LED AppBar

A tiny electronic billboard that lives at the top of your Windows desktop.

LED AppBar is a Windows utility that pins a scrolling LED dot-matrix display to the top edge of your screen — like a miniature stadium scoreboard, except it shows your RSS feeds, your news, or literally any web page you point it at.

It's not just an "always-on-top window." It uses the real Windows AppBar API — the same mechanism the taskbar uses — so when you maximize a window, the window respects the bar's space instead of overlapping it. Your workflow stays clean. The bar just exists, quietly, at the top.

Why you might want this

• Your desk feels too quiet and you want something moving
• You like to keep one eye on news / feeds while you work
• You're into cyberpunk, retro hardware, or dot-matrix aesthetics
• You want a tiny widget zone above your monitors that isn't another browser tab

Features

• Real AppBar, not a floating window -- Maximized apps will not overlap the bar. Same mechanism as the Windows taskbar.
• LED dot-matrix rendering -- Built around a ~22,000-glyph bitmap font atlas, so the dot pattern stays crisp and consistent.
• Multi-monitor support -- Pick which monitor hosts the bar from the tray menu.
• Adjustable height -- 5 presets between 40 and 120 pixels.
• Auto-hides on fullscreen -- Games and movies are never disturbed.
• Auto-start with Windows -- One click in the tray menu.
• Show any URL -- The default content is a news ticker, but you can point the bar at any web page. Use it as a clock, a Twitch chat readout, a stock ticker, a slowly scrolling cat illustration, whatever.

Default content: LED News Ticker

Out of the box, the bar shows the LED News Ticker widget -- a browser-based scrolling ticker that ingests RSS feeds and WebSocket streams. Themes and color schemes are customizable from its built-in config page.

Source code

LED AppBar is open source under the MIT license.

If you'd rather build it yourself, or just want to peek under the hood:

👉 https://github.com/vividoyomogimochi/app-top-bar

Pricing

Pay what you want -- suggested $2 USD.

If you find a use for it, a small tip helps me keep maintaining and improving it. If you can't, that's fine too — grab it free, enjoy, and tell a friend.

Made with 🩵 by an indie developer in Tokyo.

System Requirements

• Windows 10/11 (64-bit)

Note

This app is not code-signed (indie developer). On first launch, Windows SmartScreen may show a warning ("Windows protected your PC"). Click "More info" → "Run anyway" to start the app.