368 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
368 lines
19 KiB
Markdown
# Ebbe's Meme Clipboard — Project Context & Handoff
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Context document for continuing this project in a new Claude Code session.
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Last updated: 2026-08-13.
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---
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## What this is
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A Windows meme/GIF picker inspired by the Windows Emoji Picker (Win+.). Press a global
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hotkey anywhere, a popup grid appears, search/browse your own memes, click one, and it's
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copied — and optionally auto-pasted (and optionally auto-sent) into whatever app you were
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just using. Tray icon for access and settings.
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**Repo**: `c:\Users\e.bass\Coding\ebbes-meme-clipboard`
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**Stack**: .NET 10 (current LTS) + WPF + C#, single project.
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---
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## Current state
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Everything below is **implemented and verified working by actually running the app**
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(not just compiling):
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- Global hotkey (default **Ctrl+Alt+M**), user-remappable, persisted
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- Tray icon with menu: **Open / Settings / Exit**
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- Popup picker: search box, thumbnail grid, drag-to-move via top handle strip,
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Esc / click-away to dismiss, positions near cursor clamped to the current monitor
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- Add memes: `+` button (file dialog), drag-and-drop onto picker, **Ctrl+V paste**, jpg/png/gif
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- Search filters by filename (case-insensitive substring)
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- Right-click a tile → **Remove** (deletes to Recycle Bin, recoverable — verified)
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- Multi-format clipboard write (see "Clipboard formats" below)
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- Three insert modes, chosen in Settings: **Copy only / Paste into active window /
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Paste and send instantly**
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- Settings window: hotkey capture (incl. Windows key), insert mode radio buttons,
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**autostart toggle**, **Giphy API key field**
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- **Source tabs in the picker: Local / Giphy**, with debounced Giphy search, remote
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thumbnails, download-on-select caching, and the required "Powered by GIPHY" badge
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- **Windows autostart** via the HKCU Run key, toggled in Settings (verified: checkbox and
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registry track each other in both directions)
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- **Per-source favourites**: right-click any tile → "Add to favourites", shown in a
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★ Favourites section at the top of that tab, with a star overlay on favourited tiles.
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Scoped per source (Local favourites don't appear on the Giphy tab) and persisted.
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- App title shown top-left of the picker; the title row doubles as the drag surface
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- Consistent dark styling across all menus (tray + tile right-click) **and scrollbars**
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- Persistence: memes, favourites and settings survive restarts
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**Build is clean** (0 warnings, 0 errors). Working tree was clean at last check;
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`publish/` is gitignored.
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### Where user data lives
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```
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%AppData%\EbbesMemeClipboard\
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settings.json InsertMode, HotkeyModifiers, HotkeyKey, GiphyApiKey
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favorites.json list of FavoriteRecord (Source, Key, Title, Preview/FullUrl, DateAdded)
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Library\
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index.json list of LocalMemeRecord (Id, FileName, OriginalFileName, DateAdded)
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<guid>.png/.jpg/.gif imported files, stored under a GUID name
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%LocalAppData%\EbbesMemeClipboard\
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GifCache\ downloaded Giphy GIFs (re-downloadable cache, so Local not Roaming)
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HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\EbbesMemeClipboard
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autostart entry; the registry is the single source of truth for
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this (deliberately NOT mirrored into settings.json, to avoid drift)
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```
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---
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## Build / run / publish
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```bash
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# run from source
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dotnet run --project src/EbbesMemeClipboard
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# build
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dotnet build
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# publish self-contained single-file binary -> publish/EbbesMemeClipboard.exe (~78 MB)
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dotnet publish src/EbbesMemeClipboard/EbbesMemeClipboard.csproj -c Release -r win-x64 \
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--self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true \
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-p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -p:EnableCompressionInSingleFile=true \
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-o publish
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```
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Note: the published single-file exe takes **~10 seconds on first launch** before the tray
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icon appears (native library self-extraction to TEMP). Not a bug. Subsequent launches are
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faster.
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---
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## File map
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```
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src/EbbesMemeClipboard/
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App.xaml / App.xaml.cs composition root: DI container, tray icon, hotkey registration
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Styles/DarkMenuStyles.xaml implicit ContextMenu/MenuItem/Separator styles (app-wide)
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Styles/DarkScrollBarStyles.xaml implicit slim dark ScrollBar style (app-wide)
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Models/
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LocalMemeRecord.cs Id, FileName, OriginalFileName, DateAdded
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AppSettings.cs InsertMode, HotkeyModifiers, HotkeyKey, GiphyApiKey
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InsertMode.cs CopyOnly | PasteIntoActiveWindow | PasteAndSend
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MemeSource.cs Local | Giphy
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GifSearchResult.cs provider-agnostic remote hit
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FavoriteRecord.cs per-source favourite (remote ones carry their own URLs)
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Services/
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ILocalMemeLibraryService / LocalMemeLibraryService import/search/remove, index.json
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IClipboardService / ClipboardService multi-format clipboard write
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IGlobalHotkeyService / GlobalHotkeyService RegisterHotKey + message-only HwndSource
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ISettingsService / SettingsService System.Text.Json persistence
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IAutoPasteService / AutoPasteService foreground restore + SendInput paste
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IAutostartService / AutostartService HKCU Run key
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IGifProvider / GiphyGifProvider remote search behind a provider interface
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IGifCacheService / GifCacheService download + cache remote GIFs
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IFavoritesService / FavoritesService per-source favourites, favorites.json
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ImageDecoding.cs first-frame decode helper (file + bytes)
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HotkeyFormatter.cs "Ctrl + Alt + M" display strings
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Native/
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NativeMethods.cs P/Invoke declarations
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InputSimulation.cs INPUT/KEYBDINPUT structs + key send helpers
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MonitorInterop.cs per-monitor DPI resolution
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HotkeyInterop.cs MOD_*/WM_HOTKEY constants
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ViewModels/
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PickerViewModel.cs search, items, select/remove/import commands
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MemeTileViewModel.cs one tile: record + lazily-loaded thumbnail
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SettingsViewModel.cs insert mode + hotkey rebinding
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Views/
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PickerWindow.xaml(.cs) the popup
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SettingsWindow.xaml(.cs) settings window
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```
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---
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## Hard-won technical knowledge
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**These were all discovered the slow way. Don't re-derive them.**
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### Tray icon requires two non-obvious steps
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`TaskbarIcon` is declared in `Application.Resources` (so it lives for the whole app with no
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host window). Two consequences:
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1. It never receives a `Loaded` event (not in any visual tree), so its icon is never
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created → must call `_trayIcon.ForceCreate(enablesEfficiencyMode: false)` explicitly.
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2. `Shell_NotifyIcon` **silently no-ops** if no window in the process has a real Win32
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handle yet → must call `new WindowInteropHelper(_pickerWindow).EnsureHandle()` first.
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Neither throws an exception when missing; the icon just never appears. Verified by
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enumerating the tray via UI Automation with and without these lines.
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Also: `x:Name` on elements nested in `Application.Resources` does **not** reliably generate
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code-behind fields. Look elements up by `Tag`/traversal instead.
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### Clipboard formats — four, and each exists for a reason
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`ClipboardService.CopyLocalFileAsync` writes all of these into one `DataObject`:
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| Format | Why |
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| `CF_HDROP` (file drop list) | Discord/Slack/Teams/Explorer paste the real file — preserves GIF animation |
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| `CF_DIB` (`SetImage`) | Bitmap-only apps like Paint |
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| `"PNG"` (registered format) | **Chromium-based apps (Teams, Slack, Discord, browsers) prefer this over CF_DIB** and may paste nothing at all without it. **Deliberately omitted for GIFs** — see below |
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| `CF_HTML` | The other route web-based compose boxes check; carries a base64 `data:` URI |
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**Reading the clipboard (Ctrl+V to import) uses the same knowledge in reverse.**
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`ClipboardService.TryReadImage()` checks formats in descending fidelity order: FileDrop →
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CF_HTML `data:` URI → `"PNG"` → CF_DIB bitmap. The order is not cosmetic: a GIF is only
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still animated in the first two, so a naive implementation that reached for the bitmap
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first would silently flatten every pasted GIF. Verified byte-identical (SHA-256) import for
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a pasted GIF file. Ctrl+V is handled in `PickerWindow.OnPreviewKeyDown` and only swallows
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the keystroke when an image is actually present — plain text still pastes into the search
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box as normal.
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**The `"PNG"` format is skipped for GIFs on purpose.** A PNG can only hold one static frame,
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and since Chromium *prefers* that format over all others, offering it for a GIF is exactly
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what made animated GIFs paste as a still first frame. Omitting it lets those targets fall
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through to `CF_HTML`, which carries the full animated data URI. Verified: a GIF's clipboard
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formats are FileDrop/Bitmap/HTML with no PNG, while a static image still gets PNG.
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Two traps here:
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- WPF does **NOT** auto-wrap `DataFormats.Html`. The `Version/StartHTML/EndHTML/
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StartFragment/EndFragment` header with exact **byte** offsets must be built by hand
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(`BuildCfHtml`). Receiving apps are unforgiving about this being wrong.
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- `Clipboard.SetDataObject` can throw `COMException` if another process transiently holds
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the clipboard → wrapped in a retry loop.
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### Auto-paste: do NOT send a synthetic Alt tap
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A widely-recommended trick for beating focus-stealing prevention is to `SendInput` a lone
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Alt keypress before `SetForegroundWindow`. **This broke pasting into Teams**, and was the
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actual root cause of a long debugging session: Electron/Chromium apps treat a lone Alt as
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"toggle menu bar focus", which moved Teams' internal focus off the compose box. The window
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correctly returned to the foreground (so the follow-up Enter registered and sent an *empty*
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message), but Ctrl+V had nothing focused to land in.
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Removing the Alt tap fixed it — and it was unnecessary anyway, since our picker window is
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already the foreground process at that point, which Windows exempts from the restriction.
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`AttachThreadInput` + `SetForegroundWindow` alone is sufficient.
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### Deactivated handler must be suppressed in two cases
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`PickerWindow` hides itself on `Deactivated` (click-away to dismiss). Two things falsely
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trigger it, and both were real bugs:
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- Opening the "add memes" file dialog → guarded by `PickerViewModel.IsDialogOpen`
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- Opening a tile's right-click context menu → guarded by `_isContextMenuOpen`
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(`ContextMenuOpening`/`ContextMenuClosing`)
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### Windows key is not in `Keyboard.Modifiers`
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WPF only tracks Ctrl/Alt/Shift there. For Win+<key> hotkeys, check
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`Keyboard.IsKeyDown(Key.LWin)` / `Key.RWin` separately and OR in `ModifierKeys.Windows`.
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### csproj quirks
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- `UseWPF` + `UseWindowsForms` both add implicit global usings that **collide** on
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`Application`, `DataObject`, `KeyEventArgs`, `DragEventArgs`. Resolved with
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`<Using Remove="System.Windows.Forms" />`; the two WinForms helpers actually used
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(`Cursor`, `Screen`) are fully qualified.
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- `NoWarn: WFO0003` — WinForms analyzer wrongly suggests its own DPI API; DPI is correctly
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declared in `app.manifest` (PerMonitorV2), which is right for a WPF app.
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- `[LibraryImport]` requires `AllowUnsafeBlocks`. Not worth it for two P/Invokes — plain
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`[DllImport]` is used instead.
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### No single-instance protection (known gap)
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Two running instances fight over the same global hotkey; whichever registered first wins and
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the other silently fails. This caused a very confusing phantom "regression" during
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development (a `dotnet run` instance from VS Code was swallowing hotkeys intended for a
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freshly-built one). **Worth adding** (named Mutex + named pipe) — see original plan.
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---
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## Testing methodology notes
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Automated UI testing of this app is unusually fiddly. What works:
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- **Do show + act in ONE script.** Launching any new process steals focus, which triggers
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the picker's auto-hide. Splitting "show the picker" and "click a tile" across two tool
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calls will always fail with the window already hidden.
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- **The `INPUT` struct must be 40 bytes on x64.** The union has to be padded to 32 bytes
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(`[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Explicit, Size = 32)]`) even if only the keyboard member is
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used. If it's wrong, **every `SendInput` call silently fails** returning 0 with
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`ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER` (87). This wasted significant time — an early test script had
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this wrong and made a perfectly working app look broken.
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- **`SendKeys` does not trigger `RegisterHotKey` hotkeys.** It posts to the focused window's
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queue rather than injecting real input. Use `SendInput`.
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- **PowerShell 5.1's `Add-Type` uses an old C# compiler** — no expression-bodied members
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(`=>`), no ternary in some positions. Use classic syntax in test scripts.
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- **UI Automation beats pixel coordinates** for driving menus (`ExpandCollapsePattern`,
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`InvokePattern`). But note meme tiles have **no accessible name** (content is just an
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`Image`), so name-based queries will match the `+` button instead.
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- Verifying the tray icon: enumerate `Shell_TrayWnd` descendants via UI Automation and look
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for a name containing "Meme Clipboard". This finds it even when tucked in the overflow
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area, unlike screenshots.
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Clean up after testing: kill `EbbesMemeClipboard` processes, remove
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`%AppData%\EbbesMemeClipboard` and `%LocalAppData%\EbbesMemeClipboard`, and **check the
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autostart Run key isn't left enabled** if autostart was exercised — that one writes to the
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user's real machine state, not just app-local files.
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---
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## Giphy integration notes
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**Tenor is dead.** The user originally asked for Tenor; research confirmed Google **shut
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down the public Tenor API on 2026-06-30** (corroborated by 9to5Google, Shacknews,
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Slashdot). Not buildable. **Giphy** was chosen instead and is what's implemented.
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- `GET https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/search?api_key={key}&q={q}&limit={n}&rating=pg-13`
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- Empty query falls back to `/trending` with the same parameters.
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- Response: `data[].images.{fixed_width,original}.url` — `fixed_width` for grid
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thumbnails, `original` for the full-quality animated file that gets pasted.
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- **The user supplies their own key** in Settings. Free tier is 100 req/hr; the ~$9k/yr
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production tier is irrelevant for personal use. Without a key the tab shows guidance
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instead of failing at request time (`IGifProvider.IsConfigured`).
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- Searches are **debounced 350ms** and cancel the previous in-flight request — without
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that, every keystroke burns a request against the free rate limit.
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- Giphy's ToS **requires the visible "Powered by GIPHY" badge**, rendered in the picker
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footer whenever the Giphy tab is active. Don't remove it.
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- Klipy (`api.klipy.com`) is a viable alternative if Giphy becomes a problem — founded by
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ex-Tenor people, deliberately mirrors Tenor's API shape, free. Add it as a second
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`IGifProvider`; the tab strip and view models are already provider-agnostic.
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**Untested by the assistant**: actual Giphy search results, remote thumbnail loading, and
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download-on-select were never exercised against the live API, because no API key was
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available. The code paths are written but unverified end-to-end — if something misbehaves
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once a key is entered, start with `GiphyGifProvider.SearchAsync` (JSON field names) and
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`GifCacheService.GetOrDownloadAsync`.
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---
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## Pending requests
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### ⚠️ 1. "Central store specific to the application for all local memes" — STILL AMBIGUOUS
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**Ask the user before building.** The app *already* stores memes centrally in
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`%AppData%\EbbesMemeClipboard\Library`. When asked to clarify, the user chose "Something
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else" but the conversation moved on before they explained. Options offered *and rejected*
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were: (a) save Giphy results into the local library, (b) configurable library folder
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location. So it's something other than those two — get a concrete description first.
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### 2. Paste-send reliability ("Teams is sometimes too slow")
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Not yet addressed. Current delays in `AutoPasteService`: `FocusSettleDelay` 200ms (before
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Ctrl+V), `PasteSettleDelay` 400ms (before Enter). Both are fixed sleeps, so a slow app will
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still occasionally miss.
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Bumping the constants is the cheap fix but slows every paste for everyone. Better: **poll
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for readiness instead of guessing** — verify the target window is genuinely foreground
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before sending Ctrl+V, and confirm rather than firing Enter blind. Note the failure mode
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already observed: if Enter fires when the paste didn't land, **Teams sends an empty
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message**, so the Enter step should be conservative — a wrong guess posts to a real chat.
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### 3. Possible follow-ups (not requested, just noted)
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- **Single-instance protection** (named Mutex + named pipe). Currently two instances fight
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over the global hotkey; this caused a confusing phantom "regression" during development.
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- **`WPF-UI` is referenced but unused** — intended for Mica/Fluent polish. Use it or drop it.
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- **Animated GIF previews on hover** (currently static first frame only) — `GifFramePlayer`
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control was designed for this in the original plan but never built.
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---
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## Decisions already made (don't re-litigate)
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- **WPF over WinUI 3** — simpler unpackaged single-exe deployment, more mature tray support.
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- **WPF over Electron/Tauri** — user chose native .NET.
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- **Giphy over Tenor** — Tenor's API no longer exists (see above).
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- **Clipboard keeps the meme after auto-paste** — user explicitly chose this (matches
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Windows' own clipboard-history behavior). Do not add clipboard-clearing or
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restore-previous-contents logic.
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- **"Paste and send" is opt-in, never the default** — it presses Enter, which submits in
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chat apps. Default insert mode is `PasteIntoActiveWindow`.
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- No Settings-window dark title bar (content is dark, title bar is standard OS chrome).
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User was offered a fix and it wasn't prioritized.
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- **Autostart state lives only in the registry**, not in `settings.json`. Mirroring it would
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let the two drift apart if the entry is removed via Task Manager or another tool; the
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Settings checkbox reads live registry state each time the window opens.
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## Known limitations (inherent, not bugs)
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- **No caret-following.** The real Emoji Panel is a privileged shell component with text-
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services integration; a third-party app can't replicate it. Popup appears at the cursor.
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- **Can't auto-paste into elevated (admin) windows** — UIPI security boundary. A non-
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elevated process cannot `SendInput` into a higher-integrity window, full stop.
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- **Unsigned exe** will likely trigger a SmartScreen prompt on first run elsewhere.
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## Environment setup notes
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- .NET 10 SDK (10.0.400) was installed via `winget install Microsoft.DotNet.SDK.10`.
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- The machine's global NuGet config (`%APPDATA%\NuGet\NuGet.Config`) had an **empty
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`<packageSources>`**, which broke all restores. Fixed by
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`dotnet nuget add source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json --name nuget.org`.
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If restore mysteriously fails on another machine, check this first.
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## Packages
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| Package | Version |
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|---|---|
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| H.NotifyIcon.Wpf | 2.4.1 |
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| WPF-UI | 4.3.0 |
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| CommunityToolkit.Mvvm | 8.4.2 |
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| Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection | 10.0.0 |
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`WPF-UI` is referenced but **not actually used yet** — it was intended for Mica/Fluent
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visual polish (a later phase in the original plan). Current styling is hand-rolled dark
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theme. Either use it or drop the reference.
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---
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## Original phased plan
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A fuller plan document from the start of the project lives outside this repo at
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`C:\Users\e.bass\.claude\plans\nested-finding-tower.md`. Phases 0–2 are essentially done
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(plus auto-paste, which was Phase 4). Remaining from that plan: Giphy integration (Phase 3),
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Mica/Fluent visual polish + animated GIF hover previews (Phase 5), and packaging polish
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(Phase 6 — single-file publish already works).
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