Free software for Windows 10 and 11
UrDeck puts clocks, system readings, weather and shortcuts on a secondary or case display. It is a native Windows app drawn on the GPU, and it redraws only what changed, so a page with nothing moving costs almost nothing.
There is no download yet: a release will come once its files can be signed, so Windows can tell they are mine. Until then the button leads to the repository, where UrDeck can be built from source.
Why it exists
I wanted the small screen in my case to show things without a program behind it that I cannot trust or see into.
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No account, no telemetry. UrDeck makes two kinds of network request, both for something you put on the page. Nothing else leaves your machine, and a local icon file avoids even that.
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A native app that draws each widget on the GPU and redraws only what changed. A moving background is optional and has a setting to make it cheaper.
Measured on the WinUI 3 host with one Clock widget on screen.
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One JSON file, themes you can write in a few lines, backgrounds written as small shaders. Widgets are plain C# plugins that load and reload while UrDeck runs.
// urdeck-config.json
"typeId": "urdeck.widgets.clock",
"width": 4, "height": 2,
"format": "24h",
"style": "flap"A config editor, so you will not have to open the file, and a gallery for sharing widgets, backgrounds and themes are planned, not built.
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The source is on GitHub under the GPL. The plugin SDK is MIT, so a widget can use any licence.
Sample decks
These are pictures made by UrDeck itself, from config files kept in the repository, at the size of the panel it was made for. The readings and the time are those of the machine that drew them.
Widgets
Each widget draws itself on the GPU and sits on a grid of square cells, and some change shape with the room they are given. Pick one to look closer. Others can be added as plain C# plugins.
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Plain digits, or a split-flap display whose digits flip when the minute changes. With the date, if you want it.
Four cells wide and two tall.
urdeck.widgets.clock · glass theme
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Any reading as a number or a gauge: CPU, memory and GPU load, temperature, power and clock.
Four gauges above three text readings.
Two readings on top, three text readings below.
urdeck.widgets.stats · glass theme
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Animated icons and the forecast for any number of places, from Open-Meteo.
Current conditions with the forecast for the days ahead.
Current conditions on a shorter card.
urdeck.widgets.weather · glass theme
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The icon of an application, a folder or a web address. Tap it and it opens. A dock keeps up to four of them in the same place on every page.
One cell each, on a page or in the dock.
urdeck.widgets.shortcut · glass theme
Backgrounds
Small shaders drawn on the GPU behind translucent cards. Without a background setting nothing of this exists: no surface, no frames, no cost. They draw with the theme's palette, so they follow the theme.
At the default half size a shader cost about 3% of one CPU core and under 1% of the GPU on the panel UrDeck was made on. Write your own as a small folder of shader files, or use a picture instead.
A release will come once its files can be signed, so Windows can tell they are real. Until then the repository has everything you need.