AEROPANE — PRODUCTION V1
Premium Windows 11 personalization by Apex Digital Media

WHAT IT DOES
- Coordinates one glass material across File Explorer, the taskbar and its
  previews, Start/Search, Quick Settings, notifications, shell flyouts, and
  the Windows 11 Task Manager.
- Offers one production Sea Glass material using the approved shell, Notepad,
  Command Prompt, and PowerShell tuning.
- Uses a continuous sea-foam glass shell, bright white-to-aqua edge highlights,
  clean blurred chrome, and restrained inner panels instead of opaque blocks.
- Start, Windows Search, and the taskbar retain Microsoft's native dimensions,
  arrangement, spacing, and control placement. AeroPane changes only their
  sea-foam material, glass edges, translucent cards, hover states, and adaptive
  light/dark readability palette.
- Notepad receives a dedicated aqua/teal Sea Foam material with 65% body
  opacity, while its editor retains enough contrast for bright white text and
  cursors. Paint retains a protected canvas for readable ink and controls.
- Windows Terminal receives the approved native CMD and PowerShell color
  schemes, acrylic body opacity, unfocused opacity, and Sea Glass tab treatment.
  Apex uses Terminal's own settings format rather than injecting into it.
- Task Manager keeps Microsoft's native form factor and data layout. Its
  navigation, commands, pages, cards, tables, dialogs, and performance palette
  use coordinated sea-foam glass. Live graphs retain a deep ocean-glass canvas
  so labels, grids, and data remain legible.
- Includes 24-image Serenity collections for 4K (3840 x 2160), ultrawide
  (3440 x 1440), and standard widescreen displays. The original bright Serenity
  Aero scenes, original FutureGlass background, and four daylight FutureGlass
  companions are included alongside the night collection. Collection filters,
  image counts, resolution metadata, and a personal-image library keep the
  desktop wallpaper and lock-screen workflow organized.
- The controller does not decode wallpapers during application startup.
  Background metadata and previews load asynchronously only when the
  Backgrounds tab is opened. Gallery images use a versioned 320 x 204 local
  thumbnail cache that automatically invalidates when a source image changes;
  the application package still contains only the original wallpapers.
- Includes an optional persistent Sea Foam folder treatment built from genuine
  32-bit transparent artwork. In addition to the private shell-resource
  fallback, AeroPane uses versioned icon assets, current-user generic-folder
  fallbacks, and direct assignments for uncustomized folders in Desktop,
  Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music, Videos, and OneDrive. This closes the
  small/medium/large/extra-large Explorer rendering gaps that otherwise mix
  Sea Foam and manila folders. Additional personal or project-data locations
  can be added from the controller. Existing FolderGlow, intentional custom,
  cloud, and protected folder icons are never overwritten.
- ZIP archives receive a matching transparent Sea Foam folder sealed by a
  horizontal zipper across its top seam.
  AeroPane changes only the current user's CompressedFolder display icon; it
  does not replace the ZIP handler, change the default opener, or patch Windows
  files. Any prior per-user ZIP icon value is journaled and restored exactly.
- Links to the Apex Digital Apps FolderGlow page for per-folder colors, custom
  icons, logos, and quick slots.
- The AeroPane controller uses a native DWM acrylic backdrop, opens at a
  recording-safe size inside a 1920 x 1080 workspace, and can be freely resized
  or maximized. The background gallery and selected-image preview expand with
  the window.
- AeroPane's glass airplane-window mark is used for the executable, taskbar,
  title bar, notification area, and controller header.

SAFETY AND RECOVERY
- AeroPane does not replace or patch Windows system files.
- Shell effects use a private portable Windhawk runtime and exact, attributed
  Windhawk mods. The Sea Foam theme redirects selected icon resources from a
  private Apex resource file while the feature is active.
- AeroPane grants packaged Windows shell hosts read/execute-only access to its
  private runtime so Search can load the same attributed styling module as
  Start. No write permission is granted to app packages.
- Glass surfaces and Sea Foam folders are independent. Restoring glass does not
  remove the selected folder theme; restoring the folder theme is a separate,
  explicit action.
- Before changing Windows Terminal, Apex journals the exact settings bytes.
  An untouched file is restored byte-for-byte. If the user edits another
  Terminal preference while Apex is active, rollback removes only Apex-owned
  schemes, themes, and profile values while preserving that newer edit.
- Applying or restoring Sea Foam restarts Explorer once after every runtime,
  folder, ZIP, and generic-folder setting is committed. Apex clears both the
  current user's icon databases and folder-thumbnail databases, so stale
  manila composites cannot survive at larger Explorer view sizes.
- "Rebuild cache + restart" first reconciles every managed folder, then rebuilds
  the icon and thumbnail caches and restarts Explorer once. It intentionally
  keeps the configured Windhawk runtime active. It neither unloads nor reapplies
  Task Manager styling, so this repair path does not produce the former
  repeated-UAC loop.
- The Sea Foam resource theme targets Windows 11's actual default folder source,
  shell32.dll icon groups 3 and 4, with an imageres.dll compatibility mapping.
  Known stock shell32/imageres folder assignments are treated as Windows
  defaults and converted; non-stock FolderGlow and custom assignments remain
  untouched.
- Every folder changed by the persistence layer is recorded with its original
  attributes and exact desktop.ini bytes before Apex mutates it. ZIP and
  generic-folder registry values are likewise journaled with their original
  existence, value, data type, and key ownership. The journal is written
  atomically and maintains a validated backup. Restore touches only Apex-owned
  entries. If FolderGlow or another customizer takes ownership afterward, its
  newer icon wins and AeroPane leaves it alone.
- While Sea Foam is enabled, a user-level watcher handles new folders and a
  two-minute reconciliation pass repairs missed filesystem events, missing
  desktop.ini attributes, and old Apex icon paths. Generated dependency,
  reparse-point, and protected Windows trees are skipped; ordinary descendants
  of hidden or system folders are still inspected.
- Apex uses one authoritative current-user startup entry when either Start with
  Windows or Sea Foam persistence requires it. Legacy duplicate Sea Foam startup
  entries are removed automatically.
- Rapid changes are coalesced after input settles. Apply, restore, folder-theme,
  and Explorer-repair operations are serialized so they cannot overlap.
- Task Manager normally runs at high integrity. If its surface is selected,
  AeroPane requests one Windows administrator approval for the complete
  stop/configure/start transition. Other surfaces remain standard-user
  operations, and declining the prompt leaves Task Manager untouched.
- "Restore all Windows" is the complete Apex rollback. Before touching the
  shell it disables automatic startup and records a durable restore-pending
  state. It then disables every Apex/Windhawk module, restores Windows Terminal,
  all journaled folders, ZIP and generic-folder values, rebuilds Explorer
  caches, and restarts Explorer once. Task Manager can require one administrator
  approval to unload; there is no second prompt to reapply it.
- If an offline location or another rollback item cannot be reached, Apex keeps
  it in the journal, reports the incomplete rollback, and blocks automatic
  reapply until "Restore all Windows" succeeds. Entries for folders that were
  deleted from an available managed location are safely retired because no
  filesystem change remains to restore.
- Wallpaper and lock-screen choices are user content and are not changed by the
  shell rollback. Before either image is changed, the Backgrounds page captures
  its previous value and provides a separate "Restore previous" action for both.
- Command-line emergency recovery:

    AeroPane.exe --safe-mode --restart-explorer
    AeroPane.exe --restore

- No service, driver, scheduled task, browser extension, telemetry, or automatic
  update service is installed.

USE
1. Run AeroPane.exe.
2. Choose the Windows surfaces that should receive the Sea Glass material.
3. Use Backgrounds to preview or apply an included or personal image.
4. Use Sea Foam folders to apply or restore the optional system-folder theme.
5. Choose Restore all Windows on the Glass page for a complete Apex rollback.

The close button minimizes the controller to the notification area. Use
"Restore Windows defaults and exit" from the tray menu to complete the same
rollback and close.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- Windows 11 24H2 or 25H2
- 64-bit Intel or AMD processor
- Windows transparency effects enabled
- Desktop composition enabled

BASE ENGINE CREDIT — WINDHAWK
AeroPane is built on Windhawk 1.7.3, the open-source Windows customization
platform created by Michael Maltsev. Windhawk is the base engine that loads,
isolates, and manages every shell customization used by this application.

AeroPane provides the branded controller, coordinated material, readability
rules, sequencing safeguards, background library, Sea Foam artwork, and recovery
workflow. It does not claim ownership of Windhawk.

Windhawk's vendor-signed runtime is licensed under GPL-3.0. Resource Redirect
1.3 by Michael Maltsev (m417z), used by the Sea Foam folder feature, is also
GPL-3.0. The bundled official Windows 11 shell styler source files declare
GPL-3.0. Apex Task Manager Styler is an explicitly attributed GPL-3.0
adaptation of Windows 11 Start Menu Styler 1.6 by Michael Maltsev (m417z);
its complete modified source is included. Translucent Windows 1.7.4 remains
credited to Undisputed00x, with its exact published source included.

License texts, exact sources, versions, and checksums are included under:

    Runtime\Windhawk\Licenses
    Runtime\Windhawk\AppData\ModsSource
    Runtime\Windhawk\runtime-manifest.json

Source projects:
    https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk
    https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk-mods

AeroPane is an independent project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by
the Windhawk project.

Website: https://apexdigitalapps.com/
FolderGlow: https://apexdigitalapps.com/folderglow/
Copyright (c) 2026 Apex Digital Media.
