Chromatic Menu

A fast, locked-down desktop launcher for internet cafés, gaming lounges, and coin-operated PC rentals, with an optional web dashboard that shows which PCs are on, what they are used for, and an estimate of what they earn.

Built with C# and WPF on .NET Framework 4.8. Runs on a stock Windows 10 PC with nothing else to install, works with Faronics Deep Freeze and WinLock, and ships as a single MSI.

At a glance

• Launcher: tabs of games and programs, technical tools, live hardware info, admin-locked editing.
• Telemetry (v1.0.4, opt-in): a background service sends a small heartbeat to your own Supabase project. Off until you enter a Supabase URL and key.
• Dashboard: a static website (GitHub Pages) with live PC status, timelines, top programs, busy hours, revenue estimates, and customer game requests.

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Contents

• Features
• Telemetry and dashboard
• Install and deploy
• Upgrading from v1.0.3
• DataTool (backup, restore, Supabase setup)
• Build from source
• Project structure
• Publishing updates

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Features

Launcher

• Tabs of programs: group games and apps into tabs with icons; add .exe, .lnk, .bat, .cmd, websites, and folders.
• Drag and drop: reorder items, move them between tabs, or drop files from Explorer to add them.
• Broken shortcut detection: missing targets are flagged on the card and blocked from launching with a clear message.
• Right-click menu: Run, Run as administrator, Open file location, Properties.
• Search across all tabs.

Header panels

• Live hardware info: computer name, CPU, RAM, disks (SSD / HDD / NVMe), OS build, cores and threads, network up/down speed, GPU and VRAM. Refreshes every 3 seconds.
• Technical tools: Control Panel, Uninstall Programs, File Explorer, Network Connections, Device Manager, Disk Management, Services, Task Manager, Command Prompt, Windows Settings, System Information, and Request a Game.

Admin and kiosk behavior

• Password-protected Settings and Edit Mode, with a forced password change on first use.
• Session lock toggle with a visible Locked / Unlocked indicator.
• Kiosk windowing: borderless and maximized, respects the taskbar; the X button and Alt+F4 only minimize.

Deep Freeze awareness and updates

• Detects Deep Freeze and whether the PC is Boot Frozen or Thawed.
• Check for Updates (Settings › About) downloads the latest MSI from GitHub Releases and installs it, but only when the PC is Thawed, so an update is never lost on reboot.

Appearance

• Flat dark and light themes, accent colors, custom colors, fonts with 0.8x to 1.4x scaling, and a custom wallpaper.

Backup and portability

• Config in data\config.json, saved atomically with a .bak copy.
• Export / Import a ZIP of the config and assets to copy a setup to other PCs.

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Telemetry and dashboard

How it works

Launcher ──(named pipe: program name)──▶ ChromaticTelemetry service ──(HTTPS, insert only)──▶ Supabase: heartbeats
Launcher ──(HTTPS, insert only: Request a Game)────────────────────────────────────────────▶ Supabase: game_requests
Dashboard in a browser (signed-in user) ──(read)──▶ Supabase

• ChromaticTelemetry is a Windows service (LocalSystem, starts with Windows, no UI) installed by the MSI.
• Every interval (default 60 s, adjustable 30 to 600 s) it inserts one heartbeat row into your Supabase project.
• If the internet is down, rows wait in memory only (never on disk, max 720) and are sent together, oldest first, when it's back.

When is data sent?

Chromatic Menu has no built-in Supabase project. Out of the box the launcher works normally and nothing is sent.

Heartbeats are sent when all three are true	Where to set it
1. Start with Windows is on	Settings › General
2. Enable telemetry is on (default)	Settings › Telemetry
3. A Supabase URL and anon key are set	Settings › Telemetry, or DataTool option [2]

The Request a Game button appears when telemetry is on and a URL and key are set. Changes apply within seconds: no restart and no admin rights are needed.

What is sent, and what is not

Sent	Never sent
Time, PC name, shop name, heartbeat interval	Window titles, file paths
Name of the program in the foreground (e.g. Google Chrome). Built-in Windows apps are reported as Windows; the launcher and desktop as Chromatic Menu	Windows usernames, IP or MAC addresses, hardware IDs
Game requests: title and description typed by the customer	Anything while telemetry is off or not configured

Only the anon / public key is ever used. Supabase Row Level Security lets it add rows but never read them. Only dashboard users you create can read data.

The dashboard

A static site in docs/ with:

Page	What it answers
Overview	Which PCs are online right now, what they are running, today's estimated revenue and utilisation, and anything that needs attention
Timeline	When each PC was on, active, or idle during a day, with power-ons and longest session
Programs	The most used programs, overall and per PC
Revenue	Estimated revenue per day and per PC, change vs the previous period, best day, busy-hours heatmap
Game requests	What customers asked for, marked New, Added, or Rejected
Settings	Currency, revenue rate, theme, connection

Revenue estimate: active minutes (a program other than Chromatic Menu in the foreground) ÷ the rate. The default rate is 1 unit of currency per 9 minutes; the currency and rate are set in the dashboard's Settings. The coin timer only turns off the monitor, so a game left open after time runs out still counts.

Set up Supabase and the dashboard

1. Follow the setup guide, docs/setup.html (also on the deployed site):
   • create a free Supabase project
   • run docs/supabase/schema.sql in the SQL Editor
   • turn off public sign-ups
   • create your dashboard login
2. Deploy the dashboard: in the GitHub repository, open Settings › Pages, choose Deploy from a branch, branch main, folder /docs.
3. Point each PC at the project, with DataTool option [2] or in Settings › Telemetry.
4. Open the site, enter the same URL and anon key, and sign in. You stay signed in on that browser until you log out.

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Install and deploy

Setup wizard

Double-click ChromaticMenu-Setup.msi:

• Installs to C:\Program Files\Chromatic Menu\, with Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts.
• Makes data\, data\assets\, and data\logs\ writable for standard users.
• Installs and starts the ChromaticTelemetry service. It sends nothing until it's configured.

Silent install

msiexec.exe /i "ChromaticMenu-Setup.msi" /qn

Uninstall

Method	Removes the program and service	Removes data (programs, tabs, icons)
Start Menu › Uninstall Chromatic Menu, or Uninstall.exe	Yes	Yes
Windows Settings › Installed Apps	Yes	No, it is kept

Since v1.0.4 the installer itself never deletes data, so updates always keep the shop's configuration.

Full technician guide: documentation/DEPLOYMENT.md.

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Upgrading from v1.0.3

Important: the v1.0.3 installer deletes the data folder when it's removed, and an update removes it. This applies once, to any PC still on 1.0.3 or older, whichever newer version you install. From 1.0.4 on, updates keep the data by themselves.

On each PC, booted Thawed:

1. Run tools\ChromaticMenu-DataTool.bat and choose [0] Backup.
2. Update with Settings › About › Check for Updates.
3. Run the tool again: [1] Restore, then [2] Set up Supabase.
4. Check your programs are back, then refreeze the PC.

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DataTool

tools\ChromaticMenu-DataTool.bat is a standalone script for technicians. It asks for admin rights itself and warns if Deep Freeze looks Frozen.

Option	What it does
[0] Backup	Copies data to C:\ChromaticMenu-Backup\latest and keeps the previous backup. It refuses to overwrite a backup that has more programs than the current data, which protects you after an accidental wipe.
[1] Restore	Force-closes the launcher, saves the current data to pre-restore, restores the backup, and checks the program count.
[2] Set up Supabase	Writes a Supabase URL and anon key into the telemetry part of config.json (nothing else changes), turns telemetry on, and restarts the service. Press Enter to use the defaults at the top of the .bat. Needs v1.0.4 or newer.
[3] Open backup folder	Opens C:\ChromaticMenu-Backup.

To preset your own project, edit DEFAULT_SUPABASE_URL and DEFAULT_SUPABASE_KEY at the top of the .bat. Use only the anon / public key.

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Build from source

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 or 11
• .NET SDK 6.0 or newer (for building)
• .NET Framework 4.8 Developer Pack
• WiX Toolset v4: dotnet tool install --global wix --version 4.0.6

Build the launcher and service

dotnet build -c Release "Chromatic Menu.sln"

Outputs:

• src\Chromatic Menu\bin\Release\net48\Chromatic Menu.exe
• src\ChromaticTelemetry\bin\Release\net48\ChromaticTelemetry.exe

Build the MSI

.\build-msi.ps1                    # version from the csproj
.\build-msi.ps1 -Version "1.0.5"   # or a specific version

The script builds the launcher and the service with the version stamped in, compiles Uninstall.exe, and writes bin\Release\ChromaticMenu-Setup.msi.

Preview the dashboard locally

python -m http.server 8765 --directory docs

Then open http://localhost:8765. The site uses ES modules, so opening index.html as a file doesn't work.

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Project structure

Chromatic Menu/
├── src/
│   ├── Chromatic Menu/          # WPF launcher (MVVM: Views, ViewModels, Models, Services, Native)
│   ├── ChromaticTelemetry/      # Windows service: heartbeats, in-memory buffer, named pipe server
│   └── Shared/                  # Code linked into both: telemetry settings, Supabase client, logger
├── installer/                   # WiX v4 MSI definition, uninstall helper, license
├── docs/                        # Dashboard website (GitHub Pages)
│   ├── index.html, setup.html
│   ├── assets/                  # CSS and JavaScript
│   └── supabase/schema.sql      # Database schema, security rules, dashboard functions
├── documentation/               # DEPLOYMENT.md, TELEMETRY-SPEC.md
├── tools/                       # DataTool, icon converter, password hash helper
├── build-msi.ps1
└── SPEC.md                      # Engineering and design rules

Component	Technology
Launcher	.NET Framework 4.8, WPF, MVVM (own ObservableObject / RelayCommand)
Service	.NET Framework 4.8 Windows service, HttpClient, named pipes
Packaging	Costura.Fody (single-file exe), WiX Toolset v4
Backend	Supabase (Postgres, Row Level Security, pg_cron)
Dashboard	Static HTML, CSS and JavaScript, supabase-js, Chart.js

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Publishing updates

1. Build: .\build-msi.ps1 -Version "1.0.5"
2. Create a GitHub Release tagged v1.0.5 and attach bin\Release\ChromaticMenu-Setup.msi.
3. On each PC, boot Thawed and use Settings › About › Check for Updates.

Keep the installer's component GUIDs and MajorUpgrade Schedule="afterInstallExecute" unchanged in future versions. They are what keep data safe during upgrades.

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License

Created and maintained by HanazonoArchive. Distributed under the MIT License. Free for personal, commercial, and organizational use.