 palette recolours it for free. Hover and the keyboard
cursor share one band (the component marks the cursor with `bg-accent`, which
is overridden alongside :hover) as a real Win7 menu does.
Also answers a question the merge raised: frameless windows DO work on Linux.
The GTK wrapper honours titleBarStyle "hidden" — it calls
gtk_window_set_decorated(false) and logs "GTK: Created window without
decorations (custom titlebar)". Verified on GNOME/Wayland and documented in
architecture.md.
Verified: backend `tsc --noEmit` clean, `bun run build:ui` clean (492.52 kB
initial, still under the 500 kB budget), app launches with the skin active,
frameless, no console errors and no GBM failures.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
On the NVIDIA proprietary driver the app booted, logged "miniSCP started",
reported no error — and painted a completely black window, with stderr showing
"Failed to create GBM buffer of size WxH: Invalid argument" and an X11
GLXBadWindow. WebKitGTK's DMABUF renderer cannot allocate buffers there;
WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 is the upstream workaround. Pre-existing on
Linux, unrelated to the context-menu change — it just had never been looked at
because nothing on Linux had been run before.
The app CANNOT apply this to itself. WebKit reads the variable when it forks
its web process, and Bun's `process.env` writes do not propagate to child
processes (verified: a spawned child sees it unset), so setting it in
src/bun/index.ts is inert even from a module imported before `electrobun/bun`.
It has to be in the environment before the app process starts, which means
every launch path must inject it:
- scripts/linux-gpu.ts — shared `launchEnv()` helper, gated on
/proc/driver/nvidia so Intel/AMD keep hardware compositing, and never
overriding an explicit value from the user's environment.
- scripts/dev.ts — uses it for `bun run dev`.
- scripts/start.ts (new) — `bun run start` previously called `bunx electrobun
dev` straight from package.json, where no env could be set; it now goes
through a script like dev does.
- scripts/release.ts — writes a `miniSCP.sh` wrapper beside bin/launcher in the
Linux tarball, since a packaged app goes through none of the above.
Documented in gotchas.md (including that a "does it boot?" log check does NOT
catch this — the log looks healthy) and platform-notes.md, with the smoke test
updated to require that the UI actually renders.
Verified: backend `tsc --noEmit` clean, `bun run build:ui` clean, and
`bun run start` now boots with zero GBM/GLX errors.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
`bun run start` died on Linux with ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED (missing
libayatana-appindicator3.so.1). Fixing the environment exposed the real gap:
electrobun's ContextMenu.showContextMenu is a documented no-op on Linux, and
since the UI suppresses the webview's own right-click menu, EVERY panel context
menu was silently dead there — Send to Other Panel, Open, Rename, Permissions,
Delete, Copy Path, Reveal and the column picker all unreachable. Electrobun
itself logs "Application menus are not supported on Linux. Implement menu UI in
your webview HTML instead." at boot.
- Context menus are now HTML on EVERY platform (ui/src/app/context-menu.ts +
context-menu.service.ts), not just as a Linux fallback: one implementation
cannot drift from a second one. The item builders are ported verbatim from
the old bun menu, so ordering, per-platform labels and the Windows-local
chmod hide are unchanged, and picks are emitted as the same `ctx-*` / `col:*`
strings through RpcService.emitMenuAction — App.handleMenuAction is untouched
and still the single dispatcher for both the macOS menubar and right-clicks.
Adds what the native menu gave for free: arrow/Enter/Escape keys, viewport
edge-flip, close on blur/resize/scroll. The Edit item now shows the real F4
hint instead of the native menu's "e" mnemonic.
- New shellItemAction RPC replaces showRowMenu/showColumnsMenu — the only part
the webview can't do itself (reveal, open-with-default, copy path). Deletes
src/bun/context-menu.ts entirely.
- release.ts gains a linux-x64 target. Electrobun emits only the .tar.zst
updater blob on Linux, so the artifact is a .tar.gz of the assembled app
folder, mirroring the Windows portable zip.
- Docs: platform-notes gets a Linux runtime-dependency table (AppIndicator is
linked HARD — a missing lib is a boot failure, not a degraded tray), the
ldd diagnostic, GNOME tray caveat, known issues and a first-boot smoke test;
gotchas gets the ERR_DLOPEN_FAILED trail and the benign GLX/GBM startup
noise; architecture/build-and-release/README updated accordingly.
Verified: backend `tsc --noEmit` clean, `bun run build:ui` clean (399 kB
initial), app boots on Linux with no errors beyond the documented benign
warnings. NOT verified on macOS/Windows — the native menu is retired on those
platforms too, so the menus need eyeballing on a Mac before the next release.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Evaluation branch: a full Aero skin, including frameless windows with our own
title bar, switchable against the existing modern look.
The app already had a four-axis runtime skinning mechanism and zero component
stylesheets, so the skin is one new setting plus one stylesheet section rather
than a parallel UI. The key move is cascade order: 7.css is imported into a
`skin` layer ABOVE Tailwind's `utilities`, so its bare element rules outrank
the ~1900 inline utility classes already in the templates. Template changes are
limited to additive, skin-inert hooks (ARIA roles, `has-scrollbar`,
`w7-toolbar`, `w7-btn`).
- styles.css: explicit layer order, `7.css/dist/7.scoped.css` via `layer(skin)`,
a token bridge re-pointing the existing semantic tokens at Win7 values (no new
tokens, so `@theme inline` is untouched), a hand-authored dark Win7 palette,
and neutralizers that `revert-layer` 7.css's dialog-button metrics back to the
utility layer. Neutralizers must live inside `skin`, not `skinfix` —
`revert-layer` only reaches `utilities` from one layer up.
- Frameless chrome: `chromeOptions(skin)` is now the single place either skin's
frame is decided. `titleBarStyle: "hidden"` on every platform, which is also
the only way to drop the macOS traffic lights. New `title-bar` component
mounted by all three window roots.
- Window controls over RPC (minimize/toggle-maximize/close/is-maximized), served
per window kind so the X reuses each one's existing close path — editors still
get their dirty prompt. electrobun has no maximize event, so the state is
derived from `resize`; double-click-to-maximize is implemented here too.
- Font: Noto Sans vendored (OFL-1.1) under ui/src/fonts, since Segoe UI is
absent off Windows and not redistributable.
Verified: backend `tsc --noEmit` clean, `bun run build:ui` clean (486 kB initial,
under the 500 kB budget), app launches with the skin active and no console
errors. The rendered result has not been eyeballed — screen capture and
accessibility are both denied to the shell on this machine.
Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Custom signal-based runtime (no i18n dependency): shared src/shared/i18n
dictionaries, ui I18nService.t() reactive by construction so language
switches live, and a backend i18n.ts for native menus + thrown errors.
Every user-facing string keyed across templates, toasts, dialogs, file
kinds, columns, macOS menu/context menus, and errors. Language picker in
Options (auto-detects OS locale, falls back to English); switching
relabels the webview and native chrome instantly. English/Spanish/French/
German fully drafted; Chinese/Japanese/Basque drafted, flagged for native
review. Docs updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Local panels are fs.watched (LocalDirWatcher + setWatchedDirs -> pathRefresh);
remote panels poll every 3s. New refresh({silent}) skips the loading/busy
flags and touches no DOM, snapshotting sessionId+cwd to discard results if the
user navigated mid-flight. Only the active tab is live; switching tabs
refreshes the new pair. A future on/off setting is left as commented
breadcrumbs. Docs updated.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three layers: windows are created hidden and revealed on the webview's
first dom-ready (800ms fallback); the bun preload bakes the persisted
theme data-attributes so the first paint is already themed; and
index.html carries an inline background style covering the
pre-stylesheet paint (values mirrored from styles.css tokens).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
jgamboaandClaude