Configuring UrDeck

UrDeck is configured by one JSON file, urdeck-config.json, which sits next to UrDeck.Host.exe. There is no editor yet (it is planned); you edit the file in any text editor. UrDeck notices a saved change after about a second and applies it without a restart. A file that is not valid JSON is ignored and the last good configuration stays in use; the reason is written to urdeck.log, next to the file. A missing file is created with defaults.

The file

{
  "pages": [
    {
      "name": "Default",
      "widgets": [
        { "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.clock", "col": 0, "row": 0, "width": 4, "height": 2, "format": "24h", "showDate": true }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "activePage": 0,
  "dock": [
    { "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "target": "https://github.com", "label": "GitHub" }
  ],
  "theme": "default-dark",
  "monitorName": "tallest"
}

The grid

The screen is a grid of four columns of square cells; a cell is a quarter of the screen’s width. On the 1100 by 3840 panel a cell is 275 pixels and a 4x2 widget is 1100 by 550. Nothing in the file is in pixels, so a page looks the same on any display; the number of rows is what the height allows.

Pages

A configuration can hold several pages. Swipe left or right on the deck (mouse, touch or pen) to change page; the page follows your finger, and swiping past the first or last page bounces back. Only the page you are on is alive, so more pages cost nothing while you look at one.

An indicator shows where you are: one dot per page, the current one a pill. Tap a dot to go to that page. Its pager.indicator setting is one of:

• always: a band at the bottom is reserved for it and it is always visible.
• fade: it floats over the page and fades out a couple of seconds after a swipe.
• off: no indicator.
• auto (the default): hidden with one page; with several pages always when at least four whole rows remain, otherwise fade.

{ "pager": { "indicator": "auto" } }

The dock

The dock is a row of up to four widgets at the very bottom of the screen, the same on every page and not moving while a page slides. It is the dock list of the file. An entry is a widget like those on a page, without a position: its place is its index in the list, the first at the left.

{
  "dock": [
    { "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "target": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe" },
    { "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "target": "%USERPROFILE%\\Documents" },
    { "typeId": "urdeck.widgets.shortcut", "target": "https://example.com" }
  ]
}

• The entries are shown as one group, centred. Entries after the fourth are ignored with a warning; they stay in the file.
• Any widget that has a 1x1 size can sit in a slot: a shortcut, a clock, a single stat. The card is a smaller miniature of the widget’s 1x1 card. col, row, width and height on an entry are ignored.
• A widget type with no 1x1 size, an unknown typeId or an entry with "isVisible": false leaves its slot empty.
• With no dock there is no dock and nothing is reserved. On the 1100 by 3840 panel the dock fits in the space under the thirteenth row, so no row is lost; on other displays it may take a row.

The monitor

UrDeck stays on one physical monitor. The first time it starts it chooses one by monitorName and remembers it as display in the file, so the monitor you plug in later, or the order Windows numbers them in, does not move the deck.

monitorName is one of "primary", "tallest" (the tallest portrait monitor, the default), "widest", "largest" (most pixels), or a device name such as "DISPLAY1". monitor is a 1-based index used when the name matches nothing.

You do not edit display. To make UrDeck choose again, for example because the first start picked the wrong monitor while yours was switched off, remove display from the file or use Choose automatically in Settings.

Left-click the tray icon, or right-click it and choose Settings, to open the settings window. It lists every connected monitor with its name, resolution, orientation and a number, and the one the deck is on says “Deck is here”. Click a monitor to move the deck there and keep it there. Identify shows each monitor’s number in its corner for two seconds.

After sleep, a monitor being plugged in or out, or a change of resolution or scaling, UrDeck waits for the monitors to settle and puts the window back on its monitor. While that monitor is not connected the deck is hidden, its widgets stop, and the tray icon says it is waiting; it comes back by itself.

Closing and starting

The deck window never takes focus, so touching it does not interrupt a game or another application. As a consequence Escape does not close it: right-click the tray icon and choose Quit. On Windows 11 a new icon may sit in the overflow flyout (the ^ arrow) until you drag it to the taskbar. Start with Windows in the same menu starts UrDeck at sign-in.

urdeck.log is the place to look when something is not as you expected. Each line starts with the date and time, and at 5 MB the file becomes urdeck.log.1.