Windows Notch Overlay

Windows Notch Overlay is an Electron-based dynamic notch prototype for Windows. It stays as a compact top-center overlay and expands on hover into a control center with quick actions, system telemetry, alarms, search, and media controls.

Features

• Transparent, frameless, always-on-top Electron overlay
• Attached and floating notch themes
• Smooth hover expansion into a compact control center
• Data-driven quick action tiles with pagination
• Long-press quick action tiles to reorder them across pages
• In-app settings panel for language, themes, custom colors, notch appearance, startup, quick actions, privacy, and system options
• Sound mixer, brightness, and built-in external service launcher quick actions
• Date and time display in collapsed and expanded states
• Notification ticker that hides the expanded clock and scrolls new Windows notification text from right to left
• Spotify-aware media view with cover art, timeline, play/pause, previous, and next controls
• Media view only opens automatically while Spotify is actively playing
• Alarm creation inside the notch with active alarm takeover view
• Web search inside the notch, opened through the default browser
• Full-screen screenshot capture to Pictures/NotchOverlayScreenshots
• CPU, RAM, NVIDIA GPU, active window, and known game process detection
• Windows privacy/status integrations for camera and microphone state
• Bluetooth, focus assist, dark mode, night light, battery saver, and network quick actions
• PowerShell-free Windows integrations through Node, Electron, Win32, Core Audio, and SMTC helper code

Installation

Requirements:

• Windows 10/11
• Node.js 20 or newer recommended
• npm
• .NET 8 SDK if you want to rebuild the Windows Media Session helper

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run the app:

npm start

The notch design can be switched from the in-app Settings > Appearance panel. The default design attaches to the top edge, while the floating design keeps a bordered notch slightly below the screen edge.

Build a portable Windows release:

npm run build:win

The build script compiles the Windows Media Session helper first, then writes the portable app to dist/.

Project Notes

This project is Windows-specific. Some data, such as FPS and hardware temperature, is not available through standard Electron APIs, so the project uses Windows-native integrations where practical.

• CPU and RAM metrics use Node APIs.
• Active window and media key control use Win32 APIs through koffi.
• NVIDIA GPU usage and temperature use nvidia-smi.exe when available.
• Media metadata is read through a Windows Media Session / SMTC helper first, with Spotify window-title fallback only when needed.
• Windows toast notifications are read through a small WinRT helper after notification access is granted.
• Camera and microphone status are read from Windows privacy and audio state where possible.
• Microphone toggling is conservative and avoids breaking active streams in apps such as Discord or games.
• Bluetooth adapter toggling uses pnputil, but only targets devices from the Bluetooth class whose description explicitly identifies a Bluetooth radio or adapter.
• Brightness control uses the Windows WMI monitor brightness provider when the active display exposes it.
• Language dictionaries are loaded from src/renderer/i18n/*.json, so additional languages can be added without changing the settings UI.
• External service entries are code-defined integrations, such as YouTube, YouTube Music, Discord, and GitHub, and are launched through Electron shell APIs.
• Network and night light actions avoid opening full Settings pages when a quicker Windows surface is available.

Attribution

Windows Notch Overlay was inspired by the idea behind DynamicWin, a Windows dynamic-island style project by Florian Butz.

This repository is an independent implementation with a different stack, design direction, architecture, and feature set. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from the DynamicWin codebase. The concept inspiration is acknowledged explicitly because DynamicWin helped show that a dynamic notch experience can make sense on Windows.

DynamicWin is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. A local copy of that license text is kept in DYNAMICWIN_CC_BY_SA_4_0_LICENSE.md for reference, and additional attribution notes are kept in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Development

The main Electron process lives in src/main/, the preload bridge is src/preload.js, and the renderer UI is in src/renderer/.

Quick menu items are generated from MENU_ITEMS in src/renderer/renderer.js. Add a new item there to make it appear in the carousel automatically. User-defined ordering is stored in appearance.menuOrder.

Persistent user settings are stored in Electron userData/settings.json.

The Windows Media Session helper source is in src/helpers/media-session/. The Windows notification helper source is in src/helpers/notifications/. Build output is generated under each helper's publish/ folder and is intentionally not committed.

Security

This app interacts with Windows privacy, audio, shell, screenshot, and process APIs. Review SECURITY.md before reporting a vulnerability.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, and the GitHub issue templates before opening a pull request.

License

Project code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 unless a file states otherwise. See LICENSE.

DynamicWin and any DynamicWin-owned material remain under their own license and ownership.