HotBoard

HotBoard

A lightweight offline hotkey soundboard for Windows.

Import an MP3 or WAV, press a shortcut, and play it from anywhere — Discord, a game, your browser. HotBoard stays in the system tray and keeps listening.

Installer size	1.73 MiB
Idle memory	29.2 MiB
Network	Never, after install
Platform	Windows 10 / 11 (x64)

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Features

• Global shortcuts that work while other applications are focused or minimized
• Tray resident — close the window and it keeps playing from the tray
• Shortcut validation rejects combinations Windows reserves (Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab, Win+L) and warns before you bind a bare key that would swallow typing everywhere
• Honest failure — if Windows refuses a shortcut, the app says so instead of pretending it works
• Local only — no account, no telemetry, no cloud, no database, no server
• Non-destructive — imported audio is copied into app storage; your originals are never touched

Requirements

• Windows 10 (1803 or newer) or Windows 11, 64-bit
• Rust and the Microsoft C++ Build Tools

Getting started

npm install
npm run tauri dev

Windows and Rust not on your PATH? If you see program not found for cargo, add Rust once:

setx PATH "%PATH%;%USERPROFILE%\.cargo\bin"

Then open a new terminal.

First launch is slow. Tauri compiles the full Rust dependency tree on the first dev run — expect several minutes. Later runs start in seconds.

Building an installer

npm run tauri build

The installer is written to:

src-tauri/target/release/bundle/nsis/HotBoard_<version>_x64-setup.exe

It installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\HotBoard and adds Start menu and desktop shortcuts. Uninstall through Settings → Apps → Installed apps.

Distributing it

Two things to know before you share the file:

• It is unsigned. Windows SmartScreen shows a blue warning on first run. Users click More info → Run anyway. On managed corporate machines, policy may block this outright.
• WebView2 is not bundled. Windows 10 (1803+) and 11 ship WebView2 already, so most users never notice. On a stripped-down machine, the installer downloads it on first run — which needs a connection.

To make the installer fully offline, set this in src-tauri/tauri.conf.json:

"windows": { "webviewInstallMode": { "type": "offlineInstaller" } }

That embeds WebView2 and grows the installer from 1.73 MiB to roughly 130 MiB.

How it works

A Tauri 2 desktop app: React and TypeScript for the interface, Rust for everything that touches the system.

src/            React UI — sound list, editor, shortcut recorder
src-tauri/src/
  lib.rs        App state, sound CRUD, shortcut registration, lifecycle
  shortcut.rs   Key mapping, reserved-combination checks, validation
  audio.rs      rodio playback and decode verification
  store.rs      library.json + managed audio files on disk
  tray.rs       System tray icon, Open and Quit

Shortcuts are handled natively by tauri-plugin-global-shortcut, so they fire while other applications have focus. Audio plays in-process through rodio — no external player process is ever launched.

Where your data lives

%APPDATA%\com.hotkeysoundboard.app\
  library.json    sound names, shortcuts, settings
  sounds\         copies of the audio you imported

Deleting that folder resets HotBoard to a clean install. The app identifier determines this path, so changing it in tauri.conf.json orphans existing data.

Scripts

Command	Purpose
npm run tauri dev	Run the app with hot reload
npm run tauri build	Produce the Windows installer
npm run build	Type-check and build the frontend only
npm run test	Run the Rust test suite

Troubleshooting

"This audio file could not be decoded" The file's extension is misleading. HotBoard accepts MP3 and WAV; verify the file really is one of those and is not truncated or corrupt.

A shortcut doesn't fire Another program is holding that combination. HotBoard reports this on startup — check the warning banner listing which shortcuts Windows refused.

localhost refused to connect on launch The dev server bound to IPv6 only. vite.config.ts pins it to 127.0.0.1; if you changed that, put it back.

License

Private project. All rights reserved.