Fluid Taskbar Animation 🌊

A high-performance Windhawk mod that brings smooth, macOS-inspired fluid animations to the Windows taskbar.

🎬 Demo

Hover over taskbar icons to see the smooth scaling and bounce effect in action

✨ Features

• Fluid Interpolation: Icons don't just "jump"; they scale with smooth, organic transitions using Lerp.
• Dynamic Physics: Includes a subtle bounce effect when hovering, making the UI feel alive.
• High Performance: Designed with O(1) dirty checking and state preservation to ensure zero lag even with many apps open.

🛠️ Key Improvements (v.s. Original Concept)

Compared to basic taskbar animation scripts, this Fluid version introduces several critical technical enhancements:

• State Preservation: Animations no longer "reset" or "snap" when windows open, close, or icons are reordered. The visual state is preserved across layout refreshes.
• High-Performance "Dirty Check": Instead of expensive constant scanning, it uses an O(1) check (width/count detection) to decide when to update layout data.
• Improved Lerp Logic: Optimized interpolation factors for a more "water-like" movement that feels natural at 60Hz or higher refresh rates.
• Enhanced Compatibility: Better handling of TaskbarFrameRepeater and ItemHost containers across different Windows versions.

🚀 Installation

Important

Requirement: Windows 11 or newer. This mod uses specific XAML elements exclusive to the Windows 11 taskbar and will not function on Windows 10.

1. Install Windhawk.
2. Go to the "Mods" tab and click "Create New Mod".
3. Copy the contents of fluid-taskbar-animation.wh.cpp into the editor.
4. Click "Compile and Save".

⚙️ Settings

• Maximum Scale (%): How large icons can grow (Default: 160%).
• Effect Radius (px): The reach of the animation from your cursor.
• Animation Speed (%): Control how "snappy" or "fluid" the transition feels.
• Bounce Effect: Toggle the secondary bounce animation.
• Spacing Sensitivity: Adjusts how much surrounding icons push away.

🛠️ Technical Details

This mod hooks into the Windows UI Automation and XAML framework to manipulate RenderTransform properties in real-time. It uses a custom rendering loop tied to the CompositionTarget.Rendering event for maximum smoothness.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Credits

Developed and optimized by tky-kevin.

Original animation concept inspired by Ph0en1x-dev's work. This version adds state preservation, high-performance dirty checking, and enhanced compatibility for Windows 11.