BongoCat Next

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A modern desktop pet application featuring cute Live2D cats to accompany your coding journey

📸 Preview

Standard Mode (Mouse Interaction)

Interactive animations with motions and expressions

Keyboard Mode

The cat responds to your keyboard input with adorable animations!

Drag & Drop Model

Drag a model folder directly from your file explorer to instantly link it!

✨ Features

🎯 Core Features

• 🐱 Desktop Pet Display - Adorable Live2D cat models
• ⌨️ Keyboard Response - Real-time keyboard input detection with corresponding animations
• 🖱️ Mouse Interaction - Click animations and mouse tracking
• 🎭 Motion System - Interactive motion selector with various animations
• 😃 Expression System - Dynamic facial expressions control
• 🎨 Live2D Models - Support for custom Live2D model files
• 📂 Drag & Drop - Drag model folders directly from file explorer to link and switch
• 🖼️ Transparent Window - Seamless desktop integration with full transparency

⚙️ Customization

• 🎛️ Opacity Control - Adjust cat transparency (0-100%)
• 🔄 Mirror Mode - Horizontal flip for different usage preferences
• 📌 Always on Top - Stay above all other windows
• 👻 Click Through - Optional mouse click penetration
• 🗂️ Model Switching - Switch between multiple Live2D models
• 🎮 Selector Visibility - Toggle motion and expression selectors

🛠️ System Integration

• 🎪 System Tray - Convenient tray menu for quick access
• 🔧 Global Hotkeys - System-wide keyboard shortcuts
• 📱 Multi-window - Independent main and settings windows
• 🌐 Cross-platform - Windows, macOS, and Linux support
• 🌍 Internationalization - Multi-language support (English/Chinese) with automatic language detection

📦 Installation

Pre-built Releases

Download from Releases page:

• Windows: .msi installer
• macOS: .dmg disk image (Intel & Apple Silicon)
• Linux: .deb / .rpm / .AppImage

macOS Note

Because the app is currently unsigned, macOS may show a damaged-app warning on first launch.

xattr -cr /Applications/BongoCat\ Next.app

Run the command once, then open the app again.

Development Setup

Requirements

• Node.js 18.0.0 or higher
• Rust 1.70.0 or higher
• pnpm 8.0.0 or higher

Quick Start

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/liwenka1/bongo-cat-next.git
cd bongo-cat-next

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Start development server
pnpm dev

# In another terminal, start Tauri dev mode
pnpm tauri dev

Build

# Build frontend static files
pnpm build

# Build Tauri application
pnpm tauri build

Build

# Build frontend static files
pnpm build

# Build Tauri application
pnpm tauri build

⚡ Performance

• Lightweight - Based on Tauri 2, installer size < 20MB
• Low Resource Usage - Memory usage < 50MB, CPU usage < 1%
• Native Performance - Rust backend provides native-level performance
• Fast Startup - Application startup time < 2 seconds
• Responsive - Keyboard and mouse event response latency < 10ms

📋 Usage

Basic Operations

1. Launch - Double-click to run, cat appears on desktop
2. Drag - Left-click and drag to move the cat anywhere
3. Right-click Menu - Right-click on cat for feature menu
4. System Tray - Click tray icon for quick access
5. Motion Control - Use the motion selector to play animations
6. Expression Control - Use the expression selector to change facial expressions
7. Drag & Drop Model - Drag any Live2D model folder from your file explorer onto the app window to instantly link and switch to it

Local Model Support

You can load your own Live2D models with just a folder drag.

Compatible Models:

• Any Live2D Cubism 3 / Cubism 4 model with a .model3.json specification file
• Models with resources/left-keys/ and/or resources/right-keys/ image folders will automatically enable keyboard response
• Models with resources/background.png will use it as the background

Folder structure example:

MyModel/
├── mymodel.model3.json      # Model specification (required)
├── mymodel.moc3              # Model data
├── mymodel.2048/
│   └── texture_00.png        # Textures
├── mymodel.physics3.json     # Physics (optional)
├── mymodel.cdi3.json         # Display info (optional)
└── resources/
    ├── background.png        # Background (optional)
    └── left-keys/
        ├── KeyA.png          # Keyboard key images (optional)
        └── KeyB.png

How to link:

• Drag & Drop: Drag the model folder from your file explorer onto the app window
• Right-click Menu: Right-click → Model Mode → Link Model → Select folder
• Once linked, the model is saved and can be switched to anytime from the menu

Note: Model compatibility depends on the Cubism runtime bundled in the framework. Some models may use features not supported by the current runtime version.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl + Alt + H - Show/Hide cat
• Ctrl + Alt + S - Open settings
• Ctrl + Alt + Q - Quit application

Configuration

Settings are saved in:

• Windows: %APPDATA%/BongoCat Next/
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/BongoCat Next/
• Linux: ~/.config/BongoCat Next/

🤝 Contributing

We welcome all forms of contributions!

Development

1. Fork this repository
2. Create feature branch: git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature
3. Commit changes: git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature'
4. Push to branch: git push origin feature/AmazingFeature
5. Create Pull Request

Commit Convention

Follow Conventional Commits:

• feat: New features
• fix: Bug fixes
• docs: Documentation updates
• style: Code formatting
• refactor: Code refactoring
• test: Testing related
• chore: Build process or auxiliary tools

📄 License

This project is licensed under MIT License.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Thanks to BongoCat project inspiration
• Thanks to Tauri team for the excellent framework
• Thanks to Live2D Inc. for technical support
• Thanks to Live2d-model for providing the Live2D models
• Thanks to all developers contributing to the open source community