Little Launcher

A Windows launcher with system-tray and taskbar icon support, settings-sync capability, built with WinUI 3, Windows App SDK, and SSH/SFTP.

         

  

Overview

Little Launcher lives in the Windows system tray and/or taskbar. Clicking its icon opens a flyout with app and website shortcuts. It also provides SSH/SFTP-based settings synchronisation so you can keep your launcher configuration in sync across machines.

Key features:

• Multiple launchers — define multiple named launchers, each with its own icon and items.
• Application & website shortcuts — launch any executable or URL with one click from the flyout.
• View modes — choose between list view (icon + name) or icon grid view for each launcher.
• Groups & columns — organise items into groups and multi-column layouts.
• System-tray icons — a tray icon that opens a flyout popup for shortcuts.
• Taskbar icons — a companion helper exe (LauncherShortcut) can be pinned to the taskbar so one click opens the flyout without needing to find the tray icon.
• SSH/SFTP settings sync — upload/download all launchers to a remote server using SSH.NET.
• Shared launchers — share individual launchers via local/network files or per-launcher SFTP. Owners publish items; subscribers receive read-only copies.
• Export & import — back up and restore items locally via JSON.
• Bookmark import — import bookmarks directly from Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or any browser's exported HTML bookmarks file into a launcher.

Architecture

Layer	Description
MainWindow	Invisible host window. Owns the system-tray icon (H.NotifyIcon). Enforces single-instance via Mutex. Cross-process IPC via registered window messages.
FlyoutWindow	A popup window that displays launcher items in list or icon grid view, positioned above the taskbar. Dismissed on focus loss or Escape.
SettingsWindow	WinUI 3 window with MicaBackdrop and NavigationView — pages for Home, Launchers, Launcher Items, Cloud Sync, Settings, and About.
SftpSyncService	Static async methods for upload/download/test-connection using SSH.NET (Renci.SshNet). Also handles per-launcher shared sync (file or SFTP). Supports private-key and password auth.
AutoSyncService	Manages automatic sync: startup download, debounced upload, periodic download, and shared launcher sync.
SettingsManager	Fully static. Serialises UserSettings to %AppData%\LittleLauncher\settings.json via System.Text.Json. Migrates from legacy settings.xml on first load.
ThemeManager	Sets RequestedTheme on root FrameworkElement of each window. Detects system dark/light mode via cached UISettings.

Tech stack

Package	Version	Purpose
Windows App SDK	1.8.260209005	WinUI 3 controls, Mica, NavigationView
H.NotifyIcon.WinUI	2.4.1	System tray icon
CommunityToolkit.Mvvm	8.4.0	Source-gen [ObservableProperty], RelayCommand
SSH.NET	2025.1.0	SFTP sync
NLog	6.1.1	Logging

Target: .NET 10, net10.0-windows10.0.22000.0, unpackaged (WindowsPackageType=None), platforms x64 and ARM64.

Getting started

Prerequisites

• Windows 10/11 (build 22000+)
• .NET 10 SDK

Build

cd LittleLauncher
dotnet build -c Debug

Directory.Build.props auto-detects the platform from PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE (ARM64 → ARM64, otherwise x64). To override: -p:Platform=x64 or -p:Platform=ARM64.

Run

dotnet run --project LittleLauncher -c Debug

Or open LittleLauncher.sln in Visual Studio / Rider and press F5.

Project structure

LittleLauncher/              # WinUI 3 application project
├── App.xaml / App.xaml.cs     # Bootstrap, exception handling, settings restore
├── MainWindow.xaml/.cs        # Invisible host + tray icon + singleton IPC
├── SettingsWindow.xaml/.cs    # WinUI 3 settings UI with Mica backdrop
├── Classes/
│   ├── NativeMethods.cs       # P/Invoke declarations (user32, dwmapi, shcore, comctl32, shlwapi)
│   ├── ThemeManager.cs        # Theme orchestration (ElementTheme)
│   └── Settings/
│       └── SettingsManager.cs # JSON serialisation (fully static)
├── Models/
│   ├── LauncherItem.cs
│   ├── Launcher.cs            # Multi-launcher model with sharing properties
│   └── SshConnectionProfile.cs
├── Pages/
│   ├── HomePage.xaml/.cs
│   ├── LaunchersPage.xaml/.cs  # Launcher card management + sharing UI
│   ├── LauncherItemsPage.xaml/.cs # Per-launcher item editing (read-only for subscribers)
│   ├── SyncPage.xaml/.cs
│   ├── SystemPage.xaml/.cs
│   └── AboutPage.xaml/.cs
├── Services/
│   ├── AutoSyncService.cs     # Automatic sync triggers
│   ├── FaviconService.cs      # Website favicon & title fetching
│   ├── SftpSyncService.cs     # SSH/SFTP upload/download/test + shared sync
│   └── UpdateService.cs       # Update checking
├── ViewModels/
│   └── UserSettings.cs        # Observable settings (CommunityToolkit.Mvvm)
├── Windows/
│   └── FlyoutWindow.xaml/.cs   # Launcher flyout popup
└── Resources/
    ├── Localization/
    │   └── Dictionary-en-US.xaml
    └── LittleLauncher.ico

LauncherShortcut/              # Companion console exe for pin-to-taskbar helper

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0 License. See LICENSE for details.