Navigating the Interface
Tex's primary surface is the MainWindow — an integrated toolbar plus an inline annotation canvas. It uses custom chrome (no Windows title bar) with rounded corners.
Layout
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ [Region] [Full] [OCR] [Color] [QR] … [Hist] [Settings] [_][X]│ Top toolbar
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ [Font] [Size] [B] [I] [U] [ text input … ] │ Text panel *
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Capture + annotation canvas │ Canvas *
│ │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ [Pen] [Shape] [Text] [Step] [Blur] [Color] [Thickness] … │ Annotation *
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Status: "Capture taken, 1920x1080" │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The rows marked * only appear once a capture has been loaded into the window. With no capture the window collapses to just the top toolbar (800 x 56).
Top Toolbar Buttons
| Button | Purpose | Hotkey |
|---|---|---|
| Region | Capture a rectangular region via overlay | Ctrl+N (in-window), Ctrl+Shift+S (global) |
| Fullscreen | Capture all monitors | Ctrl+F (in-window), Ctrl+Shift+F (global) |
| Delay combobox | Pre-capture delay in seconds (0 / 3 / 5 / 10) | — |
| OCR | Region capture + text extraction in one step | Ctrl+Shift+O (global) |
| Color Picker | Sample a pixel color with magnifier | — |
| QR Gen | Open the QR code generator | — |
| Barcode Scan | Scan QR / barcodes on the loaded capture | — |
| Text Extract | Run OCR on the loaded capture | Ctrl+T |
| Recording | Start or stop screen recording (right-click for region / duration) | Ctrl+Shift+R start, Ctrl+Shift+E stop |
| History | Open the capture history grid | — |
| Settings | Open the settings window | — |
| Dock | Switch to compact DockPillWindow mode | — |
| Minimize | Hide to system tray | — |
| Exit | Close Tex | — |
Editing buttons (Copy, Save, Email, Pin, Edit) become enabled once a capture is loaded. See their hotkeys under section 06 in the appendix.
Annotation Toolbar
When a capture is on the canvas, the annotation toolbar exposes the tool palette (Pen, Marker, Highlighter, Rectangle, Ellipse, Line, Arrow, Text, Callout, Step, Blur, Pixelate), color swatch, thickness and opacity sliders, fill and dash toggles, and Undo / Redo / Clear.
Text Input Panel
The text input panel shows only when the Text or Callout tool is active. It carries font family, size, bold, italic and underline controls for the next piece of text you place.
Status Messages
The status line at the bottom of the window reports the most recent action in plain words — for example Ready, Capture taken, 1920x1080, Copied to clipboard, Extracting text..., Saved to Pictures/Tex/tex_20260418_1503.png, Recording started. Messages clear on the next action.
Tip — The dock button in the top toolbar and the expand button on the dock pill are reverse operations. See section 01.3 for the difference between the two UI modes.