TextCascade Desktop

简体中文

TextCascade Desktop is a lightweight Windows desktop client for the TextCascade text clipboard synchronization service. It is built with C# WinForms and targets framework-dependent .NET 10 on Windows.

Compatibility note: Starting with v2.0.0, this client speaks the textcascade.v1 protocol and no longer works with the original ClipCascade (Spring/STOMP) server. If you need to sync with a ClipCascade server, use the v1.x releases instead.

Features

• Text clipboard synchronization over the textcascade.v1 protocol: POST /api/v1/login (JSON, raw password over TLS) returns a Bearer token, then a WebSocket connection to wss://{host}/api/v1/sync with the textcascade.v1 subprotocol exchanges hello/welcome/clip/clip_ack/ping/pong/bye/error JSON messages.
• Optional end-to-end encryption; when enabled, the server cannot read the plaintext.
• Automatic reconnection: 1/2/5/10/30/60s backoff for normal disconnects, gentle 1/2/5/10s after maintenance closes (bye/close 1001), reset on welcome; reconnects immediately (within 1-2s) on power resume or network recovery.
• Token-expiry recovery: silent re-login when a password is saved (rate-limit aware, backoff of at least 30s); otherwise the service stops and the user is asked to log in again.
• Optional trust-all-certificates switch for self-signed deployments.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11.
• .NET 10 SDK for building.
• .NET 10 Windows Desktop Runtime.
• A TextCascade server.

Build

dotnet build .\TextCascadeSharp.csproj -c Release

User Data

Settings are stored under the current Windows user profile:

%APPDATA%\TextCascade\settings.json

Security Notes

• Saved passwords, the Bearer token, and the derived AES key are encrypted with Windows DPAPI in the current-user scope before they are written to disk. The derived key is persisted, so encrypted clipboards remain decryptable even when the raw password is not saved.
• Legacy plaintext settings files are automatically migrated to DPAPI-protected values on the next load.
• If a protected credential cannot be decrypted (for example after copying the settings file to another user or machine), the client clears the field and asks for login again instead of crashing.
• To clear all local client state, exit the app and delete %APPDATA%\TextCascade\settings.json.

Project Layout

assets/                  App and tray icons
src/App/                 WinForms UI and tray application context
src/Core/                API client, textcascade.v1 WebSocket sync, crypto, settings, startup
TextCascadeSharp.csproj  Main Windows desktop project

Credits

TextCascade Desktop was developed with reference to Sathvik-Rao/ClipCascade. Thanks to the ClipCascade project for the original clipboard sync design and implementation reference.

License

This project is open source under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for the full license text.