TrayZen

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TrayZen is a Windows 10 tray icon laboratory in the form of a clean desktop utility.
It treats the notification area as a controllable system surface: measurable, reproducible, and customizable.

If your tray feels noisy, TrayZen helps you restore signal from clutter.

Why TrayZen?

System trays usually grow without governance. TrayZen applies a simple idea:

• define icon visibility as a state model,
• apply deterministic rules to that state,
• let users switch contexts (work/gaming/focus) in one action.

In short: less visual entropy, more intentional UI.

Feature Set

• Visibility Control hide/show tray icons quickly
• Custom Icon Replacement override icon visuals with .ico assets
• Zen Mode one-click or hotkey-based focus mode
• Smart Auto-Hide idle-based and foreground-aware hiding rules
• Icon Grouping batch operations through named groups
• Profiles save/load/export/import full tray configurations
• Native Tray Presence TrayZen itself runs with tray icon + context menu
• Minimize to Tray close-to-tray workflow for persistent background use
• Theme System dark/light Fluent-inspired UI
• Global Hotkeys configurable recorder-based shortcut input

System Model (How It Works)

TrayZen interacts with Windows Explorer's notification area toolbar:

Shell_TrayWnd -> TrayNotifyWnd -> SysPager -> ToolbarWindow32 (visible tray)
NotifyIconOverflowWindow -> ToolbarWindow32 (overflow tray)

Core techniques:

• P/Invoke-based window discovery (FindWindowExW, SendMessageW)
• cross-process memory access (OpenProcess, ReadProcessMemory, WriteProcessMemory)
• toolbar inspection (TBBUTTON, embedded TRAYDATA)
• shell state updates (Shell_NotifyIcon + state flags)

This hybrid strategy balances compatibility (shell-level APIs) with deep control (toolbar-level interop).

Technical Stack

• .NET 10 + WPF
• MVVM with CommunityToolkit.Mvvm
• Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection for composition
• H.NotifyIcon.Wpf for TrayZen's own tray lifecycle
• Win32 interop (User32, Shell32, Kernel32)

Project Structure

src/TrayZen/
  Native/        Win32 constants, structs, P/Invoke, tray interop
  Models/        tray icon/profile/settings models
  Services/      icon polling, profiles, settings, hotkeys, auto-hide
  ViewModels/    state + command orchestration (MVVM)
  Views/         XAML pages (Dashboard, Profiles, Settings)
  Themes/        dark/light resources and control styles
  Converters/    UI binding converters

Quick Start

Requirements

• Windows 10 (recommended: 19041+)
• .NET 10 SDK

Build and Run

cd src/TrayZen
dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet run

Note: some tray operations may require elevated permissions, depending on target processes and Explorer state.

Design Principles

• Deterministic behavior: operations should be predictable and reversible
• Minimal interface: fewer controls, clearer intent
• Separation of concerns: interop in Native, policy in Services, UX in ViewModels/Views
• Fail-soft runtime: the app should remain usable even if a specific low-level operation fails

Roadmap

• improve reliability for edge-case tray hosts
• refine icon grouping into richer folder-like interactions
• ship MSIX packaging and broader test coverage
• document interoperability boundaries across Windows builds

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome. Helpful contributions include:

• reproducible bug reports (Windows build + app steps + expected/actual behavior)
• stability fixes around Explorer/tray edge cases
• performance improvements in polling and UI updates
• tests and documentation polish

License

Released under the license in LICENSE.