A 450 KB single-file Windows desktop toolbox — Todo · Markdown Notes · App Launcher, three tools in one exe.
| Todo (light) | Launcher |
|---|---|
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| Notes · reading mode | Notes · dark theme |
|---|---|
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- One exe, double-click and go. Built natively on .NET 9 + WPF, zero external dependencies, ~450 KB as a single-file publish.
- Your data never leaves your PC. Everything is stored in
%APPDATA%\JeffBox. No account, no cloud sync, no telemetry. - Always one hotkey away. Tray-resident with four global hotkey slots — one master hotkey to summon the window, plus one direct hotkey for each tool (Todo / Notes / Launcher).
- Performance first. A 3.5 MB+ Markdown document opens instantly (streaming block-by-block rendering); long todo lists are UI-virtualized.
- Dark / light themes + English / 简体中文 UI, polished with rounded cards, overlay scrollbars and smooth animations.
- Task tree: unlimited nesting of subtasks, expanded by default, collapse/expand-all in one click
- Priority (none/low/med/high with color bars), due dates, in-app reminders
- Markdown-lite details with
Ctrl+Vimage paste (blank-clipboard detection included) - Filters (all/active/done), progress display, hover card preview
- Typora-style: edit ⇄ preview toggled in the same pane
- Double-click a
.mdfile to open it with JeffBox (optional file association, reversible) - Full syntax: headings, tables, code blocks, quotes, task lists, nested lists,
~~strikethrough~~,==highlight==, footnotes, inline & block math - Streaming renderer for huge files (first 300 blocks, auto-append on scroll); very large files fall back to read-only preview
- Encoding-aware (BOM → UTF-8 → GB18030), atomic writes never corrupt your files
- Tile wall: single click to launch, system icons extracted automatically (including
.lnk; falls back to a generic icon if the target is gone) - Drag & drop to add apps, shortcuts, files or folders
- Category tabs: create with
＋, rename/sort/delete via right-click; drag a tile onto a tab to move it across categories - Drag to reorder, or auto-sort by launch frequency (hover a tile to see its count)
- Remembers the last tab and sort mode; migrates legacy flat data automatically
- Tray-resident (switchable to "exit on close"), optional auto-start, single instance with argument forwarding
- Fully customizable hotkeys: click the box and just press the combo. On failure, three-layer conflict diagnosis — a knowledge base of common defaults (WeChat/QQ/DingTalk/NetEase/Snipaste…), live response forensics (names the app that actually reacted to your keypress), then generic guidance. Reserved combos (Alt+F4 etc.) are blocked up front
- Window state memory: position/size/maximized, multi-monitor safe
- Open where your mouse is: summon the window by hotkey, tray icon or shortcut and it appears on the mouse's monitor (centered) or right beside the cursor — configurable in Settings, off by default
- Recently-opened documents list in Notes
Option 1 — grab a release
Two builds are published for every release:
JeffBox-SelfContained.exe(163 MB) — recommended for most users: bundles the .NET runtime, nothing to install, just download and runJeffBox.exe(455 KB) — lightweight build, requires .NET Desktop Runtime 9.x (most Windows 10/11 machines already have it or will be prompted once)
Option 2 — build from source
git clone https://github.com/Jeffrey56400/JeffBox.git
cd JeffBox
# run for debugging
dotnet run
# publish a single-file exe (~450 KB)
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true -o publishRequires .NET SDK 9.0+, Windows 10 1809+.
- All data lives in
%APPDATA%\JeffBox(todos.json/tools.json/settings.json/attachments\). Delete that folder to wipe everything. - No network calls, no telemetry, no auto-update. The only outbound behavior is opening links you click.
- Saves are atomic (temp file + replace); corrupt files get a
.corrupt-*backup and writes are halted instead of overwriting.
JeffBox/
├── MainWindow.xaml(.cs) # shell: custom title bar, tray, hotkeys, settings overlay
├── TodoViewModel.cs # todo-tree viewmodel (subtask sync, filtering, breadcrumbs)
├── MarkdownLite.cs # streaming Markdown renderer (lazy block iterator)
├── Models/TodoItem.cs # task-tree model (legacy format auto-migration)
├── Services/
│ ├── TodoStorage.cs # todo persistence (atomic writes, corruption guard)
│ ├── LauncherStorage.cs # launcher persistence (multi-category)
│ ├── AppSettings.cs # settings persistence (window state, hotkeys, theme)
│ ├── AppPaths.cs # data directory + legacy migration
│ ├── Theme.cs / Loc.cs # theme palettes / i18n dictionaries
│ ├── HotkeyInfo.cs # hotkey parsing, reserved combos, conflict KB
│ ├── IconExtract.cs # shell icon extraction (.lnk + missing-target fallback)
│ └── Attachments.cs # todo image attachments (path-traversal guard)
└── Views/
├── MdToolView.* # notes: edit/preview, chunked loading, encoding detection
├── LaunchToolView.* # launcher: tiles, drag sorting, category tabs
├── HotkeyBox.* # reusable hotkey capture box (low-level keyboard hook)
└── InputDialog.cs # lightweight input dialog
- Streaming Markdown rendering —
EnumerateBlocks()lazily yields UI elements block by block; the first screen renders 300 blocks and more are appended near the bottom, so multi-MB docs open instantly with flat memory - Three-layer hotkey conflict diagnosis — Windows offers no API to query hotkey ownership, so JeffBox combines a defaults knowledge base (checked against running processes) with live response forensics: a low-level keyboard hook snapshots the foreground before dispatch and names the app that reacts to your keypress
- Custom title bar done right — WindowChrome maximization is compensated with
SM_CXSIZEFRAME + SM_CXPADDEDBORDERmetrics, avoiding the classic 8-px clipped-content bug - Clipboard image defense chain — raw PNG bytes first, DIB alpha-loss detection for fake-transparency images, blank-image warnings
- Zero dependencies — tray, hotkeys, Markdown, icon extraction and encoding detection are all BCL/P-Invoke; no third-party packages
- Export / import (todo backup, notes batch)
- Calendar view for todos
- Notes outline sidebar & full-text search
- Custom tile icons for the launcher
Feature requests and feedback are welcome in Issues (中文/English).
PRs welcome. Please attach screenshots or repro steps with changes, and keep the two ground rules: zero external dependencies, all data local.
Apache-2.0 © 2026 Jeffrey56400