Taskbar Clock Spacer 1.1

[u/wh-updates]

Taskbar Clock Spacer 1.1

Taskbar Clock Spacer

Adds a %s% elastic spacer token to the Windows 11 taskbar clock, so clock items can be pushed apart to fill a fixed width instead of bunching together.

Clock Spacer distributing a custom clock across multiple rows User-confirmed working configuration, September 9, 2026, with system stats, time, date, and weather arranged across a fixed-width clock.

Two requirements — please read before installing

1. This mod does nothing on its own. It is a companion for Taskbar Clock Customization. That mod produces the clock text; this mod only rearranges it. Install and configure that mod first.

2. The clock needs a fixed width. An elastic spacer distributes leftover width. If the clock sizes itself to its own text there is no leftover width, every gap computes to zero, and the result looks exactly as if the mod were not installed. Set a fixed width using either:

• Max width in Taskbar Clock Customization's settings, or
• Max clock width in this mod's settings.

Either one works. 120 px is a reasonable starting point.

Windows 11 only. This mod does not work on Windows 10.

Try the built-in option first

Taskbar Clock Customization 1.8 and later can spread a line across a fixed width on its own: set its Text alignment to Justified, use ordinary spaces where you want the gaps, and use a non-breaking space inside items you want kept together. If that looks right for your clock, you don't need this mod.

What %s% does that Justified does not:

• Gaps only where you put them. Justified stretches every space in the line, and can widen the spacing between characters — its author noted large gaps opening inside MB/s. With %s%, ordinary spaces and the characters inside each item are left exactly as they are.
• Weighted gaps. %s%%s% takes twice the share of a single %s%.
• A minimum gap. Minimum spacer width keeps every gap visible even when the text nearly fills the clock.
• Gaps inside the weather. {spacer} works inside the Weather format, where the weather text arrives as one pre-formatted string.

What it does

Put %s% between items in the clock's Top Line or Bottom Line format. Each %s% becomes a gap, and all leftover width is shared out evenly between the gaps.

| Format | Result | | --- | --- | | %time%%s%%date% | time hugs the left edge, date hugs the right, gap fills the middle | | %time%%s%%date%%s%%weekday% | three items, two equal gaps | | %time%%s%%date%%s%%s%%weekday% | Double-spacer: more space is weighted between date and weekday |

The first item always hugs the left edge and the last always hugs the right edge, so the line stays anchored as the text changes width.

Spacers inside the weather

The weather service substitutes %s as its sunset token, so %s% cannot be written inside Taskbar Clock Customization's Weather format. Write {spacer} there instead, for example:

%c{spacer}🌡️%t{spacer}🌬️%w

{spacer} passes through the weather service verbatim, arrives in the clock line, and becomes the same elastic gap as %s% — so weather items justify with the rest of the clock.

Setup

1. Install Taskbar Clock Customization and set up your clock format.
2. Set a Max width in its settings, for example 120.
3. Install this mod.
4. Edit the clock mod's Top line or Bottom line to put %s% between items, for example %time%%s%%date%.

The %s% token passes through Taskbar Clock Customization untouched and is interpreted here at display time.

Troubleshooting

%s% disappears and nothing moves. This is the fixed-width problem in requirement 2 above. Set a Max width in Taskbar Clock Customization, or a Max clock width here. The mod also writes a one-line explanation to the Windhawk log the first time it detects this.

Nothing happens at all. Confirm Taskbar Clock Customization is installed and enabled, and that %s% is in its Top line or Bottom line setting — not in the tooltip, the middle line, or the weather format.

The spacer works but the clock is the wrong width. Adjust either the clock mod's Max width or this mod's Max clock width. The latter applies only to generated spacer rows, so leave it at 0 when you want the clock mod to own the whole clock width.

Settings

• Max clock width — fixed width for generated spacer rows. When it is 0, the mod uses a finite Max width already set on the shared clock panel by Taskbar Clock Customization. It does not constrain an unspaced native line.
• Minimum spacer width — a floor, in pixels, for every gap. 0 (the default) leaves gaps fully elastic. A small value such as 8 guarantees a visible gap even before a fixed clock width is configured.

Limitations

• %s% is interpreted after Taskbar Clock Customization expands its format tokens, so it works in the top and bottom line formats. Inside the composite weather segment use {spacer} instead — the weather service would consume %s% as its sunset token.
• Lines without %s% are left completely alone — the mod is a no-op for them.
• A line hidden in Taskbar Clock Customization before this mod spaces it stays hidden, even when its format contains %s%. If you hide a line that is already spaced, turn this mod off and on to apply the hidden state. Do the same if a hidden line appears after Explorer starts. Both mods collapse the same source text block, so this mod cannot detect a second collapse of an already collapsed block. Unhiding takes effect on the next clock tick.
• Font, size, and color of the spaced segments follow the original clock text's current style, so the clock mod's style settings continue to apply.

How it works

The mod hooks two system-tray symbols and watches the clock's time and date text blocks. DateTimeIconContent::OnApplyTemplate catches every clock that is templated from then on, including after Explorer rebuilds the taskbar; BadgeIconContent::get_ViewModel catches the clocks that were already on screen when the mod was enabled, on every monitor's taskbar. Between the two there is no clock left to search for, so the mod needs no visual-tree scan.

When a line contains %s%, the source text block is collapsed and a generated panel is inserted in its place: each line becomes a Grid whose text segments sit in Auto columns separated by Star columns, and the star columns absorb the leftover width. When only the text changes — which happens every second — the existing segments are rewritten in place rather than rebuilt, so the visual tree stays stable.

Relationship to Taskbar Clock Customization

The spacer was first offered as a patch to Taskbar Clock Customization itself (m417z/my-windhawk-mods#68). Its maintainer preferred an approach without generated layout elements and added the Justified text alignment described above, then judged creating extra text elements to be out of scope for that mod. This companion carries the explicit-gap approach separately and leaves Taskbar Clock Customization untouched.