sideband

Monitor controls and window layouts from the Windows taskbar.

Control every display on your desk without touching the buttons on the bezel or installing the manufacturer's software. Snap windows into layouts you draw yourself.

Works with your laptop screen and with any monitor that supports DDC/CI, the control channel built into the video cable.

Download for Windows View on GitHub
  • 356 KBone file
  • 0installers
  • 0admin rights
  • 0network calls
  • 1dependency
Try the brightness control 0x10
60

On the wire

Some monitors report a range of 0 to 100, acknowledge every write across it and quietly ignore anything above 75. Push the slider past 75.

01  /  Controls

Controls reported by the monitor

Left-click the tray icon to see the controls available on each display.

Brightness and contrast are common. Displays may also expose volume, colour gains and other controls.

sideband gets this list from the monitor. It does not use a table of supported models.

02  /  Monitor behaviour

sideband reads the value back

Some monitors acknowledge a DDC/CI write without applying it. sideband reads ordinary controls again after writing them and keeps the value the monitor returned.

Sliders use the reported range

The monitor supplies the maximum used for each slider.

Some firmware still rejects values inside its own reported range. When that happens, sideband shows the value that came back from the monitor.

Input and power ask first

Changing either can make the display unavailable.

sideband asks before sending the command, with No selected by default. These controls are not read back afterwards because the monitor may no longer be there to answer.

Manufacturer controls are left alone

Vendor-specific registers can mean different things on different monitors.

sideband does not name them or expose them as ordinary controls. They can be addressed directly by register number if you know what they do.

Reads and writes are spaced out

sideband waits 40 ms after a read and 50 ms after a write.

Some monitors return bad values or stop answering when commands are sent faster than that.

03  /  Window layouts

Draw your own zones

Drag a window and sideband shows the available zones over the screen.

You can choose a different layout while dragging. Release the window over a zone and it is resized to fit.

Fourteen layouts are included. You can add your own.

Layout: Columns: 2 ·

Built-in layouts

Columns, rows, 2×2 and 3×3 grids, 2:1 and 3:1 splits, priority grids and overlapping zones are included.

Edit on the screen

Choose Edit zones to draw the current layout over the monitor.

Click a zone and press V or H to split it. Drag an edge to resize it. Right-click a zone to remove it.

Save a layout

Give a layout a name and it appears in the menu and the drag strip.

Zone positions are stored as proportions of the display rather than fixed pixels, so the same layout can be used at different resolutions.

Arrange open windows

Arrange windows now places the windows already open on that monitor into the current layout.

Their positions are recorded first, so Put 4 windows back where they were can undo it.

04  /  Tray menu

The rest of the monitor controls

Right-click the tray icon to see the full set of controls reported by each display.

Where the MCCS standard defines a name, sideband uses it. Values without a standard name are shown as their code.

A typical display
  • Brightness40% ›
  • Contrast75% ›
  • Colour preset6500K ›
  • Red gain100% ›
  • Green gain100% ›
  • Blue gain100% ›
  • Volume50% ›
  • OSD languageEnglish ›
  • Picture modeStandard ›
  • Input0x19 ›
  • PowerOn ›

Input and power sit at the bottom and require confirmation before changing.

The menu reads the values again when it opens. If you changed brightness using the monitor buttons or another program, sideband shows the new value rather than its previous one.

Ctrl+Alt+Up and Ctrl+Alt+Down change brightness on every display without opening the tray menu.

05  /  Laptop displays

Built-in displays are included

Laptop panels do not normally expose the same DDC/CI path as an external monitor.

sideband changes their brightness through the Windows display interface instead. It does not need administrator rights.

The internal panel appears in the same list as the external displays and uses its model name where Windows provides one.

06  /  Compatibility

When a monitor does not appear

DDC/CI has to pass all the way from Windows to the monitor.

A working video signal does not guarantee that the control channel made it through as well.

Docks, hubs and KVMs

Some docks, KVM switches and MST hubs pass video but not DDC/CI.

Connect the display directly to the computer to check whether the device in between is the problem.

DDC/CI disabled

Many monitors have a DDC/CI option in their own on-screen menu.

If a display does not respond at all, check that it is enabled.

Elevated windows

Windows does not allow a normal process to move some windows belonging to applications running as administrator.

sideband does not request elevation, so those windows are left where they are.

07  /  Files and settings

One executable

Run the .exe to start sideband.

Exit it to stop it. Delete it to remove it. There is no installer.

Start with Windows

Optional. Enabling it creates one per-user startup entry, visible in Task Manager under Startup Apps.

Turning the option off removes the entry.

Settings are plain text

Layouts and preferences are stored under %APPDATA%\sideband. The files are plain text.

No network access

sideband has no account, analytics, telemetry or update check. It makes no network requests.

Command line

The same monitor controls are also available from the command line, so they can be used from scripts, Task Scheduler, Stream Deck or AutoHotkey.

The process exit code reports whether the operation succeeded.

08  /  Download

sideband for Windows

Download for Windows View on GitHub

Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit · 347 KB · MIT licensed

The download is not signed yet

The first time you run it, Windows shows Windows protected your PC. Choose More info, then Run anyway.

Signing is planned. Until then, the checksum is how you confirm you have the right file.

Check the file

Every release publishes a SHA-256 beside the download.

Get-FileHash sideband.exe -Algorithm SHA256

Compare the result with the value on the release page.

Smart App Control blocks it

On Windows 11 with Smart App Control turned on, an unsigned program is blocked and there is no exception for a single file.

Turning Smart App Control off cannot be undone without resetting Windows. Leave it on and wait for a signed release.

How each release is built

A GitHub Actions runner builds it on Windows from a tagged commit and publishes it from that run.

The source is not published. The architecture and the security notes describe what it does.

Terms used on this page

DDC/CI
Display Data Channel Command Interface. A control channel carried alongside the picture on HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI cables, used to read and change a monitor's settings.
MCCS
Monitor Control Command Set. The standard that says what each control code means, so brightness is the same code on every monitor that implements it.
VESA
Video Electronics Standards Association. The industry body that publishes both of the standards above.
OSD
On-screen display. The menu built into the monitor itself, reached with the buttons on its bezel.
KVM
Keyboard, video and mouse switch. A device that shares one monitor, keyboard and mouse between several computers.
MST
Multi-Stream Transport. A DisplayPort feature that drives several monitors from a single port, usually through a hub.
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