What's new

[1.2.0]

• Multi-display support. VirtualZones now confines windows on every connected monitor, not just the primary — each screen gets its own layouts, its own enable/disable switch, and its own “cover taskbar” setting. Pick a screen from the folder-tab selector at the top of the app to configure it; its real display name (e.g. “DELL U3423DW”) and resolution are detected automatically. Reconnecting or swapping monitors is handled live.
• Only one VirtualZones runs at a time. Launching it again (including after an update) now cleanly replaces any already-running copy instead of opening a duplicate tray icon.
• New “About” screen, reachable from the License card, with the app name, version, release date, and a link to the project’s GitHub page.
• The main window now shows a master Start/Stop switch at the top, and each zone’s size is labeled directly on the layout preview.
• Numerous polish passes: dialog buttons now line up consistently, the screen selector reads as a folder of tabs, and various spacing/alignment fixes throughout.

[1.1.1]

• Fixed the “Update available” dialog clipping the last line(s) of the release notes — the window is now sized with headroom so the full changelog always fits.
• Primary actions now stand out in your accent color: Add (Layouts), Save (Keyboard Shortcuts and the layout editor), and Buy License.
• The title-bar theme icons (sun / auto / moon) render as crisp monochrome glyphs instead of color emoji.

[1.1.0]

• Pick your accent color. A new App color… picker in Preferences — 12 curated swatches, a hue slider, and a hex field — recolors the whole app live: buttons, toggles, on-screen zone lines, the layout previews, and the tray + taskbar icons all follow your choice.
• Light, Dark, and Auto themes. A rounded ☀ / ◐ / ☾ tumbler in the title bar switches theme instantly. Auto follows your Windows app-theme setting and flips the moment you change it.
• Move windows into any zone. The Ctrl+Alt+W/A/S/D move shortcuts now also work on a window that isn’t maximized — it’s moved and fitted into the target zone instead of doing nothing.

[1.0.1]

• Redesigned the “Update available” dialog in the same Direct2D style as the rest of the app — dark gradient, custom title bar, and accent buttons — replacing the last screen that still used the old native Windows look.
• Cleaner release notes: the update dialog now renders Markdown as plain text (bold, - bullets, headings, and inline code are converted or stripped) instead of showing raw ** markers.

[1.0.0]

• New look, everywhere. Every window — main, License, Keyboard Shortcuts, and the Layouts editor — is now custom-rendered with Direct2D: a dark gradient background, card-grouped sections, a custom title bar, pill-shaped preference toggles, a custom layout dropdown, and a hand-built license-key field. On-screen zone lines, the drag-snap highlight, and the tray/taskbar icons are recolored to the purple accent so the whole app reads as one design.
• Reworked Layouts editor. It’s now two views in one window: a Manage list (each saved layout shown as a thumbnail with per-row Edit and delete, plus Restore Defaults) and an Edit canvas. In the editor, click a zone to split it in two (Shift-click for a horizontal split) and click a shared border to merge — both with hover highlighting so the action is clear before you click.
• Clearer empty state. With no layouts defined, the app no longer confines to a phantom split: the main window shows a green Add button (opening the editor) with the dropdown disabled, and adding or restoring a layout automatically selects it.
• Changed default shortcuts: window-move is now Ctrl+Alt+W/A/S/D (was Ctrl+Alt+Arrows), Start/Stop is Ctrl+Alt+R, and Cycle layout is Ctrl+Alt+C. Existing installs keep their saved bindings; all remain rebindable.
• Default layouts now list 50% | 50% first, then 33% | 33% | 33%, then 25% | 50% | 25%.
• New “Start minimized” preference — start straight in the tray (no window) on any launch, not just autostart-at-login.
• Lower memory footprint — the Direct2D UI is loaded lazily and released when the window is hidden to the tray, and the working set is trimmed, so an idle tray-resident app reads ~2 MB in Task Manager (only the on-screen window uses the full renderer).
• Windows now open centered on the primary monitor by default, and various fixes: accurate border merge/highlight on every zone edge, proportional editor fields, and panic logging for diagnostics.

[0.5.3]

• New: Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right/Up/Down moves the focused window into the zone to the left/right/up/down of its current one — like Windows’ “move to next monitor” shortcut, but for zones. Rebindable via Keyboard Shortcuts. Does nothing if there’s no zone in that direction.

[0.5.2]

• Share Zone: the capture pipeline no longer copies frames through CPU memory or blits with GDI — captured pixels are now GPU-copied directly into a swapchain bound to the mirror window and presented, cutting per-frame overhead and CPU usage on the capture thread.

[0.5.1]

• Fixed: a shared zone’s captured feed no longer shows a fake “VirtualZones - Sharing Zone N” title bar baked into the top of the image — the invisible mirror window used a captioned style so Teams/Zoom’s picker could show a friendly name, but window-capture reads the window’s own rendered surface, title bar included, even though it was invisible to the eye. Now borderless; the picker name is unaffected.
• Home screen: “Edit Layouts…” moved out of the layout dropdown’s list (easy to miss, scrolled past the real layouts) to a link beside the dropdown.

[0.5.0]

• The three built-in layout presets (25/50/25, 50/50, 33/33/33) are now ordinary editable/removable layouts, same as any custom layout — rename, delete, or edit them from “Edit Layouts…”, and use the new Restore Defaults button there to bring back any you’ve deleted.
• New: rebindable global hotkeys for Start/Stop, Hide/Show zones, and Cycle layout (Ctrl+Alt+S/Z/L by default) — shown in the tray menu, changeable via a new Keyboard Shortcuts… dialog on the main window.
• Edit Layouts: added an Apply button that saves without closing the window, so you can keep iterating on a layout without reopening the editor each time. Delete and Restore Defaults now behave the same way — the editor only closes on Save or Cancel.
• Edit Layouts: the three quick-template buttons now apply the exact default 25/50/25, 50/50, and 33/33/33 zone splits directly (previously two of the three were resolution-specific presets tied to the display you happened to be on).
• Home screen: the Start/Stop status text is now colored red (idle) or blue (active), matching the tray icon; section spacing (Zones/Settings/License) and the gap under the layout dropdown are now consistent instead of varying between sections.
• Fixed: the built exe now always has its own icon (Explorer, Task Manager, Add/Remove Programs) — previously this only happened in CI/release builds, not local dev builds, since the icon resource was linked by a manual CI-only step now replaced by a build script that runs on every build.

[0.4.0]

• New: Share Zone — toggle a live mirror of any zone on/off from the tray or Ctrl+Alt+<N>, so Zoom/Teams’ native “Share Window” picker can select just that zone instead of the whole screen. A dashed blue frame marks a shared zone; the mirror itself is invisible (nothing to drag out of the way) and runs at full frame rate.
• Tray menu: added Start/Stop, Hide/Show zones, and a Layout submenu, so the app is fully operable from the tray without opening the main window.
• Fixed: a shared zone bordering another zone no longer shows a thin solid line next to its dashed frame; two adjacent shared zones no longer double up their dashed lines.
• “Hide to tray on close” renamed to “Show in tray”, now on by default and keeps the tray icon present whenever the window is open too, not just after closing it.

[0.3.16]

• Edit Layouts: the preview image and the layouts list now share the same width, so the left/right padding is even.
• Edit Layouts: clicking Save with no name (or an invalid one) now shows a message telling you why, instead of silently doing nothing.
• Edit Layouts: an invalid zone size (e.g. over 100% on the last zone of a row/column) now reverts the box immediately instead of leaving it showing a value that was never actually applied — Save was silently using the old value while the box showed something else.
• Edit Layouts: zones now stay numbered in reading order (top-to-bottom, left-to-right) after merging or splitting, so Zone 1 is always the top-left zone instead of drifting to whichever order a merge/split happened to leave it in.

[0.3.15]

• Fixed (for real this time): ShareX and other screen-capture overlays no longer get shoved into a zone mid-capture, which was making the frozen screenshot look shifted/duplicated across zones.

[0.3.14]

• Removed the 1080p quick template from Edit Layouts.

[0.3.13]

• Removed Edit Layouts’ “+ Custom” resolution-preset buttons — saved layouts already cover the same need, and any bad presets from testing (e.g. “25x75”) are gone with them.

[0.3.12]

• Thinner zone borders, and fixed custom layouts’ borders looking twice as thick as the built-in templates’ on shared edges between zones.

[0.3.11]

• Fixed: Tab didn’t move focus between fields (Edit Layouts and every other window).
• Edit Layouts: setting a zone’s exact width/height no longer reshuffles zones you already sized — only the later, not-yet-set zones on that row/column absorb the change.
• Fixed: screen-capture tools (e.g. ShareX) could get their capture overlay window forced into a zone mid-screenshot, causing a brief visual glitch that cleared once the capture finished.

[0.3.10]

• Fixed: entering a number in the Edit Layouts zone table could crash the app.

[0.3.9]

• The main window now reopens at the same position it was at last time.
• Edit Layouts polish: the zone table has Width/Height column headers, the dead space around it is gone (the window now grows/shrinks with the number of zones), the layouts list no longer spills past the window edge, and the 25/50/25 quick layout moved into the Templates row.

[0.3.8]

• Rearranged the Edit Layouts screen into a clear top-to-bottom flow: saved layouts, name, templates, rows/columns, preview, zone sizes, then Save/Delete. Zones in the preview are now numbered to match the size table.

[0.3.7]

• Redesigned the Edit Layouts screen: the preview now matches your actual monitor’s shape, zones can be sized by exact percentage or pixels (not just click-to-split), quick 1080p/1440p/4K templates for clean recording, and a cleaner look overall.
• “Start with Windows” now launches straight into the tray instead of popping the main window open.

[0.3.6]

• Fixed: automatic updates now reopen the app afterward instead of leaving it closed.

[0.3.5]

• Fixed: the Edit Layouts screen had gray boxes behind its labels and a clipped button row.

[0.3.4]

• Fixed: updating over a running install could fail to close the app first.

[0.3.3]

• Fixed: the app icon was missing in Add/Remove Programs and Task Manager.

[0.3.2]

• The installer now lets you choose between installing just for you (default) or for all users on the PC.
• The installer’s filename now includes the version number.

[0.3.1]

• Renamed to VirtualZones (was “Region Confiner”). Your settings, trial, and license all carry over automatically — nothing is reset.

[0.3.0]

• New layout editor — design your own zone layouts by splitting and merging a grid, instead of just vertical strips.
• 7-day free trial, then a one-time license key to keep using it.
• Automatic update checks — get notified when a new version is out, with a one-click install.
• Start with Windows option.
• Hide to tray on close instead of quitting.
• Cover taskbar option — zones can span the full screen or respect the taskbar.
• Drag-to-snap — hold Shift while dragging a window to snap it into a zone.
• Fixed: the drag-snap highlight now disappears immediately when you release Shift.

[0.2.0]

• Rewritten from the ground up: the download shrank from ~53 MB to about 180 KB, with nothing to install and no extra runtime needed.
• Fullscreen (F11) now snaps into the zone under your cursor, instead of always the middle one.

[0.1.0]

• First release: split your monitor into zones, and fullscreen/maximized windows stay confined to whichever zone they’re in.
• Zone borders can be shown or hidden.
• Known limitation: Chrome/Edge fullscreen can’t be confined yet — maximize instead.