Ohayo! How's our favorite group of gamers doing?
We've been spending quite a bit of time to rewrite some of the existing code. Although we consider this to be a series of micro-optimizations, we simply made the program to do things more efficiently. This was necessary to support UWP apps.
With Xbox Game Pass becoming a popular option to enjoy games among gamers, we decided this was the perfect time to work on UWP support!
Please note that the support for UWP apps really depends on how the app was coded. This update just allows Magic Borderless to detect them and communicate properly. Most of UWPs run under a heavily sandboxed environment by Windows, and will not expose proper handles for us to manipulate them.
!! WAIT, READ ME PLEASE !!
- Although the manipulation algorithm has not gone through a significant change for non-UWP apps, it is possible (although we think it's unlikely) that we may have made a mistake that broke support. We've tested all of high-profile or tricky games to make sure they work, but if you do stumble upon a game that no longer works properly with Magic Borderless v1.00, let us know on the forums!
- Your monitor settings may have been scrambled. This is a one-time reset that had to be done as monitors are linked via their unique ID instead of the order they were initialized.
Version 1.00 Update Notes
- Added support for Microsoft/Windows Store (UWP) apps.
- Adds support for heavily sandboxed UWP apps.
- Added support for apps with UWP Title Bar system (e.g. Forza Horizon 4, Gears, etc.).
- Adds "Microsoft Store App" option for UWP apps that do not work. This enables a different type of borderless mode that runs like fullscreen, but has fast window switching.
- Please note that this will require you to reconfigure UWP app Wizard settings just this once. Your old setting is not erased, but it won't be used anymore for the reason above.
- All UWP apps can now have their individual Wizard settings just like the rest of apps.
- UWP apps will now properly report their executable name.
- Supports UWP app icons!
- UWP apps can now be launched from the context menu.
- Fixed a small number of UWP apps causing crashes.
- Fixed UWP apps not working on random occasions.
- Added Mouse Cursor Hiding. You can now target apps to hide its mouse cursor.
- Added "Restore HIdden Cursor" to the Tools menu so in case something goes wrong you can always reset them. You can also use " + [Y]" anywhere to reset it.
- Added a new borderless mode: "Push the Borders", providing the highest compatibility of all other options! This will enlarge the app screen and push the borders outside of the screen. Please note that if you are using multi-monitors, other monitors may see these borders. This is only recommended for games that just seem to never work with any other settings.
- Added Steam app detector.
- Steam apps are now launched via Steam protocol instead of directly executing them. This ensures some games to run properly (e.g. Resident Evil 5).
- Added Steam Guides menu to the right-click context menu.
- We will be using this more in the future to provide convenience features for your Steam games.
- Added Auto-detection Exception Paths. Any apps installed on these added paths will never trigger Auto-Detection. Only non-configured apps will be ignored on these paths.
- As re-initializing Steamworks causes freezes, instead of completely shutting down, Magic Borderless will now restart silently* when Steam shuts down. *To avoid confusion, it will briefly show a notification on the bottom right that the program is restarting.
- When a target app is skipped and Force Override is disabled (default setting), there is now a notification system so new users do not get confused why their Magic was not applied.
- Changed app icon container to a darker color as most icons are designed to display on such tone.
- Added a way to set a custom Display Name that displays over their window names. This can be done from the right-click context menu of the app list.
- Added more redundant checks to avoid file corruption on system interruptions.
- Added icon cache to speed up initial launch. You can also refresh icon cache from the right-click context menu on the app list, if your app ever updates to a new icon.
- Rewrote monitor detection to bound them to unique Ids.
- Magic Borderless no longer simply crashes with an error message when there's save corruption. It will first attempt to restore.
- Configurations now create a backup point of last successful configuration, so in case of corruption, it restores to the previous point automatically.
- Improved Magic Borderless cold boot (booting the app for the first time after the system starts) performance.
- Greatly improved the main window UI performance.
- Improved shutting down of the program to be more delicate, ensuring no tasks are abruptly terminated.
- Fixed the menu bar jitter on selection when mouse is resting on the edge of the menu.
- Fixed Window Escape overlays not being properly cleaned up after the parent app has shutdown.
- Fixed Window Escape sometimes not stealing focus from games.
- Fixed memory leak with expired icons.
- Fixed memory leak with mouse hooks.
- Fixed rare crashes when the program is taking too long to load.
- Fixed ordering for configured windows sometimes not saving.
- Fixed occasions where the Steam client would falsely report "shutting down", causing Magic Borderless to shut down as well.
- Fixed Magic being called more than once in rare occasions when system briefly slows down.
- Fixed a crash when the trayicon was clicked too early while it is loading.
- Fixed a crash when Steam was initialized too soon.
- Fixed a crash with Window-Escape when a new window was created on top of the target window.
- Fixed Magic Borderless Main Lab window taking way too long to open from the tray when it was loaded the first time.
- Optimized a few calls for mouse locks.
- Optimized various window event hooks.
- Optimized window monitoring system further which was a bonus came from the new algorithm to support more apps (UWP).
- Included further UI improvements.
This update concludes our focus on enabling borderless on all apps we could possibly support. Apps that are not compatible now likely are simply coded that way to not respond to window property changes from third-party apps. This does not mean we've stopped working to increase compatibility. It means our main focus will now move on to adding more cool and usability features.
If you are enjoying these updates, please spread the word and give us a good review. It can really help us keep working on Magic Borderless further!
Always with love,
Studio Christmas.