Shortcut

urdeck.widgets.shortcut is a 1x1 card that shows the icon of an application, a file, a folder or a web address and opens it when you tap it, the way a desktop shortcut does. While your finger is down the card shrinks and dims slightly (the amounts are the theme’s press values); a swipe that starts on a shortcut still changes the page and opens nothing, and so does a long hold.

{ "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "col": 0, "row": 8, "target": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe" },
{ "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "col": 1, "row": 8, "target": "shell:AppsFolder\\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App" },
{ "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "col": 2, "row": 8, "target": "%USERPROFILE%\\Documents" },
{ "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "col": 3, "row": 8, "target": "https://example.com", "icon": "C:\\Icons\\example.png" }

Setting	Meaning
`target`	What to open. A rooted path to an executable, a `.lnk`, a document or a folder (`%NAME%` environment variables are expanded); a bare name Windows resolves itself (`notepad`); a `shell:` item; a web address (`http` or `https`); or any other address Windows has an application for (`steam://open/main`, `ms-settings:display`). A relative path is refused. With no target the card shows an empty placeholder and does not react.
`arguments`	Arguments for a file target. Ignored, with a warning in the log, for an address. They are never written to the log.
`icon`	Where the icon comes from instead of `target`: a local image file (PNG, JPEG, WebP, BMP, GIF or ICO), or anything else that could be a target.
`label`	A text under the icon. Absent or `""`: no label, and the icon takes the whole card.

A packaged (Store) application has no path; its target is shell:AppsFolder\ followed by its id, which Get-StartApps lists in PowerShell:

Get-StartApps | Where-Object Name -like '*Terminal*'   # AppID: Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

Launching

The target is handed to the Windows shell with its default action: never through a command interpreter and never elevated. Whether a running application is brought forward or a second window opens is the application’s decision, as it is for a desktop shortcut, and Windows and the application decide which monitor the window opens on. A double tap opens one window. A target Windows refuses (a missing file, no application for the address) opens nothing and urdeck.log says why.

Targets come from your own configuration file and are trusted like a shortcut on your desktop: do not paste in a page from somebody else without reading its targets.

Icons

A local image file is shown as it is. For any other file, a folder or a shell: item the card shows the icon Windows shows for it. For a web address it shows the site’s own icon, and the default browser’s icon when the site offers none. Until the icon is there, and when there is none, the card shows a placeholder with the first letter of the label or of the target’s name.

Network

A site’s icon is the one thing UrDeck itself fetches from the network (the weather data is fetched by the weather provider). It happens only for a shortcut whose icon source is an http(s) address, at most once per address in 30 days: a request for the address, one for the web manifest the page links, and at most four for icon candidates (the manifest’s icons, the page’s apple-touch-icon and icon links, /favicon.ico), which may live on another host such as a CDN, followed there over https only. The requests carry no cookies and no credentials, name UrDeck in the User-Agent, give up after ten seconds and never ignore a certificate error. A site behind a sign-in page yields no icon.

To make no request at all, set icon to a local file. Fetched icons are kept as PNG files in cache/icons next to the executable; deleting the folder is always safe, the icons are fetched again.