🟦 Box Breathing Tray

A lightweight Windows 11 system tray application that animates the classic box-breathing pattern — a dot travels around a square, spending exactly 4 seconds on each side (inhale → hold → exhale → hold), all visible as an animated icon in your taskbar notification area.

Features

Feature	Details
🎯 System tray only	No main window cluttering your desktop
🔄 Smooth animation	~60 fps dot-on-square in the tray icon
⏱ Customisable timing	1–60 seconds per side (default: 4 s)
🎨 Customisable colours	Square outline, dot, and background
💾 Persistent settings	Saved to `%APPDATA%\BoxBreathingTray\settings.json`
🚀 Auto-start	Installer registers a run-at-login registry key
📦 Single-file exe	No .NET runtime required — fully self-contained

Quick Start (pre-built)

Run BoxBreathingTray_Setup_1.0.0.exe
The app starts immediately and sits in the system tray (bottom-right corner — you may need to expand the tray overflow)
Right-click the animated icon → Settings… to customise colours and timing

Building from Source

Prerequisites

.NET 8 SDK (or later)
Windows 10 / 11
(Optional) Inno Setup 6 — to compile the installer

Steps

# Clone / download the source, then:
cd BoxBreathingTray

# Build + publish (produces a self-contained single EXE)
.\build.ps1

# The exe will be at: .\publish\BoxBreathingTray.exe
# The installer (if Inno Setup is installed): .\installer\BoxBreathingTray_Setup_1.0.0.exe

Or manually:

dotnet publish BoxBreathingTray.csproj `
    --configuration Release `
    --runtime win-x64 `
    --self-contained true `
    /p:PublishSingleFile=true `
    --output publish

Project Structure

BoxBreathingTray/
├── Program.cs                  # Entry point — starts TrayApplicationContext
├── TrayApplicationContext.cs   # ApplicationContext: owns the NotifyIcon
├── AnimationEngine.cs          # Background thread that renders icon frames
├── BreathingSettings.cs        # Settings model + JSON load/save
├── SettingsForm.cs             # Colour + timing settings window
├── BoxBreathingTray.csproj     # SDK-style project (net8.0-windows)
├── app.manifest                # Per-monitor DPI v2 + Win11 compat
├── installer.iss               # Inno Setup script → setup .exe
└── build.ps1                   # One-command build + package script

How the Animation Works

Side 0 (top):    dot travels LEFT → RIGHT  (Inhale)
Side 1 (right):  dot travels TOP  → BOTTOM (Hold)
Side 2 (bottom): dot travels RIGHT → LEFT  (Exhale)
Side 3 (left):   dot travels BOTTOM → TOP  (Hold)

At the default 4 s/side the full cycle is 16 seconds, matching the box-breathing (4-4-4-4) technique.

Settings File

%APPDATA%\BoxBreathingTray\settings.json

{
  "SecondsPerSide": 4,
  "SquareColorArgb": -11206656,
  "DotColorArgb": -1,
  "BackgroundColorArgb": -16777186
}

Delete this file to reset all settings to defaults.

Uninstalling

Control Panel → Programs → Box Breathing Tray → Uninstall
This removes the application files and the auto-start registry entry.

FilesExpand file tree

README.md

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