Silk Client

Silk Client is a Windows desktop utility built with .NET and Windows Forms that lets you configure and publish a custom Discord Rich Presence for a running Discord client. The project provides a small graphical interface for entering the application ID, status text, and artwork metadata, then sends the updated presence to Discord in real time.

The application is intentionally lightweight and focused: it offers a custom modern UI, theme customization, and configuration save/load support in a single executable.

Overview

At a high level, the project has three responsibilities:

• Detect whether Discord is running and wait for it before the client starts
• Present a form where the user can define Discord Rich Presence information
• Push the configured presence to Discord using the Discord RPC library

This makes it useful for users who want a clean, compact custom presence editor without needing to use a larger Discord client or external web tool.

Features

• Discord session detection before launch
• Rich Presence configuration:
  • Application ID
  • Details
  • State
  • Activity type: Playing, Watching, or Listening
  • Large image and text
  • Small image and text
• Custom round-trip window styling with a draggable title bar
• Modern/Classic theme toggle
• Accent color selection
• Global font selection between Segoe UI and Comic Sans MS
• Save and load configuration files in .cfg format
• Top-most desktop window behavior for quick access while gaming or working

Technology Stack

• C#
• .NET 10 Windows desktop framework
• Windows Forms (WinForms)
• DiscordRichPresence library (DiscordRPC)

Project Structure

• Program.cs
  Entry point. Waits until a Discord process is detected before launching the app.

• Silk.cs
  Main form logic. Handles the Discord RPC client, UI theming, blur effects, draggable title bar, and form actions.

• SettingsWindow.cs
  Secondary window for user preferences such as accent color, font, and classic vs modern theme.

• Silk.Designer.cs
  WinForms-generated UI definition for the main application window.

• SettingsWindow.Designer.cs
  WinForms-generated UI definition for the settings window.

• Silk Client.csproj
  .NET project configuration and dependency declaration.

• Silk.resx / SettingsWindow.resx
  Embedded resources for the WinForms forms.

How It Works

1. Startup check

When the application starts, Program.Main() searches for a process named Discord.

If Discord is not running, the program keeps polling every few seconds and prints a message until the user opens Discord.

Once a Discord process is found, the app clears the console and launches the main Windows form.

2. Main UI

The main form, Silk, exposes controls for:

• Application ID
• Details text
• State text
• Activity category
• Large and small image keys/text

When the user clicks the action button, the app creates or updates a DiscordRpcClient instance and sends a RichPresence payload.

3. Presence update

The ApplyDiscordRPC_Click handler does the following:

• Validates the Application ID
• Reuses the existing client if the application ID matches
• Chooses the correct activity type (Playing, Watching, Listening)
• Sets the Rich Presence details and assets
• Updates the button text to Update after the first successful launch

4. Theme and appearance

The application implements a custom Windows composition effect to create a glass/blurred-look form. It also supports:

• a modern translucent theme
• a classic solid theme
• a selectable accent color
• a selectable global font: Segoe UI or Comic Sans MS

The secondary SettingsWindow allows the user to change these preferences and save them. The selected font is applied to all controls in both application forms.

5. Save and load configuration

The app supports loading and saving a configuration file using a simple key=value format. For example:

Application=123456789012345678
Activity=Playing
Details=Listening to music
State=on Silk Client
Large=logo
LargeText=Silk Client
Small=mic
SmallText=Discord
Color=-16777063
Theme=Modern
Font=Segoe UI

The Font setting accepts Segoe UI or Comic Sans MS. This file is saved from the settings window and can be reused to restore the same Discord presence and appearance setup.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or later
• A running Discord client
• .NET 10 SDK for Windows
• A valid Discord Application ID from the Discord Developer Portal

Build and Run

From Visual Studio

1. Open the solution file Silk Client.slnx in Visual Studio.
2. Restore NuGet packages.
3. Build the solution.
4. Run the project.

From the command line

dotnet restore

dotnet build "Silk Client.csproj"

dotnet run --project "Silk Client.csproj"

Important Notes

• The app expects Discord to be running before it starts; otherwise it waits and keeps checking.
• The Application ID must be a valid Discord application ID; otherwise the presence cannot be published correctly.
• The project uses Windows-specific APIs and cannot be run natively on Linux or macOS.
• The form is designed for Windows desktop usage and uses WinForms with composition effects that are specific to Microsoft Windows.

Typical Use Case

This project is ideal for:

• personal Discord status customization
• developer or streaming presence presets
• quick testing of Discord Rich Presence metadata
• creating a lightweight local utility to manage presence fields without a browser-based configuration tool

License

This project does not currently include a dedicated license file, so the repository should be checked for any explicit licensing terms before redistribution or commercial use.

Summary

Silk Client is a focused Windows desktop Rich Presence editor for Discord. With a small but functional interface, it gives users direct control over the information displayed on their Discord profile while remaining easy to customize and reuse with saved config files.