■ New: "Turn off grid" and the "Auto-arrange" switch for honeycomb drawers
Honeycomb drawers can now have auto-arrange switched off, and you can go one step further and drop the grid altogether, so icons sit wherever you put them instead of being held to a shape. Right-click a honeycomb and tick "Turn off grid": auto-arrange switches off with it, icons stay exactly where you drop them, they no longer snap to the hexagons, and two of them can overlap completely. You can also switch off auto-arrange on its own and keep the hexagon grid to compose with — turning off the grid is not required. Icons still have to stay inside the boundary you drew; drag one past it and the file goes back to the desktop. Untick it and the hexagon arrangement comes back exactly as it was, with each icon in its old place: the two arrangements are remembered separately.
■ Honeycomb drawers - Turn off grid and Auto-arrange
- Added "Auto-arrange" to the right-click menu, below "Adjust boundary", for honeycomb drawers only.
- With auto-arrange off, every icon keeps the position you gave it; releasing a drag either swaps two icons or leaves the original cell empty.
- Added "Turn off grid" to the right-click menu, below "Auto-arrange", for honeycomb drawers only.
- While the grid is off, "Auto-arrange" is switched off with it, and dragging outlines the area you can drop into.
■ New: "Delayed launch" for icons
An icon in a drawer can now wait a few seconds before it opens. Right-click the icon, tick "Delayed launch" and set the seconds yourself — anything from 1 to 5, decimals included. During the wait, a ring of light travels slowly around the icon and fades out once it closes the loop; only then does the icon actually open, so you can see how long is left. It suits a live wallpaper that plays: when something on the wallpaper is halfway through its animation, let the icon wait until it finishes. Delayed launch is off by default, and icons without it behave exactly as before.
- Added "Delayed launch": tick it in a drawer icon's right-click menu and set the seconds (1 to 5, decimals allowed).
- A ring of light travels around the icon while it waits and fades out before the icon opens; its colour, opacity and width can all be adjusted.
- Off by default; icons without it behave as before.
■ Honeycomb drawers - Icon opacity
- Added an adjustable "Icon opacity" (3–100%) that fades a whole cell; the cell under the pointer returns to full strength.
- Once icons are faded, moving the pointer into the drawer brings out a soft glow around each one — the fainter the icons, the clearer the glow.
- When the centre handle is turned down until it is invisible, the drawer switches itself to Keep Expanded and says so; you can undo that from the right-click menu.
■ Honeycomb drawers - Custom boundary
- Added dragging icons to new positions directly on the Adjust boundary screen; a displaced icon slides into place, and any icon you did not move returns to where it was.
- While adjusting the boundary, other drawers step aside, icons show at full opacity, and every cell is outlined.
- Fixed flicker, stalling and icons drifting along while a handle is being dragged, in certain cases.
- Fixed a drawer with a custom boundary covering the drawer underneath, leaving it impossible to click or drag.
- A drawer with a custom boundary now rearranges its cells the moment it is dragged against the edge of the screen.
- Fixed a drawer's position shifting a long way after waking from sleep or changing resolution, once its custom boundary had been switched off.
■ Honeycomb drawers
- Fixed only the outermost hexagon outlines staying visible once a picture filled the drawer.
- Added an adjustable "Hexagon outline width" (1–5px); the default matches the previous look.
- Dragging an icon no longer moves the whole drawer with it — drag the centre handle to move a drawer.
- Fixed the icon that fills a vacated cell not sitting in the centre of it.
- Fixed icons occasionally staying enlarged and never responding to the pointer again.
- Dragging an icon across another honeycomb drawer no longer makes that drawer show its grid.
- Fixed honeycomb drawers set to Keep Expanded appearing collapsed after startup.
- Reduced the wait when switching between honeycomb and standard layouts; the more icons and the higher the display scaling, the bigger the difference.
- Smoother dragging of icons, moving of drawers and adjusting of boundaries.
■ Drawers
- Fixed long file names inside a drawer being cut off at the sides.
- Fixed the file name that unfolds after a click not lining up with the last row in the cell.
- Smoother release when dragging a drawer.
- Fixed drawers drifting out of position while being dragged on a two-monitor setup, in bad cases moving off screen.
■ Widgets
- Reduced the resources used by the Pomodoro timer's mechanical faces; the difference shows most with several on screen or with a large face.
- Fixed the Pomodoro timer's hourglass look disappearing briefly while it flashes at the end of a session.
■ Settings windows
- Fixed a colour block being stretched, and the window not narrowing again, when a setting was collapsed.
- Adjusted the width of the settings windows in longer languages, so overlong descriptions now wrap.
■ Desktop layouts
- When you apply a layout shared by someone else, widgets you do not own now read "(Not owned)" and cannot be selected.
■ Finally
Thank you to everyone who reported an issue or sent us a suggestion — your feedback is where every update begins.
DeskForge is a one-time purchase, maintained for the long run: features you have already paid for will never be moved behind a subscription, and your desktop layout will never be moved to the cloud. We will keep fixing and adding, at no extra cost.
If you run into anything, use "Report a Problem" in the About window to tell us directly.
P.S. For the quickest update, we suggest quitting Steam completely and starting it again.