Add Hide File Explorer Focus Border

[YuUNaO7122]

Adds a new Windhawk mod: Hide File Explorer Focus Border.

This mod hides the white focus border around focused items in File Explorer by suppressing a specific DrawThemeBackgroundEx call.

Tested environment:

• Windows 11 25H2, OS Build 26200.8328
• Windhawk 1.7.3
• Theme: dark mode

Notes:

• This mod targets the modern File Explorer item focus border.
• It does not target the classic dotted focus rectangle on the desktop.
• The behavior may vary depending on Windows version, display scaling, and File Explorer view mode.
• If the focus border is still visible, adjust MinWidth/MaxWidth/MinHeight/MaxHeight in the mod settings.

Changelog

Initial release.

Mod authorship

If the submission is a new mod, please fill the form below.

This mod was created by:

• • Manually by the submitter (with or without AI assistance)
• • Claude
• • ChatGPT
• • Gemini
• • Another AI (please specify):
• • Other (please specify):

Please select the appropriate option. Your selection will not affect acceptance criteria, but will help reviewers understand the context of the code and provide relevant feedback.

[m417z]

To reduce the change of unwanted matches here, have you considered checking the theme class as well? Here's an example:

windhawk-mods/mods/explorer-treeitem-tweaker.wh.cpp

Lines 957 to 971 in 930fda2

	static bool IsTreeViewTheme(HTHEME hTheme)
	{
	typedef HRESULT (WINAPI* GetThemeClass_t)(HTHEME, LPWSTR, int);
	static auto pGetThemeClass =
	(GetThemeClass_t)GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandleW(L"uxtheme.dll"), MAKEINTRESOURCEA(74));
	if (!pGetThemeClass || !hTheme)
	return false;
	wchar_t buf[256] = {};
	if (FAILED(pGetThemeClass(hTheme, buf, ARRAYSIZE(buf))))
	return false;
	return wcsstr(buf, L"TreeView") != nullptr;
	}

With a better match, perhaps it will be possible to also get rid of the size limits which are basically a workaround.

[m417z]

How about adding a screenshot to show what exactly it hides?

[m417z]

You can link this mod here:
https://windhawk.net/mods/no-focus-rectangle