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RDesk 1.0.0 (2026-03-22)

New features

• Native Window Management: Added app$set_size(), app$set_position(), app$minimize(), app$maximize(), app$restore(), app$fullscreen(), and app$always_on_top().
• Enhanced Native Dialogs: Implemented app$dialog_folder(), app$message_box() (OK/Yes/No/Cancel with icons), and app$dialog_color().
• System Integration:
  • Recursive Menus: Native Win32 menu bars now support arbitrarily deep nesting and checkable items.
  • System Tray Context Menus: Added app$set_tray_menu() for native right-click interaction.
  • Global Hotkeys: Added app$register_hotkey() for system-wide keyboard shortcuts.
  • Clipboard: Added app$clipboard_read() and app$clipboard_write().
• Lifecycle & Stability Hardening:
  • Anti-Zombie Watchdog: Native launcher now auto-terminates if the parent R process dies.
  • Single-Instance Lock: Prevents running multiple copies of the same application.
  • Close Interception: Added app$on_close() to intercept or cancel window exit attempts.
  • Persistent Logging: Success and error logs are now written to %LOCALAPPDATA%/RDesk.
• Auto-Updater: Added app$check_update() to detect and link to remote application updates.
• renv integration: The RDesk development environment and built bundles are now lockable via renv.lock for reproducible distribution.

Bug fixes

• Fixed COM reference count leaks and Unicode path handling in the native launcher.
• Resolved R6 namespace collisions during complex application initialization.
• Hardened build_app(dry_run = TRUE) for rapid environment validation.
• Fixed plot rendering synchronization in background worker pools.

RDesk 0.9.0 (2026-03-19)

Breaking changes

• Removed httpuv dependency entirely. Apps built with earlier versions must be rebuilt with the new launcher.

New features

• Zero-port native IPC architecture using WebView2 PostWebMessageAsString and stdin/stdout pipe.
• Virtual hostname mapping via SetVirtualHostNameToFolderMapping – app assets load from disk with no HTTP server.
• Three-tier async engine: async() wrapper, rdesk_async(), and direct mirai access. 5.9x faster task startup vs callr alone.
• Loading overlay system with progress bar, cancellation, and toast notifications built into the framework.
• build_app() now supports build_installer = TRUE for InnoSetup Windows installer generation.
• rdesk_create_app() scaffold generates a complete working app structure ready to run.
• GitHub Actions CI/CD with three workflows: R-CMD-check, build-app, and release.
• Comprehensive error logging – crash.log and rdesk_startup.log written on failure. Native Windows popup on crash.
• System tray, native menus, file dialogs, toast notifications.

Bug fixes

• Fixed bundled dialog, tray, notify, and IPC command handling in App.R so packaged apps no longer try to write to a null window process handle.
• Hardened launcher shutdown, notification handling, request IDs, menu/tray updates, and save-dialog Unicode handling across the native C++ launcher and window.R.
• Fixed bundled stub logging and stdout handling so packaged apps preserve IPC while still writing crash diagnostics.
• Fixed scaffolded apps and demo apps so bundled mode no longer sinks stdout, app paths resolve more reliably, and generated tests/plots use safer defaults.
• Fixed build_app() package bundling, temp cleanup, empty-directory copies, and added explicit portable-R strategies via portable_r_method and runtime_dir.
• Fixed GitHub Actions bundled-app workflows to use explicit installer runtime provisioning and current setup actions.
• Fixed COM reference count leak in C++ launcher on shutdown.
• Replaced hardcoded personal paths with dynamic environment variable lookups in build.R.
• Fixed duplicate publisher parameter in build_app() signature.
• Corrected R-CMD-check YAML quoting for args and error-on fields.
• Removed dead httpuv private fields from App R6 class.
• Fixed @export tags incorrectly placed on private R6 methods.
• Unicode path handling hardened using MultiByteToWideChar throughout C++ launcher.

Internal changes

• IPC message envelope standardised with id, type, version, payload, timestamp fields across R and JavaScript.
• Version centralised via getOption(“rdesk.ipc_version”).
• CI guard added – headless environments skip native window init.
• mirai daemon pool pre-warmed at App\(run() and shut down cleanly at App\)cleanup().

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.