Changelog

Custom layouts, seam drag, and a save button that actually works

Three headline changes in V0.5.7. First, user-authored custom layouts — click a slot to split it, drag seams to adjust, save any tile shape you want as a first-class hotkey-bindable layout. Second, companion resize — when Scene has tiled your windows and you drag one edge, the neighbouring tile follows in real time. Third, the Save button in Settings → Layouts finally behaves: changes persist through layout switches, and the button darkens after a successful save so you can tell it landed.

• Added a "+ Custom" button in Settings → Layouts that opens a canvas editor — click any slot for split / delete, drag seams to adjust proportions, save any tile shape as a first-class layout alongside the 11 built-in templates.
• Added companion resize on twoCol / twoRow / threeCol / threeRow layouts: drag the edge of one tile and the neighbour reflows in real time. Hold Option to bypass.
• Fixed the Save button silently wiping customisations when you switched layouts, and wired Save to a dirty-state flag so it darkens after a successful save and only re-enables on further edits.
• Fixed a multi-display coordinate bug where drag-swap and seam-resize could target off-screen positions on secondary displays below or left of the primary.

In-app update installer

Click Update available in the menu, click Install and Restart in the confirmation alert, and Scene downloads the new DMG, swaps itself out for the new bundle, and relaunches automatically. No more manual download + drag + re-grant ritual.

• Added an in-app installer: confirmation alert with Install and Restart / Release Notes / Later, then download → verify (Team ID 22K6G3HH9G) → detached helper script → ditto --noqtn replace → relaunch.
• Accessibility permission survives across updates because TCC binds the grant to the Designated Requirement (stable across any release signed with the same Developer ID), and ditto preserves the com.apple.macl xattr that anchors the grant.
• The helper script backs up the old app to /tmp/Scene.app.bak-$$ before replacing, rolls back on failure, and logs to /tmp/scene-update-<pid>.log for post-mortems.

Quit-relaunch update detection + Workspaces delete button

The "Update available" menu item now reliably appears after a quit + relaunch, and Workspaces in Settings can finally be removed via a visible toolbar button instead of a hidden swipe gesture.

• Fixed the case where Scene cached the GitHub check on version N before N+1 was published, then a quit + relaunch within 24 hours silently skipped the check and the user never saw the new release in the menu — UpdateChecker now bypasses the 24-hour debounce on launch (hourly background checks and wake-from-sleep still honor it).
• Added a visible delete (trash) button to the Workspaces tab toolbar — the previous swipe-to-delete affordance was barely discoverable on macOS NavigationSplitView, so users believed the seeded Coding / Meeting / Reading / Streaming workspaces couldn't be removed.

First-launch reliability + Accessibility upgrade recovery

The one-time welcome window no longer requires Accessibility permission to appear, and the tccutil reset rescue command for the v0.4.x → v0.5.x upgrade transition is now visible from the moment the onboarding window opens.

• Fixed the welcome window never appearing when upgrading from an ad-hoc-signed v0.4.x build to a notarized v0.5.x — the welcome no longer requires Accessibility to be granted first, and chains into the AX prompt automatically when the user dismisses it.
• Fixed the tccutil reset rescue hint being hidden behind a failed "Check again" click that most users never made — the hint, the Copy button, and the paste-into-Terminal instructions are now visible from the moment the onboarding window opens.
• Fixed returning users without Accessibility having to discover the hidden "Grant Accessibility" item in the menu bar — the onboarding window now opens automatically on launch when permission is missing.

Smoother animation + Intel support

Window animations on native apps now run at 60Hz (up from 30Hz), and Intel Macs can finally install Scene from the same DMG.

• Improved animation smoothness: native apps (Safari, Finder, Xcode, Notes, Preview, System Settings, Mail, Messages) now animate at 60Hz. Electron apps (VS Code, Cursor, Chrome, Brave, Slack, Discord, Figma, Notion, Obsidian, Teams) keep the 30Hz throttle to avoid back-pressure stalls.
• Improved animation timing: duration now scales with move distance — short nudges feel snappier, long moves feel less rushed.
• Added Intel Mac support via universal binary — one DMG runs native on both Apple Silicon and Intel.

First-launch welcome window

New users now see a short welcome window on first launch, confirming Scene is running and pointing to the menu bar icon.

• Added a one-time welcome window with a highlighted menu bar icon and an "Open Settings" shortcut.
• Added "Show welcome screen again" in Settings → About.
• Fixed a stale version string in the About tab.

Continuous update detection

Scene now catches new releases while it's running, instead of only at launch.

• Added an hourly background check for new versions (still rate-limited to one call per day).
• Added a wake-from-sleep check, so long-running Macs see updates within an hour.

Notarized by Apple

Scene is now signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple — install it like any other trusted Mac app, with no Gatekeeper warning.

• Added Developer ID signing and Apple notarization.
• Improved upgrade reliability: future updates preserve your Accessibility grant automatically.

Upgrading from v0.4.3 or earlier? macOS treats v0.5.0 as a new app because the signature format changed. Re-grant Accessibility once in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility. After that, v0.5.x → v0.5.y updates are seamless.

Passive update nudge

A tinted "Update available" item now appears at the top of the menu when a new Scene release lands on GitHub.

• Added a daily update check with a click-through to the release page.
• Improved DMG size: 2.0 MB → 1.4 MB via recompressed icons.

Fixes

• Fixed animation lag on 120 Hz ProMotion displays — window swaps now finish in the configured 250 ms.
• Fixed a stale "active workspace" checkmark appearing on launch.
• Fixed a 5-second delay on workspace clicks that had no apps to quit.
• Fixed a case where re-firing a layout missed a window opened moments earlier.

Smaller DMG and a polished installer

The DMG is now half its previous size, and dragging Scene into Applications uses a custom installer window with pinned positions and a directional chevron.

• Improved DMG size: 2.8 MB → 1.4 MB.
• Added a custom DMG background with hidden toolbar and pinned icon positions.
• Improved the "grant-denied-after-update" hint with a one-click Copy Command button.
• Fixed "Activated" showing even when layout apply had failed.
• Fixed calendar triggers with empty keywords matching every event.
• Removed Japanese; shipping languages are English and 繁體中文 (香港 / 台灣).

Workspaces — the first public release of Scene

Scene bundles a window layout, apps to launch and quit, a macOS Focus mode, and optional auto-triggers into a single click.

• Added Workspaces with four built-in presets — Coding, Meeting, Reading, Streaming — on ⌘⌥1–4.
• Added five trigger types: manual, monitor connect, time of day, calendar event, and wake-from-sleep.
• Added three vertical preset layouts on ⌘⌃8 / ⌘⌃9 / ⌘⌃0.
• Added layout thumbnails in the menu bar and Settings.
• Added multilingual UI — English, 繁體中文 (香港 / 台灣), 日本語.

Breaking: layout hotkeys moved from ⌘⇧1–7 to ⌘⌃1–9,0. The old shortcuts collided with macOS screenshot bindings.

Scene v0.1

First technical preview — a macOS menu bar app for instant window layouts.

• Added 7 preset layouts: Full, Halves, Thirds, Quads, Main+Side, LeftSplit+Right, Left+RightSplit.
• Added global hotkeys ⌘⇧1–7.
• Added Accessibility onboarding.
• Added Electron window tolerance (±5 px retry) and multi-display support.