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().