ClickLightWin

A Windows menu-bar (system-tray) app that highlights your mouse clicks on screen during live demos, screen sharing, and UX reviews. It is a ground-up C# / .NET (WPF) reimplementation of the macOS app ClickLight, not a port: every macOS primitive is mapped to a clean Windows equivalent.

On each click, a short animated pulse is drawn at the cursor and fades out. The app runs headless apart from a tray icon; there is no main window.

Status

1.0.0. Feature-complete for daily use:

• System-wide click capture via a low-level mouse hook
• Transparent, click-through, topmost overlay per monitor, DPI-correct (Per-Monitor v2)
• Fading pulse on press, a contracting ring on hold + release, and a fading drag trail
• Laser-pointer mode: a glowing cursor that trails the pointer plus a fading freehand stroke on drag
• Per-button colors and Size/Duration presets
• A modern settings window and a dark tray menu (feature toggles, preset submenus)
• Global toggle hotkey Ctrl+Alt+L, launch-at-login, single-instance guard
• Settings persisted to %APPDATA%\ClickLightWin\settings.json

See docs/04-build-checklist.md for the roadmap this was built against.

Note: multi-monitor click routing and mixed-DPI placement are implemented but have only been verified on a single monitor (100% and 150%). Worth a pass on multi-monitor and mixed-DPI hardware.

Download

Grab the latest from the Releases page. Two options:

• ClickLight-vX.Y.Z-Setup.exe (installer, ~7 MB) — recommended. Installs the app, adds Start-menu/desktop shortcuts, and installs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime for you if it is missing.
• ClickLight-vX.Y.Z-win-x64.exe (bare app, ~250 KB) — for machines that already have the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime. Just run it.

Until code signing is set up (see below), both are unsigned, so on first launch Windows SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC" — click More info -> Run anyway.

Code signing

The release workflow signs both downloads with SignPath (free for open-source projects), which removes the "Unknown publisher" warning. The signing steps stay dormant until the repository is configured, so releases still build unsigned in the meantime. To enable it:

1. Create a free SignPath account and connect this GitHub repository.
2. In SignPath, define a project, an artifact configuration that signs the two .exe files, and a signing policy (e.g. release-signing).
3. Add a repository secret SIGNPATH_API_TOKEN, and repository variables SIGNPATH_ORGANIZATION_ID, SIGNPATH_PROJECT_SLUG, SIGNPATH_SIGNING_POLICY_SLUG, and SIGNPATH_ARTIFACT_CONFIG_SLUG.
4. Push a new tag — the release assets will be signed automatically.

SignPath's free plan requires an OSS license (this project is MIT) and a public repo.

Requirements (to build)

• Windows 10 21H2+ or Windows 11
• .NET 10 SDK (dotnet --version shows 10.x)
• WPF builds on Windows only

Build and run

# from the repo root
dotnet build src\ClickLightWin.sln
dotnet run --project src\ClickLightWin\ClickLightWin.csproj

The app starts in the tray. Click anywhere to see a pulse. Right-click the tray icon for the menu, or press Ctrl+Alt+L to toggle highlighting on and off.

Known limitations

• Elevated windows and secure surfaces. A non-elevated hook cannot observe input directed at an elevated (admin) window, the UAC consent prompt, the lock screen, or Ctrl+Alt+Del. Over those surfaces no pulse appears. This is a Windows security boundary, not a bug. Running ClickLight elevated would let it highlight over admin apps, but that is rarely worth it for a demo tool.
• Fullscreen exclusive apps. A fullscreen exclusive game or another topmost window can cover the overlay.
• Mixed-DPI multi-monitor. Placement is verified at 100% and 150% on a single monitor. Cross-monitor routing and mixed-DPI setups (e.g. a 150% laptop panel plus a 100% external) should be verified on that hardware.

Layout

ClickLightWin/
├── README.md                 this file
├── global.json               .NET SDK pin
├── docs/                      build blueprint and API mapping
├── ClickLight/                macOS reference clone (git-ignored)
└── src/
    ├── ClickLightWin.sln
    └── ClickLightWin/         the app (WPF + WinForms tray)

The macOS Swift sources under ClickLight/Sources/ClickLight/ are the source of truth for behavior (pulse shapes, timing, presets). The mapping from Swift files to Windows components is in docs/01-architecture.md.