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Changelog

All notable changes to MaxPane will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[2.4.0] - 2026-07-16

The complete post-2.3.0 feedback batch (forum posts #69-79) plus an extended live-testing marathon on macOS: seven bugfixes, five features, and a new window-hosting architecture that makes out-of-process plugin UIs (AUv3, bridged AUs, Rosetta-bridged x86_64 VSTs) render inside panes on macOS.

Fixed

  • Screensets restore MaxPane window sets again after startup. A screenset LOAD that arrived before the container existed was silently dropped; it is now stashed and replayed once the container is up.
  • A closed MaxPane instance no longer resurrects on the next project save/load. Closing an instance with the docker's own X left a zombie entry that kept writing itself into the project; the docker-X path now records the close and stale entries self-heal. The earlier advice "close it once, save, done" was incomplete - it only held for toggle-closes. (Reported by LorenzoB.)
  • Plugin tabs bound to an FX (fx@ identities) survive the float being closed and reopened by scripts or by hand - the tab waits passively and re-grabs the float when it exists again, never re-opening a float the user closed. (Reported by mequaz.)
  • Reloading a project no longer draws duplicate/misplaced panes - three layout paths computed geometry without the navigation bar offset and the first layout pass after capture could use a stale rect.
  • Windows: FX windows no longer flicker during splitter drags - a macOS-only repaint workaround ran unguarded on Windows and forced a full child repaint on every container paint.
  • Capturing one window from a multi-tab docker no longer hides the docker's remaining windows.
  • Heavy plugin UIs no longer stutter while dragging splitters or resizing the MaxPane window - child repositioning is throttled to ~20 Hz on both paths and the exact final layout lands when the drag ends.
  • Plugin windows keep to their panes on macOS. FX windows were mistakenly run through the ReaImGui machinery (grey tabs, snap-back fights with self-positioning plugins like Waves); they now have their own gentle watchdog: position always returns to the pane, size is clamped only when it exceeds the pane, and a plugin resizing itself smaller simply letterboxes on the pane background.
  • The area around a plugin smaller than its pane is now the pane color on macOS instead of white (REAPER's FX-window filler showed through; the filler is now painted to match).
  • Switching dark/light mode recolors panes immediately instead of after a restart.
  • Saving a workspace while follow mode is active now keeps the plugins you see. Follow-created tabs are transient for automatic persistence (so follow never dirties your project), but an explicit Save Workspace now materializes them as regular tabs.

Added

  • Startup workspace (Settings): pick a workspace to load when REAPER starts and the project carries no MaxPane state; "None" keeps the launcher. Auto-loading never marks your project dirty. (Requested by mb945.)
  • Tie floating MaxPane to REAPER's main window (Settings, Windows + Linux): minimize-follow and group z-order via native owned-window / transient-for semantics, like REAPER's own floating windows. Default off. (Requested by mb945.)
  • Follow FX slot (pane menu): lock a pane to FX slot N of the selected track - switch tracks and each locked pane swaps to that track's slot, the Logic "Multi" link idiom. Panes in slot mode show an "FX slot N" badge. (Follow mode itself remains available for whole chains.)
  • Focus FX when switching tabs (Settings, default off): a user tab switch focuses the captured FX window so MIDI controllers that follow REAPER's focused FX track the pane. (Requested by bertrand.)
  • Merge into occupied panes and Swap with Pane (pane menu): merge now relocates tabs into a sibling with room (all-or-nothing), and any two panes can swap contents even when both are full. Menu targets are named after their active tab and disabled entries say why.
  • Fit Pane to Window (pane menu): snaps the surrounding splitters so the pane matches the captured window's natural size.
  • macOS: out-of-process plugin UIs now render inside panes. AUv3-class AUs and Rosetta-bridged x86_64 plug-ins (e.g. The God Particle AU, Audio Ease Indoor, Altiverb 7) draw their UI from another process and do not survive conventional reparenting - MaxPane now hosts their REAPER float as a chrome-less child window glued to the pane, so rendering and resizing run REAPER's native float path. Selected automatically per window; ordinary plug-ins keep the regular capture.
  • Settings dialog shows only options that work on your platform (macOS 6 checkboxes, Linux 7, Windows 8) - the "(Windows)" suffixes are gone because a row only appears where it functions.
  • Active tab accent underline and a proper close glyph with hover feedback in the tab bar.

Notes

  • When a plugin GUI is larger than its pane, Windows shows REAPER's own FX-window scrollbars; macOS has none (REAPER removed FX scrollbars there in 2015), so the GUI is cropped at the pane edge - use "Fit Pane to Window".
  • Workspace tabs bound to plugins restore only in a project that contains those tracks/FX (identities are track-bound by design); other tabs restore everywhere.

[2.3.0] - 2026-07-02

A full sweep of the open forum reports (15 issues from the release thread), every fix verified live — Windows 11 and Ubuntu VMs plus macOS on real 3-display hardware. Headliners: the startup lag is gone, floating-window position restore is fixed at the source on Windows, and four new features: clean mode, track-FX-chain capture, follow mode, and pane border colors.

Fixed

  • REAPER startup lag with MaxPane installed (up to minutes on Windows) is gone. The startup cleanup of leftover window entries re-ran a full window-tree search for every entry on every timer tick — and on Windows additionally probed every process on the desktop. It now uses a cheap exact-title probe per tick with the deep search on just three sweep ticks. Measured on the same machine and saved state: cleanup work 8.2 s → 1.1 s, and the per-tick cost stays far below the timer interval, so REAPER remains responsive while it runs. (Reported by poydepzaj1616.)
  • Windows: a floating MaxPane finally remembers its position. The restore never worked on Windows at all: geometry messages that Windows fires during window creation overwrote the loaded position with the dialog template's default before it was ever applied. macOS doesn't fire those messages during creation, which is why the feature kept verifying as "working". Covers the repeated multi-monitor reports — verified on a physical 3-display setup including a monitor at negative coordinates. (Reported by todoublez.)
  • Windows: a maximized floating MaxPane restores maximized — on the monitor it was on — and un-maximizing returns it to its exact previous rectangle. (Requested by mb945.) macOS/Linux keep size-only restore.
  • A deliberately closed second MaxPane instance no longer resurrects on every project load. Project state now records whether the instance was open when the project was saved; closing an instance sticks after the next save. (Reported by LorenzoB.)
  • Two instances no longer fight over the same captured window. The 500 ms parent ping-pong (visible as flicker) is replaced by cross-instance arbitration: the instance that owns the window keeps it, the other drops its claim. (Reported by LorenzoB.)
  • FX windows restore with far less flicker when a project loads — the capture queue no longer burns a fixed wait when the target window is already resolvable. The visible floating interval dropped from ~600 ms to under ~200 ms. (Reported by LorenzoB / sebsteeno.)
  • "Open MaxPane automatically on startup" now does what it says. Previously the checkbox was silently ignored unless MaxPane was also open at last quit. Ticked = always opens, unticked = never; settings never touched keep the old restore-last-state behavior. An instance that opens before REAPER's docker layout exists now re-docks itself instead of ending up as a small window behind the main one. (Reported by mb945.)
  • Workspaces recall toolbars even when they aren't already open. Startup cleanup raced the workspace recall and toggled the toolbar straight back off. (Reported by poydepzaj1616.)
  • Releasing a captured toolbar can no longer fire one of its buttons mid-gesture. (Reported by poydepzaj1616.)
  • Windows: left-click-dragging a captured ReaImGui window's background no longer slides it out of its pane. The move is now vetoed at the source, so the window behaves like a natively docked one; input stays correct. On Linux the existing snap-back (within ~0.5 s) still applies; macOS unchanged. (Reported by X-Raym.)
  • Script windows that close and reopen their own sub-windows keep their pane. A captured tab whose window disappeared used to be ejected; it now waits and re-captures automatically when the script reopens the window — e.g. a sampler opening per-pad FX from its own UI. (Reported by mequaz.)
  • Stale gray strips and flicker in panes are painted over. When a captured window is smaller than its pane (a window that refuses the resize), the remainder of the pane is now filled instead of showing stale pixels; the tab-bar strip also no longer lingers when a pane's header is hidden. (Reported by poydepzaj1616.)
  • Tooltips render at the correct size under Windows display scaling (e.g. 125%). (Reported by X-Raym.)

Added

  • Capture a whole track FX chain in one click. Pane context menu → "Capture track FX chain": every FX of the last-touched track lands in the pane as tabs. If the chain is longer than the pane's free tab slots, MaxPane captures what fits and says so. (Requested by sebsteeno.)
  • Follow mode (experimental). Settings → "Follow selected track's FX in pane 1": pane 1 releases and re-captures the FX chain as you move between tracks (debounced, so arrow-key surfing doesn't churn). Follow-mode tabs are transient by design — they are never written into workspaces or project files. (Requested by Rodulf and sebsteeno.)
  • Clean mode. Settings → "Hide pane tab bars (clean mode)": occupied panes drop their tab bars entirely (on macOS an 8 px sliver remains as the mouse surface), giving captured windows every pixel; empty panes keep the full header and capture UI. The follow-mode pane keeps its tab bar — the tabs are its switcher. (Requested by poydepzaj1616, LorenzoB, and others.)
  • Pane border color. Settings → "Pane border": seven presets (Default / Graphite / Slate blue / Teal / Amber / Crimson / Violet), applied live. (Requested by poydepzaj1616.)
  • Always-on-top is now a bindable action — "MaxPane: Toggle always-on-top (floating mode)", same toggle the floating context menu has had since v2.0. (Requested by mb945.)
  • Windows: "Hide floating MaxPane from the taskbar" Settings option. Trade-off (by Windows design): the window also leaves the Alt-Tab list. (Requested by mb945.)

Known limitations

  • Maximize persistence, taskbar-hide, and the ReaImGui drag-veto are Windows-only. macOS/Linux restore floating size/position without the maximized flag; taskbar-hide has no portable equivalent; on Linux a dragged ReaImGui window snaps back within ~0.5 s instead of being vetoed, and on macOS the v2.2.1 ReaImGui known limitation still applies.
  • Linux: the always-on-top toggle is a no-op — SWELL on Linux does not implement the topmost style.
  • Linux: HiDPI tooltip scaling is not implemented yet (tooltips assume a 1.0 scale factor).
  • The v2.2.1 limitations still stand: Linux GL ReaImGui capture requires ReaImGui's "Disable hardware acceleration", and macOS ReaImGui scripts that enforce a minimum window size can resize REAPER's main window (see [2.2.1] below).

[2.2.1] - 2026-06-11

ReaImGui script windows (TK Patchbay and friends) get a definitive, per-platform resolution, including two crash fixes found on Linux minutes after v2.2.0 — this is the release v2.2.0 should have been. Verified in live owner sessions on Ubuntu and Windows 11 VMs and on macOS.

Fixed

  • Linux: closing a captured script tab could crash REAPER. Scripts destroy their own window inside the close toggle; the release path then touched the freed window. All release paths now re-validate the window after the toggle.
  • Linux: capturing a GL-rendered ReaImGui window (e.g. TK Patchbay) killed REAPER on the script's next frame — reparenting destroys the X11 window under the script's GL context. Capture now works when ReaImGui's "Disable hardware acceleration" preference is enabled (Preferences > Plug-ins > ReaImGui; restart the script after changing it); otherwise MaxPane refuses the capture and tells you exactly that instead of crashing.
  • Windows: captured ReaImGui windows were mouse-dead — they rendered but ignored the mouse, because the script kept hit-testing against its pre-capture screen position. Captured script windows are now fully interactive (verified live with TK Patchbay).
  • Windows: closing a captured untitled ReaImGui script could launch the ReaImGui demo — action discovery matched the shared renderer module name. Discovery is now skipped for untitled ReaImGui windows on all platforms.
  • A script window enforcing its own minimum size no longer overflows its pane, covering the splitter and the neighboring tab bar. MaxPane learns the enforced minimum at runtime (Windows/Linux); below it the window hides and the pane explains: "needs at least WxH px — enlarge this pane to show it."
  • Captured ImGui windows dragged by their background no longer slide out of their pane — the position snaps back within a tick.
  • The floor-hidden pane hint no longer smears during resize or shows the previous tab's stale last frame underneath.
  • "Release Window" works for captured ReaImGui windows on Linux — the window returns floating and alive.

Added

  • Capture refusals now explain themselves. When MaxPane declines to capture a window (e.g. the Linux ReaImGui hardware-acceleration case), a message says why and what to do, instead of silently doing nothing.

Known limitations

  • Linux: capturing GL ReaImGui windows requires ReaImGui's "Disable hardware acceleration" (Preferences > Plug-ins > ReaImGui). A script started before the preference was enabled keeps hardware rendering for its lifetime — restart the script after enabling.
  • macOS: ReaImGui scripts that enforce a fixed minimum window size (e.g. TK Patchbay) can resize and move REAPER's main window when captured into a pane smaller than that minimum. This is structural in ReaImGui's macOS backend: its size enforcement targets the hosting window, which after capture is REAPER's own. Workaround: dock such scripts natively in REAPER's docker, or keep the MaxPane pane at least as large as the script's minimum. Scripts without size constraints (e.g. ReaMD) are unaffected.

[2.2.0] - 2026-06-10

Windows and Linux reach interaction parity: capture-by-click and drag-to-dock work and show live visual feedback on all three platforms, verified in live debug sessions on Windows 11 and Ubuntu VMs. Plus a hardening pass from a full-code audit: capture regressions fixed, silent failures surfaced, chronic background work trimmed.

Added

  • Live visual feedback for capture and drag on Windows and Linux. Arming click-capture now outlines the window under the cursor with a blue frame (as on macOS), and drag-to-dock draws a frame around the exact drop zone — including over panes already occupied by a captured window, where the painted preview was invisible. Zone changes settle briefly (~64 ms) before the frame moves, so the preview never flickers and the drop always lands exactly where the frame shows.
  • Natural title-bar drags. Drag-to-dock aiming is now hybrid: the cursor keeps priority (precision aiming for splits), but when it isn't over any pane and the dragged window's body hangs over one — typical when dragging a window by its OS title bar — that pane is targeted as "Add as tab" (Shift = replace). All platforms.
  • MIDI toolbars are first-class capturable windows. All 16 MIDI toolbars and the MIDI piano-roll toolbar now resolve to their real toggle actions, capture cleanly by click or menu, and survive save/restore.
  • Collapsible navigation bar. A new chevron at the right end of the nav bar folds it down to a thin strip, giving your panes the space back; click the strip to expand it again. The state persists across restarts. The Settings "Show navigation bar" full-hide is unchanged.
  • Single-window panes can hide their tab bar. New Settings checkbox "Collapse tab bar when a pane has a single window": the bar shrinks to a thin colored strip and the captured window gets the space. The strip stays interactive — right-click opens the tab menu, dragging it moves the tab — and the full bar returns automatically when a second tab arrives. (Requested by poydepzaj1616 on the forum.)
  • Right-click now cancels capture mode on all platforms. On Linux there was previously no way to cancel an armed click-capture — Esc isn't detectable there, so the only way out was to capture something. The "capture a window" hints now advertise the right gesture per platform ("Esc or right-click to cancel"; "right-click to cancel" on Linux).

Changed

  • Failures are no longer silent. A failed capture, a window that can't be re-captured when a workspace or project loads, a corrupt saved layout (now: "layout reset" message instead of a wordless empty launcher), and saving when all 32 workspace slots are full (previously dropped the save while still reporting "Saved") now show a message instead of doing nothing. A failed capture also no longer makes the original window disappear — it stays where it was.
  • Less chronic background work. Saved cleanup entries for windows that no longer exist (e.g. an uninstalled script or removed toolbar) used to be re-probed at every future startup, forever — they are now dropped once the startup cleanup window closes. A tab whose window went away (e.g. a closed MIDI editor) used to pay a full window-tree scan twice a second forever; it now backs off after repeated misses and recovers instantly on re-capture.
  • Internal: the stale-list and saved-capture parsers — previously hand-rolled in several places with mismatched buffer sizes — are unified into single unit-tested modules; CI now builds with a warning gate (-Werror), and the release workflow runs the test suite before packaging binaries.

Fixed

  • Windows: capture-by-click and drag-to-dock work again. Both were effectively dead since the v2.1.0 capture redesign (which was only compile-verified on Windows): the click resolver accepted only an allow-list of known windows, and quick taps fell entirely between input polls. Verified live on a Windows 11 VM. (ADR-058)
  • Linux: docked windows capture by click, floating script windows resolve, and clicks respect visual stacking. SWELL's hit-testing walks windows in list order, not stacking order, so a floating window hovering over the main window was previously unreachable by click or drag; clicks on X11 title bars (which belong to the window manager, not the window) now resolve via a decoration-band fallback. (ADR-059)
  • The Main-toolbar ghost cycle is terminally closed. The exclusion shipped earlier in this cycle left one path alive (a workspace slot-merge could re-adopt the toolbar), and the startup cleanup now also closes an existing ghost window outright. (ADR-056)
  • Capturing a MIDI toolbar from a docker no longer freezes all clicks (a stuck mouse capture in the toolbar click filter). (ADR-057)
  • The Main toolbar can no longer be captured. Capturing REAPER's main toolbar produced a floating duplicate ("ghost") at every startup that MaxPane's cleanup couldn't see. It is now excluded from every capture path (menus, click-capture, drag-to-dock), and an already-floating Main-toolbar ghost left by an earlier version self-heals at the next startup. The toolbar action table was also repaired: "Toolbar 9" through "Toolbar 16" fired the wrong actions (including MIDI toolbars), and Toolbars 17–32 (added in REAPER 7) are now supported. (ADR-052)
  • Capture-by-click works again for floating ReaImGui / script windows on Windows and Linux (e.g. TK Patchbay). A v2.1.0 regression misclassified any floating window owned by REAPER's main window as "embedded in the main window" and silently rejected the click. (ADR-053)
  • Esc now cancels tab-drag and drag-to-dock on macOS — it only ever worked on Windows.
  • Linux: the support and update links now open in the browser (xdg-open — they previously did nothing); released / detached windows get their title bar and frame back instead of coming back borderless and unmovable; dark-mode "Auto" follows the GNOME/GTK setting instead of always rendering light (KDE still falls back to light); window geometry saved on a since-disconnected monitor is clamped back on-screen.
  • Updater hardening: quitting REAPER during a slow update check can no longer crash at exit (the background check is now cleanly stopped at unload), and update-check responses are capped at 1 MB.
  • Windows: the Quick Switcher's favorite-entry marker no longer renders as mojibake.

Capture, drag and their visual feedback were verified live on Windows 11 and Ubuntu VMs for this release; macOS is the daily-driver platform. Known platform quirk: on Linux/X11 a bare title-bar click can't always be attributed to its window (the title bar belongs to the window manager) — clicking window content always works.

[2.1.1] - 2026-06-08

Quick fix for a regression in v2.1.0.

Fixed

  • Docked toolbars no longer disappear when their pane is made small. The v2.1.0 ReaImGui size-guard — which stops large ImGui windows (e.g. TK Patchbay) from shrinking REAPER's main window — was too broad: it floor-hid any captured "arbitrary" window below ~200px, including toolbars. A docked toolbar is legitimately small. The guard (dock min-clamp + pane floor-hide) is now scoped to actual ReaImGui / Lua-gfx hosts only — toolbars, FX windows, and other native captures are never hidden and can be docked as small as you like.

Verified on macOS (arm64); Windows and Linux binaries built by CI, not yet runtime-tested for this release.

[2.1.0] - 2026-06-08

Feature + stability release. MaxPane's layout now round-trips through REAPER "Window sets" (screensets) — recalling a set restores MaxPane and re-captures its windows instead of leaving them floating. Plus the full v2.0.6 bugfix cycle (manager-window float-on-close, restore redraw, ReaImGui collapse for ReaMD, floating geometry, toolbar release, Windows startup lag, and more) and a dark-mode "Auto" fix. Bumped to 2.1.0 (minor) for the screenset feature.

Platform testing: verified on macOS (arm64). The Windows and Linux binaries are produced by CI but have not yet been runtime-tested for this release — please report any issues on the forum or GitHub.

Most of the Fixed and Changed items below were developed as the v2.0.6 bugfix cycle — triaged from forum thread 307267 (page 2) after the 2.0.5 release — but v2.0.6 was never released on its own. They ship here, folded into 2.1.0, alongside the new screenset feature and the dark-mode fix.

Added

  • Screenset integration. MaxPane now registers a REAPER screenset callback, so saving and recalling a Window set restores MaxPane's pane layout and re-captures its windows automatically. Previously a recalled Window set re-opened the formerly-captured windows floating (REAPER reopened the native windows but knew nothing about MaxPane), and you had to re-open MaxPane by hand for them to snap back in. The screenset blob reuses the same serialization as the project <MAXPANE_STATE> chunk and drives the same restore path; it defers to a project-load restore when one is in flight so the two never fight. (reported on the forum by DerTonmeister, todoublez)

Fixed

  • Dark mode "Auto (follow system)" now follows the macOS system setting. It was stuck on the light palette even in system Dark mode, because REAPER ships with NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance and forces an Aqua app appearance; MaxPane was reading that forced appearance. It now reads the OS-wide appearance (AppleInterfaceStyle) directly. (Force dark / Force light were unaffected.)
  • Manager windows no longer left floating when MaxPane closes. Capturing Routing Matrix / Track Manager (or other toggle-action manager windows) and closing MaxPane could leave them floating, because the toggle and WM_CLOSE both no-op while the window is MaxPane's child. Release now retries the toggle after detaching so REAPER's visibility state is re-synced.
  • Tab bar and pane dividers no longer blank after reopening until you grab a splitter — the container view is now force-laid-out and redrawn at the end of the restore.
  • Tab-bar hover works when a captured FX/plugin tab has focus. A focused plugin window used to steal the mouse-moved stream; the container now has an always-active tracking area.
  • Captured ReaImGui windows no longer shrink REAPER's main window when their pane is made small (fully fixed for ReaMD and similar; see Known limitations for large-UI scripts like TK Patchbay).
  • TK Patchbay (and other ReaImGui scripts) no longer crash when their pane is minimized. A captured ReaImGui window in a pane shrunk to zero area is now hidden rather than sized into an invalid state that could trip an ImGui_EndChild assertion. (reported on the forum by Rodulf)
  • Floating MaxPane position / size / monitor persists across Cmd+Q and close.
  • Releasing a captured toolbar no longer fires its buttons.
  • Windows: reduced the 10-15s startup lag (module-enumeration caching).
  • macOS: ReaImGui / script windows (empty native title) now appear in the "Open windows" capture menu, matching Windows.
  • Nav bar no longer shows a grey un-painted band when the container is narrow.

Changed

  • "Release Window" returns the captured window to REAPER visible (floating) for all window types — "Close Tab" remains the separate destructive action.
  • Capture-by-click redesigned — modal-dialog and core-window safety guards (can no longer freeze REAPER by grabbing a modal, or tear out the main edit view), a crosshair cursor while armed, a hover preview of the target's name + outline, and Esc to cancel.
  • Removed the tab "Close Others / Close to Right / Close All" submenu (over- engineered for MaxPane's tab counts); the launcher "Capture a window" button now stays visible while you arm a click-capture.

Known limitations

  • ReaImGui windows with large UIs (e.g. TK Patchbay) can still shrink REAPER's main window if their MaxPane pane is made very small. ReaMD and standard windows are fine. A per-window adaptive minimum is planned for v2.2.
  • A docked MaxPane placed on a second monitor may return to the main monitor after a restart — REAPER manages docked-window position and does not reliably persist a second-monitor docker. Use MaxPane's floating mode, which remembers its monitor across restart.
  • Switching the macOS appearance while REAPER is running does not live-update MaxPane; re-open Settings (or restart) to pick up the new Light/Dark setting.

[2.0.5] - 2026-06-03

Bugfix release. Captured plugin windows now restore into MaxPane when a saved project is opened (no longer come back floating). In-pane tab/plugin order is preserved across restore. Windows capture-by-click now works for the MIDI editor.

Fixed

  • Captured windows restore into MaxPane on project open (no longer float). Opening a saved project whose MaxPane had docked FX could bring the plugin windows back floating outside MaxPane, with MaxPane closed or showing the empty launcher. A project stores its MaxPane layout in per-project state, and that path had no trigger to open MaxPane on load (only the in-.rpp chunk did). MaxPane now opens and restores its captured windows whenever the opened project carries MaxPane state — whether MaxPane was closed or already showing the launcher when you open the project. (reported on the forum by todoublez)

  • In-pane tab order is preserved across save → restore. When a pane held several captured windows or plugins — most visibly FX across multiple tracks — the tabs could come back in a different order after a workspace or project reload. Cause: windows that must be reopened are re-captured through an asynchronous queue and landed in capture-completion order rather than the saved order, and the scrambled order was then written back to disk (making it sticky). Restore now stashes the saved order for any pane filled asynchronously and re-sorts its tabs back to that order — keyed on the stable (track GUID, FX GUID) / window identity — once the queue drains, before saving. Tab colors and the active tab are re-derived from the corrected order, so those land on the right tabs too. (reported on the forum by Rodulf)

  • Windows: capture-by-click now works for the MIDI editor and other REAPER-native dynamic-title windows. On Windows, clicking such a window in capture-by-click mode was silently dropped — the window has no toggle action and resolves to REAPER's own module, which the click resolver rejected — so you had to use the "Open Windows" submenu instead. Capture-by-click now accepts these recognised native windows, matching macOS and Linux behaviour.

Known limitations

  • After a captured plugin is restored, switching between tabs in a pane can briefly show a stale/grey plugin view until you click the tab again; the plugin redraws correctly on the second visit. A more complete redraw fix is a planned follow-up.

Verify

This release needs user confirmation. If you reported one of the issues above, please test whether it is fixed and report back on the forum — and if a window still misbehaves, say which window and under what exact steps (see the thread for what details help).

[2.0.4] - 2026-05-26

Four-feature follow-up to v2.0.3. AU/VST/JSFX plugin windows now save and restore via workspaces. Hotkey binding moved inline (no more hunting through 200k REAPER actions). Update check on REAPER startup is non-blocking. Settings dialog ~26% smaller.

Added

  • AU/VST/JSFX plugin window save and restore. Capture a floating plugin UI into a MaxPane pane, save the workspace, restart REAPER — the plugin reattaches to its pane on workspace load. Identity uses the same (track GUID, FX GUID) pair REAPER itself stores in RPP FXID {…} blocks, so it survives FX slot reorder and plugin rename without re-capture. Also covers master-track FX and take FX (item FX). Cross-platform — single code path, no #ifdef.
  • In-MaxPane hotkey binding via native shortcut dialog. Right-click a workspace card → "Bind hotkey" now opens REAPER's keystroke-capture modal scoped to that specific workspace slot, instead of dumping you into the full Actions dialog with 200k entries to filter. REAPER handles capture, conflict detection ("already bound to X — replace?"), and reaper-kb.ini write natively.
  • Async update check on REAPER startup. A detached worker thread hits the ReaPack manifest on github.com off the main thread; if a newer version exists, a modal pops up shortly after startup with a one-click jump to the Releases page. REAPER startup is no longer blocked by the ~1-3 s HTTP round-trip the v2.0.3 manual button triggered. New "Automatically on REAPER startup" checkbox in Settings → UPDATES (default ON; toggle to disable).

Changed

  • Settings dialog compact redesign. ~380 → 280 px tall (~26% shorter). Tighter section gaps, "Color mode" label inlined to the left of the cycle button, HOTKEYS description shortened from 3 lines to 1, UPDATES split out as its own section. All control IDs and logic unchanged.

Known limitations

  • Plugin restore needs the matching project open. Track GUIDs and FX GUIDs are project-bound (this is how REAPER itself works — the GUIDs live inside the .rpp file). Workspace load reopens FX UIs only when the project that owns those tracks is currently loaded. Recommended workflow: open the project first, then load the workspace. The per-project state path (saving the project file with Cmd+S after capture) is the more direct option for project-bound layouts — REAPER's RPP <MAXPANE_STATE> chunk handles auto-restore when the project reopens.
  • Container FX (nested FX, REAPER 7.06+) not supported in v2.0.4. Capturing the UI of an FX inside a container chain works at the time, but the identity isn't encoded in the workspace format yet. Re-add manually after restart. Top-level track FX and recFX (input FX) are fully supported. Tracked as a v2.1 candidate.
  • FX moved between tracks won't auto-restore. If you drag a plugin from track 3 to track 5 between save and load, the strict track-GUID match means the workspace tab skips silently (a toast surfaces "FX missing: …"). Re-capture manually in the new location.
  • Old (v2.0.3 and earlier) workspaces need one-time re-capture for AU/VST tabs. Legacy entries persisted as arb:0:<plugin name> — v2.0.4 reads them but can't resolve to a live FX instance. Open the workspace, re-capture each plugin once, save. Existing non-FX tabs (Mixer, FX Browser, toolbars, scripts) restore as before.
  • Plugin window scaling is plugin-side. Most VST/AU plugin GUIs render at a fixed resolution and do not dynamically resize to fit the MaxPane pane they're captured into. The plugin window appears at its native size — if smaller than the pane, surrounded by whitespace; if larger, cropped to the pane viewport. MaxPane reparents the OS window but cannot force the plugin's framework (JUCE / VST3 SDK / iPlug2 / etc.) to redraw at a different scale. Resize the MaxPane pane to roughly match the plugin's preferred size, or use the plugin's own "Resize" / "Zoom" controls if it exposes them. Same limitation applies in REAPER's native FX float windows.

[2.0.3] - 2026-05-26

Polish hot-fix on top of v2.0.2. Sharpens the nav-bar icons on Windows, surfaces version / license / support info in the Settings dialog, and lets you check for new versions without leaving REAPER.

Added

  • About section in the Settings dialog. Now shows the version number, MIT license, project URL, and the three support links (Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee, PayPal) inside the plugin UI — previously the support links were buried in the nav-bar Support popup and there was no version display anywhere.
  • "Check for updates" button in the new About section. Hits the project's ReaPack manifest on github.com and shows a modal if a newer version is out (with a one-click jump to the Releases page). Manual-only for now — synchronous HTTPS GET briefly blocks the UI for ~1-3 s while the request completes. Automatic check-on-startup is planned for a follow-up release.

Fixed

Windows

  • Nav-bar icons no longer render pixelated. Win32 GDI's StretchDIBits default mode (COLORONCOLOR) drops pixels on downscale; now switches to HALFTONE + SetBrushOrgEx before the blit and restores the previous mode after. Bilinear-equivalent smoothing; same look as macOS Quartz and Linux LICE.

macOS

  • Nav-bar icons get high-quality interpolation. BlitBGRABitmapMacOS now sets kCGInterpolationHigh before CGContextDrawImage — matches the Win32 HALFTONE smoothing for visual parity across all three platforms.

[2.0.2] - 2026-05-26

Adds Linux x86_64 + aarch64 binaries to the public Release. Fixes the three issues Linux smoke surfaced (tofu nav-bar icons, empty modal dialogs, ReaImGui / Lua scripts not restoring from workspace). Unifies the nav-bar icon set across all three platforms — macOS and Windows users will see a one-off icon refresh.

Added

  • Linux x86_64 and Linux aarch64 binaries in the public Release. Closes the Linux gap left by v2.0.1; the FX Browser close crash (issue #9) reproduces no longer on REAPER 7.69 (covered by an upstream WDL fix). Linux parity sprint validated capture / restore / workspaces / context menus on Ubuntu 24.04 aarch64.
  • Unified Phosphor icon set in the navigation bar across macOS / Windows / Linux. Replaces the per-platform Unicode glyphs (which rendered as tofu on Linux Noto Sans). Crisp at 20 px, uniform hover/active tinting, no per-glyph font-size tuning.

Fixed

Linux native (parity sprint)

  • Nav-bar icons no longer render as tofu (□). SWELL on Linux resolves an empty CreateFont family to fontconfig's default (Noto Sans Regular on Ubuntu 24.04), which lacks the Unicode miscellaneous-symbol codepoints the toolbar used. Bitmap path via Phosphor Icons (MIT) embedded as alpha masks.
  • Settings / Save Workspace / Quick Switcher dialogs open with content. REAPER's bundled SWELL doesn't substitute the SWELL_DEF_DLGSCALE2 default the _BEGIN2 macro emits, so every child control sized to zero. All three dialog TUs now use the explicit-scale _BEGIN form with a local SWELL_DLG_WS_DEFAULT_SCALING shim (the upstream macro references a symbol that's only defined under SWELL_TARGET_OSX).

Cross-platform

  • ReaImGui / Lua scripts whose runtime window title differs from the Script: <filename>.lua action name now save with the correct action and restore from workspace. The token-scoring threshold for the toggle pool stays at ≥ 2 hits, but a separate script-pool track allows 1 hit, and a single-active-script fallback covers the "title shares zero tokens" case (e.g. lyrics.lua window titled "MIDI Lyrics"). Workspaces saved with arb:0:<name> from older builds still need a one-time re-capture to populate the action.

Windows (Entry 15 follow-up)

  • FindWindowEnumProc finds Direct2D plugins with empty WindowText. v2.0.1 closed the save side of Entry 15 but missed the search side — when GetWindowText returned empty on Win32, the enum proc hard-skipped, so workspace-load couldn't locate the just-opened ReaBeat / Reamix window for capture. Now falls back to TryGetAppNameFromModule when the title is empty (Win32 only; SWELL macOS / Linux keep the v2.0 hard-skip).

Known issues

  • Linux: HiDPI scaling of the nav-bar icons not yet wired to REAPER's advisory scaling factor. The 2× icon source is selected when the target rect exceeds 38 px logical, which looks correct at 1× DPI; HiDPI testing pending.
  • macOS / Windows users upgrading from v2.0.1 will see a one-off icon refresh in the nav bar (Phosphor pictograms replace the Unicode glyphs). Visual only — all functionality unchanged.

[2.0.1] - 2026-05-25

Adds Windows x64 to the public build matrix and fixes a class of workspace-restore bugs that affected captured C++ plugins (ReaBeat, Reamix) and ReaImGui scripts on every platform.

Added

  • Windows x64 binary is now part of the public Release. Closes #8 (Windows mouse input not reaching the container) — see Windows native below for the list of Win32-specific fixes.
  • Current workspace name in the navigation bar. The center of the nav bar now shows the loaded workspace's name with a • dirty indicator when the layout has been changed since the last save. Hover to see the full name in a tooltip when ellipsis-truncated.
  • Async workspace Save. "Save Workspace" is now non-blocking — the click frame returns immediately with a "Saving ''…" toast and the ExtState writes flush on the next REAPER tick (becomes "Saved ''" / "Replaced ''" when done). Up to 2 queued saves collapse; quit-time flush prevents data loss. Eliminates the 100+ ms freeze on click for workspaces with many captures.
  • Plugin window action discovery. Captures of third-party C++ plugins and ReaImGui Lua scripts now find and persist the toggle/ show action automatically, so saved workspaces reopen those windows on load — previously they saved without an action and silently failed to restore. Cross-platform; uses kbd_getTextFromCmd (REAPER 6.71+) for action-name scoring.

Fixed

Windows native (B10 / issue #8)

  • Mouse buttons reach DlgProc. WM_NCHITTEST now publishes its result via SetWindowLongPtr(DWLP_MSGRESULT, …) and returns TRUE per the Win32 DialogProc contract — previously return HTCLIENT was read as TRUE-handled with DWLP_MSGRESULT defaulting to 0 (HTNOWHERE), so every WM_LBUTTONDOWN / WM_RBUTTONDOWN / WM_CONTEXTMENU got routed past us.
  • Captures stop freezing REAPER. DoCapture no longer leaves windows with both WS_POPUP and WS_CHILD set simultaneously during reparent (NtUserSetParent parked the GUI thread).
  • Captured plugins lose their 3D frame. GWL_EXSTYLE strip removes WS_EX_WINDOWEDGE / WS_EX_CLIENTEDGE / WS_EX_STATICEDGE / WS_EX_DLGMODALFRAME so dialog-class plugins (ReaBeat) sit flush in the pane.
  • Save / Settings / Quick Switcher dialogs open. Native Win32 DialogBoxParam now uses the plugin DLL's HINSTANCE (captured in ReaperPluginEntry) — previously nullptr resolved to the host EXE which doesn't carry MaxPane's resources, and the call returned -1 silently.
  • Detach to floating works. Native Win32 implementations of the Cocoa-helper API (ApplyFloatingWindowChrome, IsSystemDarkMode via the AppsUseLightTheme registry value, OpenUrlPlatform via ShellExecuteA, ClampRectToVisibleScreen via MonitorFromRect, …) — previously all {} stubs.
  • Capture-by-click no longer self-triggers on the menu / button click that entered capture mode (rising-edge LMB detection) and walks parent chains correctly for docked plugins (returns the shallowest plugin-DLL-owned HWND instead of the dock frame's inner container).
  • Open Windows menu stops listing foreign-process windows (Firefox, Program Manager) and REAPER internal UI children, while also surfacing empty-title Direct2D plugins via owning-DLL lookup.
  • GDI captures stop smearing on resize (WS_CLIPCHILDREN | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS in the dialog template); Direct2D captures stop stacking pixel residue (SWP_NOCOPYBITS on arbitrary tabs).
  • AUTOCHECKBOX + ASCII em-dashes in Settings / Quick Switcher .rc files (native rc.exe doesn't auto-toggle plain CHECKBOX; UTF-8 em-dash rendered as Latin-1 mojibake).
  • Debug log lands in %TEMP%\maxpane_debug.log instead of the POSIX /tmp path that doesn't exist on Windows.

Cross-platform

  • ReaImGui crash on workspace switch fixed. Scripts (action state -1) now get a Main_OnCommand close-fire before MaxPane reparents their window — previously the external SetParent left ReaImGui's internal Docker pointer stale and the next heartbeat crashed in Docker::moveTo with a null-deref.
  • Workspace restore for captured plugins / scripts. Cross-platform action discovery (title-token scoring against kbd_getTextFromCmd) now finds the show/hide action for plugins with titled windows (ReaBeat, Reamix) and for Lua scripts with RS…-prefixed named commands (state -1). Saved workspaces that carry these captures actually reopen them on load.
  • Stale list across workspaces. Every saved workspace's tab list contributes its action IDs to stale_toggle_actions so windows released by a workspace SWITCH (not still in any active pane) survive REAPER restart cleanly instead of returning as floating ghosts. State -1 cleanup now sends WM_CLOSE + hide instead of silently skipping.
  • Auto-open survives Windows quit. was_visible now persists the intent flag (m_visible) instead of IsWindowVisible() — the Win32 parent-chain teardown at quit hid the still-open container and overwrote was_visible=0.
  • Workspace save round-trips named commands (_RS…). Both GetActionCommandString (adds the leading _) and ResolveActionCommand (retries with one prepended for backward compat) close the SDK contract gap.
  • Home-overlay workspace card tooltips now appear (the timer was only armed in fresh launcher mode).
  • DoRelease flips WS_CHILD → WS_POPUP after SetParent(nullptr) per MSDN, so released windows land as proper top-level instead of silent WS_CHILD-of-desktop.

Known issues

  • Linux remains pending — open blocker #9 (FX Browser close crash). Linux build is still produced as a workflow artifact for internal testing; not yet in the public Release.
  • Old workspaces saved before v2.0.1 that carry plugin captures with no action info (arb:0:<name>) won't auto-restore. Re-save the workspace once with the new build to populate the action ID.

[2.0.0] - 2026-05-22

v2.0 reworks the docking core for reliability, adds multi-instance / floating containers / drag-to-dock / Quick Switcher, and surfaces the things that used to be hidden in the right-click menu through a persistent navigation bar.

macOS only for v2.0.0. Windows and Linux builds will be added in a follow-up release after they pass smoke testing on those platforms — see #8 (Windows mouse input) and #9 (Linux FX Browser close) for the open blockers.

For an architectural overview of the codebase as it stands at v2.0, read ARCHITECTURE.md. For the locked v2.0 scope, decision log, and per-bug investigation notes, the project keeps docs/v2/V2_SCOPE.md, docs/v2/V2_DECISIONS.md, and docs/v2/V2_PROGRESS.md locally (gitignored process docs).

Added

Multi-instance (F2)

  • Up to 8 MaxPane containers in one REAPER session, each with its own layout, captured windows, floating geometry, and project-state chunk. Instance 0 keeps the legacy ExtState / dock / RPP identifiers verbatim — upgraders from v1.5.x see no migration. Instances 1–7 use suffixed identifiers (MaxPane_cpp_N, MaxPane_container_N, <MAXPANE_STATE_N>).
  • Per-instance Open actions — MaxPane: Open Container (legacy, instance 0), MaxPane: Open Container 2 through MaxPane: Open Container 8 (instances 1–7). Existing v1.5.x keybinds on the legacy action continue to work.
  • Workspaces shared, current state per-instance — the workspace list (saved layouts) is a single user-level pool visible from every container; what a container is currently showing is its own per- instance state.

Floating mode (F1a)

  • "Detach to Floating" / "Re-dock" in the pane menu turns the whole container into a top-level OS window with native chrome (title bar, close, resize). Geometry persists across sessions and float/dock transitions.
  • Always-on-top toggle for floating containers (C5) — keeps the detached container above other apps when checked. Per-instance, persisted to ExtState.
  • Multi-monitor clamping on macOS via [NSScreen screens]; centered-on- REAPER-main fallback on Win/Linux.

Quick Switcher (F4)

  • MaxPane: Quick Switcher action opens a modal SWELL dialog with a search box and a unified list of all open tabs (across all instances), all workspaces, and all favorites. Fuzzy filter matches case-insensitive subsequence + scores prefix and consecutive hits. Enter activates, Esc closes. Bind your own hotkey in REAPER's Actions dialog.

Hotkey slots (F6)

  • 32 workspace slot actions — MaxPane: Workspace Slot 1 through MaxPane: Workspace Slot 32. Bind a hotkey, hit it, the corresponding workspace loads into the focused (last-clicked) MaxPane container.
  • 32 favorite slot actions — MaxPane: Favorite Slot 1 through MaxPane: Favorite Slot 32. Bind a hotkey, hit it, the favorite is captured into the focused pane.
  • MAX_WORKSPACES bumped 10 → 32 to match the new slot count and close a long-standing community ask.

Navigation bar + Home overlay + drag-to-dock (ADR-026)

  • Persistent navigation toolbar at the top of every container: [Home] | [Drag] [Switch] [Save] [Load▾] | [Settings] [Support]. Buttons for the workspace actions that used to live only in the right-click menu, plus Settings and Support links. Toggle via Settings → "Show navigation bar". Dark/light palette follows the rest of the UI.
  • Home overlay — click [Home] to overlay the launcher card grid on top of the current layout (non-destructive picker). Click a card to load that workspace; click empty space or press Esc to close without changing anything.
  • Drag-to-dock — click [Drag], then grab any REAPER window from outside MaxPane and drop it on a pane. Live preview renders during the drag showing the four edge zones (split left / right / top / bottom), the tab-bar zone (add as tab), and the body-center forgiving zone. Shift+drop replaces the active tab. Polling-based, no platform hooks — works identically on macOS / Win / Linux SWELL.

Mocna piątka — C-series UX wins (ADR-027)

  • C1 Reopen last closed tab — MaxPane: Reopen last closed tab action restores the most recently closed tab. 16-entry per-container ring buffer, session-scoped (not persisted).
  • C2 Pinned tabs — right-click a tab → Pin. Pinned tabs sort to the left of each pane, render with a bullet (•) prefix, and are exempt from "Close Others" / "Close to Right" / "Close All". Persisted in workspace saves.
  • C3 Close family for tabs — right-click a tab → Close ▸ → "Close Others", "Close to Right", "Close All". Bulk close that respects pinned tabs.
  • C4 Workspace pickup — single MaxPane: Workspace pickup action prompts for a slot number (1..32) and loads it. One hotkey reaches every workspace slot instead of 32 separate bindings.
  • C5 Always-on-top floating — see Floating mode above.

Settings dialog (ADR-019)

  • Dedicated modal Settings dialog reachable from the nav bar [Settings] button or right-click → Settings. Single-page layout with four sections: General (auto-open, show nav bar, default workspace), Appearance (dark-mode tristate cycle: Auto / Force dark / Force light), Hotkeys (link to REAPER Actions), Advanced (open actions, reset, version + support links).

Other UX

  • Custom Save Workspace dialog — name input + clickable listbox of existing workspaces + dynamic status label ("Will replace existing workspace 'X'" / "Will save as new workspace") replaces the bare GetUserInputs textbox. Toast confirms the result.
  • Toast bar — bottom-of-container 3-second feedback strip for non-fatal events (rename collision, duplicate at capacity, workspace saved, etc.). Fades out in the final 500 ms.
  • Workspace launcher hero (ADR-014) — when a container is empty it renders a card grid of saved workspaces with mini layout previews. Click a card to load. Right-click for Load / Rename / Duplicate / Delete / Bind Hotkey. Footer carries support links.
  • Capture menu flattened (ADR-020 / ADR-030) — the 15 known REAPER windows are reachable directly from the right-click menu's "Capture window ▸" submenu (one level), with no extra nesting on the most common path.
  • Accelerator hook (ADR-029) — MaxPane action bindings now fire even when MaxPane has focus (or a captured pane has focus). v1.x required REAPER's main window to have focus first.

Build + test infrastructure (ADR-018 / ADR-023)

  • CI matrix — .github/workflows/ci.yml builds and tests on macOS arm64, macOS x86_64 (cross-compile + Rosetta), Ubuntu, and Windows for every push to v2/main and every PR.
  • Unit tests — Catch2 v2.13.10 vendored; 14 tests cover SplitTree, WorkspaceManager static serialization helpers, safe_strncpy, ResolveActionCommand. Run with ctest --output-on-failure from cpp/build/.
  • ARCHITECTURE.md — full technical onboarding document for new contributors.
  • Perl-driven SWELL resgen step added to CMake (ADR-023) for cross-platform .rc → .rc_mac_dlg conversion.

Changed

  • Container teardown reworked (ADR-011, B16/B17) — WM_CLOSE is now the primary close mechanism; the legacy Main_OnCommand toggle is a fallback for windows that ignore WM_CLOSE. The stale_toggle_actions ExtState list is merged across paths (workspace switch, mid-session close, atexit) so the next REAPER startup can close any ghost windows REAPER restored from its wnd_vis cache.
  • Startup ghost cleanup polls aggressively (ADR-015) — every tick for the first ~75 ticks instead of a single-shot fire, cutting the visible flash from ~250 ms to ~30 ms on macOS restart.
  • Workspace launcher replaces empty-container UI (ADR-013) — MaxPane opens to the workspace card grid instead of auto- restoring captured windows. was_visible-driven auto-restore was the source of many race conditions and didn't match REAPER's native docker behavior.
  • Workspace list is shared across instances; current state is per-instance (ADR-012, supersedes part of ADR-009).
  • Settings dialog supersedes context-menu Auto-open toggle (ADR-019). The legacy menu item handler is preserved so v1.5.x keybinds continue to work.
  • MaxPaneIsDarkMode() introduced with cache invalidation so the Settings dialog's tristate dark-mode override takes effect live without restarting REAPER.

Fixed

  • B1 — SetParent return value never checked. Added VerifySetParent helper at all four call sites in DoCapture / DoRelease so post-reparent mismatches surface in the debug log instead of corrupting state silently.
  • B2 — CheckAlive doesn't verify parent. Tabs whose captured HWND was externally reparented (e.g. REAPER moved the MIDI Editor to another docker on project tab switch) are now reclaimed via DoCapture or cleanly removed.
  • B3 — MIDI Editor recapture race. Capturability guard between FindReaperWindow and DoCapture prevents acting on an HWND REAPER reparented or closed in the interim.
  • B4 — WM_DESTROY doesn't reparent captured children. Container destruction triggered by REAPER (docker close / undock) now reparents captured children before tearing down so they don't become frameless ghosts.
  • B6 — Toolbar subclass cleanup. UnsubclassToolbar fires on every DoRelease branch, including the B2 reclaim-fail branch.
  • B7 — Stale cleanup synchronous fallback for windows REAPER hasn't yet opened from its wnd_vis cache.
  • B9 — Narrow tab close-button overlap. New TAB_CLOSE_MIN_WIDTH threshold (90 px) hides the × when it would clip the tab name ellipsis. Layout-clamp TAB_MIN_WIDTH (60 px) unchanged.
  • B12 — Capture queue arbitrary unconditional toggle. Arbitrary captures (toolbars, ReaImGui scripts) now respect an alreadyOpen guard before firing the toggle, mirroring the known-window path. Without this, loading a workspace whose scripts were already open closed them and burned 200 retries.
  • B13 — DoRelease reads toggle state AFTER SetParent(nullptr). SWELL races the wnd_vis reset to 0 even when the window is still visible. State is now sampled BEFORE the reparent.
  • B14 — ShowWindow(SW_HIDE) doesn't reliably orderOut top-level NSWindows that SWELL recreated via SetParent(nullptr). New ForceHideWindow helper calls [NSView setHidden:YES] + [NSWindow orderOut:nil].
  • B15 — Startup-level stale cleanup. Ghost windows REAPER restored from cached wnd_vis are now closed at REAPER startup even when MaxPane doesn't auto-open.
  • B16 — WM_CLOSE as primary close mechanism. Replaces the unreliable Main_OnCommand toggle for windows that don't update wnd_vis after our reparent (Media Explorer, Actions, FX Browser, Undo History).
  • B17 — Toggle stale list merges, doesn't overwrite. Workspace- switch stale entries are no longer dropped by a subsequent mid-session close.
  • B18 — Arbitrary capture with action=0 + empty cmd spammed retries. Legacy workspace tabs without a resolvable action now probe once via FindReaperWindow; if not found, log SKIP and return. Killed a 10-second UI freeze + 414-line log spam per load.
  • B19 — ForceHideWindow hides REAPER main window. Now only calls orderOut on NSWindows whose contentView equals the captured NSView (i.e. orphan NSWindows we own).
  • B20 — REAPER docker tab placeholder after capture. g_DockWindowRemove(target) is called before the intermediate SetParent in DoCapture so REAPER's docker manager forgets the captured window.
  • B21 — Save Workspace leaves leftover keys in ExtState. Slot reuse with a smaller layout pre-clears all pane_N_tab_M_* keys before writing valid panes; phantom panes from prior saves no longer resurrect.
  • B22 — Mixer prefix-match catches "Mixer Master". Special- case in FindWindowEnumProc: when searching for Mixer, require exact title match.
  • B23 — Capture-by-click floating: NSView frame not synced. SetWindowPos(SWP_FRAMECHANGED|…) after reparent (replacing SWP_NOMOVE|SWP_NOSIZE) so the view occupies the actual pane rect instead of its pre-capture screen coords.
  • B25 — Workspace list per-instance was wrong UX (ADR-012): list is now shared across instances; only current state stays per-instance.
  • B27 — Frameless ReaImGui plugins on re-fire. Capturing a third-party plugin (ReaBeat, reamix.me, ReaMD), closing it, and re-firing the plugin's action no longer produces a frameless window at the default position. New chrome-restore in DoRelease for toggleAction == 0 captures: SetParent(null) + ApplyFloatingWindowChrome + SetWindowPos to the original rect before WM_CLOSE.
  • Home overlay right-click bug (ADR-031) — right-click on a card now opens the card menu instead of leaking to the pane menu.

Known issues

  • B8 — Frameless toolbar button misalignment (issue #6 comment thread) persists for the "Frameless floating toolbar windows = ON" preference. Needs REAPER-side experimentation; deferred to a post-v2.0 patch.
  • Windows + Linux not in this release. Builds compile on all 5 CI platforms but Windows mouse input (#8) and the Linux FX Browser close path (#9) are open blockers. Binaries for those platforms will be added in a follow-up release after they're tested and the blockers cleared.
  • Linux symbol-font tofu in the nav bar (Linux only). GTK default font lacks several of the Unicode glyphs used by MaxPane. Will be resolved alongside the Windows/Linux release follow-up (likely via bundled PNG icons).
  • B24 — Toolbars open offscreen after capture+release. REAPER toolbar manager state inconsistency after our DockWindowRemove. v2.1 candidate.

[1.5.2] - 2026-03-04

Fixed

  • Crash when capturing Docker or MaxPane itself — Added ancestor guard in DoCapture() that rejects any window in MaxPane's parent chain, preventing circular reparenting crash. Docker and MaxPane are also filtered from the Open Windows menu. (#2, #4)
  • MIDI Editor survives project tab switches — New dynamicTitle mechanism stores a stable search prefix ("MIDI take:") instead of the exact window title. CheckAlive automatically recaptures the MIDI Editor when REAPER opens a new one after project switch or restart. (#3)
  • was_visible not cleared on close — Added was_visible=0 in WM_DESTROY handler as safety net for all window destruction paths. "Close Container" menu now calls Toggle() instead of Shutdown() directly. (#5)
  • Visual glitches — Hide close button on narrow tabs (< 60px); splitter hover timer now uses full hit testing; hover state cleared when context menu closes; adaptive text color (black on bright tab colors like yellow/cyan). (#7)
  • Toolbar rendering and docking in MaxPane — Toolbars can now be properly captured and displayed. Removed toolbar filter from FindWindowEnumProc. (#6)
  • Workspace switching: stale windows floating after restart — Windows from previous workspaces (toolbars, Actions, FX Browser, ReaImGui scripts) no longer appear as floating windows after switching workspaces and restarting REAPER. State-specific cleanup: double-toggle for state=0 windows, ShowWindow fallback for stubborn HWNDs, skip-toggle for script actions (state=-1). (#6)
  • Toolbar icons disappearing on background click — Subclassed captured toolbar windows to block REAPER's internal drag-to-undock behavior. Clicking and holding on toolbar background no longer causes icons to vanish. (#6)
  • Auto-detect toggle action — LookupToggleAction now auto-detects the REAPER toggle action ID for any window title (toolbars + known windows), ensuring proper state management for windows captured via Open Windows menu.

[1.5.1] - 2026-03-03

Fixed

  • macOS dark mode support — Pane background color now adapts to macOS dark/light appearance. Reparented windows (Track Manager, Routing Matrix, etc.) no longer show a light grey background when REAPER's dark mode is enabled. (#1)

[1.5.0] - 2026-03-03

Added

  • Solo/maximize pane — Temporarily expand any pane to fill the entire container. Toggle via context menu (Solo Pane / Exit Solo). Full tree snapshot is saved and restored when exiting solo mode.
  • Tab reorder within pane — Drag tabs left/right within the same pane to rearrange their order. Visual insertion indicator shows the drop position.
  • Splitter double-click reset — Double-click any splitter bar to reset its ratio to 50/50.
  • Keyboard shortcuts via REAPER actions — Five new actions registered in REAPER's Actions dialog, bindable to any key:
    • MaxPane: Next Tab
    • MaxPane: Previous Tab
    • MaxPane: Next Pane
    • MaxPane: Previous Pane
    • MaxPane: Solo Toggle

Changed

  • TabEntry owned storage — All string fields (name, searchTitle, actionCmd) are now owned char[] arrays instead of const char* pointers. Eliminates dangling pointer risk after tab moves/copies and removes the FixTabPointers() workaround.
  • ShiftTabsLeft helper — Extracted repeated tab-shift-and-clear pattern into a single function, used by CloseTab, MoveTab, and CheckAlive.
  • InvalidateRect(…, FALSE) everywhere — Semantically correct now that WM_ERASEBKGND is handled; avoids unnecessary erase flicker.

Fixed

  • Open Windows menu validation — Added IsWindow() check before using HWND from the open windows list, preventing crashes from stale window handles.

Note

  • Windows and Linux builds are included but have not been tested. Please report any issues at GitHub Issues.

[1.4.0] - 2026-03-03

Added

  • Region Render Matrix added to known windows (action 41888).
  • Cross-platform support — Windows x64 and Linux x86_64 builds now compile and are included in releases alongside macOS.
  • platform.h — Central platform abstraction header replacing 5 scattered #ifdef _WIN32 blocks.
  • CreateMaxPaneDialog() — Portable dialog creation helper (native CreateDialogIndirectParam on Windows, SWELL_CreateDialog on macOS/Linux).

Fixed

  • Windows compilation — bridged GWLP_USERDATA/SetWindowLongPtr (Win64 names) and replaced SWELL-only SWELL_CreateDialog with portable helper.
  • Linux compilation — suppressed SWELL min/max macro conflict with STL via WDL_NO_DEFINE_MINMAX.
  • Linker error on Windows/Linux — ForceViewLayoutAndDisplay() now has an inline no-op for non-macOS platforms (Cocoa code is macOS-only).

Changed

  • Known windows reorganized into logical groups (Mixing & Routing, Browsing & Media, Regions, Editing, Monitoring, Instruments).
  • Removed SWELL_PROVIDED_BY_APP from CMake global definitions — now set per-platform in platform.h.
  • Removed CMake get_target_property/list(REMOVE_ITEM) hack for Windows.

Removed

  • MIDI Editor removed from known windows — cannot be toggled without an active MIDI item in the session.

[1.3.0] - 2026-03-03

Changed

  • Renamed project: ReDockIt → MaxPane — all source, docs, CMake, actions, ExtState keys, RPP chunk tags updated.

Added

  • Diagonal grid lines in empty panes — subtle 45° lines on the pane background, disappear when a window is captured.

Fixed

  • Pane background color — captured windows (WS_CHILD) have no own background and inherited the parent's dark color. Fixed by setting COLOR_PANE_BG = RGB(172,172,172) as a neutral light gray.
  • DoRelease toggle for Actions window — closing the Actions tab via [x] left REAPER's toggle state on (checkmark stayed). Root cause: SWELL destroys the NSWindow when a window becomes WS_CHILD, so g_Main_OnCommand couldn't find the window and opened a new one. Fix: SetParent(nullptr) to restore the NSWindow before toggling.
  • Hint text color — "Click header to assign a window" was white on light gray after the background color fix. Changed to RGB(80,80,80).

[1.2.0] - 2026-03-02

Added

  • Pane menu button (▼) — 16 px button at the right edge of every tab bar. Left-click opens the pane context menu (same as right-click). Hit-test returns -2; hover highlights the button.
  • CalcTabBarLayout shared helper — single source of truth for tab geometry used by DrawTabBar, TabHitTest, and IsOnTabCloseButton.
  • GetTabRect helper — returns the screen rect for a given tab index; used for targeted invalidation on color change.
  • ExpandRect static helper (both container.cpp and container_input.cpp) — in-place RECT union, skips empty src/dst to prevent dirty-rect corruption.

Changed

  • Targeted InvalidateRect — hover/drag operations now invalidate only the affected rect instead of the full window:
    • Splitter hover: union of old + new splitter rect
    • Tab/menu-button hover: union of old + new item rect via GetTabRect / inline button rect
    • Drag highlight change: union of old + new highlight pane rect
    • Drag cancel/end: source tab bar + old highlight pane rect
    • Tab color change: only that tab's rect via GetTabRect
    • Timer hover timeout: cached old hover rects only
  • Tab area now reserves PANE_MENU_BTN_WIDTH (16 px) on the right for the menu button; tabs shrink accordingly.

Fixed

  • TabHitTest x-bounds regression — the menu-button check (x >= paneRect.right - 16) was firing for clicks outside the pane's x range (e.g. in the adjacent right-side pane), causing the pane context menu to appear instead of tab interactions. Fix: check x < paneRect.left || x >= paneRect.right before the menu-button test.
  • ExpandRect now guards against empty src rect ({0,0,0,0}) in both call-sites, preventing the dirty rect from expanding into origin unnecessarily.

Removed

  • Scroll arrows (< / >) for tab overflow — tabs shrink when a pane is narrow (original behaviour). m_tabScrollOffset, TAB_SCROLL_ARROW_WIDTH, TAB_OVERFLOW_THRESHOLD removed.

[1.1.0] - 2026-03-02

Added

  • Splitter hover highlights (white bar on mouseover)
  • Tab hover highlights (lighten effect on mouseover)
  • Per-project state persistence via RPP files (project_config_extension_t)
  • StateAccessor abstraction for polymorphic state I/O (global, project, RPP)

Fixed

  • Workspace switch rendering: blank/artifact windows (e.g. Routing Matrix) after switching back
  • Frameless floating windows when closing tabs via [x]
  • Windows reappearing floating after REAPER restart despite being closed
  • Shutdown lifecycle: proper toggle state check, reparent-before-toggle sequence
  • Quit interception via hookcommand for reliable state save on macOS/Windows
  • RepositionAll repaint: SWP_FRAMECHANGED + InvalidateRect after pane resize

Changed

  • Simplified to global docker model (removed per-project visibility switching)
  • RPP state I/O now uses synchronous project_config_extension_t (replaced deferred timer)
  • LoadWorkspace uses ReleaseAll(false) for smoother workspace transitions
  • DoCapture forces frame recalculation via SWP_FRAMECHANGED

[1.0.1] - 2026-03-01

Fixed

  • Startup deadlock: REAPER could hang when loading a project with MaxPane docked. The capture queue now defers Main_OnCommand calls during LoadState() to avoid calling REAPER APIs while the project is still loading.

Changed

  • Replaced raw new/delete with std::unique_ptr for safer resource management
  • Replaced all strncpy calls with safe_strncpy helper for consistent null-termination
  • Extracted magic numbers (colors, geometry, timing) into named constants in config.h
  • Merged duplicate FindWindowEnumProc/FindChildWindowEnumProc into single function
  • Debug logging is now conditional on CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug (no longer always enabled)
  • Added -Wshadow and -Wconversion compiler warnings

Removed

  • Dead code: unused BuildLists() and IsAnyCaptured() methods

[1.0.0] - 2025-03-01

Added

  • Native C++ REAPER extension (no script dependencies)
  • Binary split tree layout engine with up to 16 panes
  • Tabbed window management with drag-and-drop between panes
  • 14 known REAPER windows with one-click capture
  • Arbitrary window capture (including ReaImGui scripts)
  • Dock frame detection for ReaImGui windows
  • Async capture queue with retry logic
  • Named workspaces (save/restore complete layouts)
  • Favorites system with persistent action command strings
  • Tab color palette (8 colors)
  • 5 built-in layout presets
  • Auto-open on REAPER startup (configurable)
  • Full state persistence via REAPER ExtState
  • Dockable container (integrates with REAPER's docker system)
  • Context menus for panes and tabs
  • Capture-by-click mode
  • Conditional debug logging (Debug builds only)
  • Cross-platform architecture via WDL/SWELL