EdgeSlide

A tiny Windows system-tray utility that turns the left and right edge strips of your Precision Touchpad into continuous sliders:

• Left strip → screen brightness
• Right strip → master volume

Slide your finger up and down within the outer ~5 mm of the touchpad and the value follows in real time, with a small on-screen HUD. The rest of the touchpad keeps working exactly as normal—cursor movement, scrolling and gestures all pass through untouched.

The app has no main window. It lives in the system tray; the settings panel only appears when you open it. Website: edgeslide.app.

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Install

1. Download EdgeSlide.exe from the Releases page.
2. Double-click it. That's it—it appears in your system tray.

It's a single portable file with the .NET runtime bundled in. There's no installer and nothing else to download.

First launch: because the app isn't code-signed yet, Windows SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC." Click More info → Run anyway. This is expected for small independent apps, and the warning fades as more people run the same file.

Requires a Windows Precision Touchpad on Windows 10 or 11. If you turn on Launch at startup, keep the .exe somewhere permanent first—startup remembers wherever the file currently lives.

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What it does

• Reserves the outer left/right strips (default 5 mm, configurable 3–15 mm) of any Windows Precision Touchpad as vertical sliders.
• Left strip controls brightness, right strip controls volume (both reassignable, or disable either side).
• Top of the touchpad is maximum, bottom is minimum (with an optional invert toggle).
• Shows a slim HUD in the bottom corner while you slide, and hides it when you lift off.
• Single-finger only: two-finger scrolling and other gestures pass straight through.
• Avoids false positives: a gesture only starts if your finger originated in the edge zone, stayed in the inner strip for a short hold, moved mostly vertically, and you weren't just typing.

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Settings

Left-click the tray icon (or right-click → Settings) to open the panel:

• Strip width—3–15 mm, default 5
• Left edge—Brightness / Volume / Disabled
• Right edge—Volume / Brightness / Disabled
• Invert direction—flip it so the top is 0% and the bottom 100%
• Confirmation hold—50–300 ms, default 80 (how long your finger must stay in the strip before the slider engages)
• Launch at Windows startup

Settings persist to %APPDATA%\EdgeSlide\settings.json, and a small rolling log is written to %APPDATA%\EdgeSlide\edgeslide.log. Right-click the tray icon for Settings, Enabled (toggle on/off), and Exit.

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Uninstall

Because it's portable, removal is just:

1. Right-click the tray icon → Exit.
2. Delete EdgeSlide.exe.
3. (Optional) delete %APPDATA%\EdgeSlide to remove your settings and log.
4. (If you enabled Launch at startup) delete the EdgeSlide value under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run.

No other system changes are made.

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How it works (brief)

Concern	Approach
Touchpad input	Raw Input (RegisterRawInputDevices + WM_INPUT) on the digitizer (usage page 0x0D, usage 0x05), with RIDEV_INPUTSINK so input arrives even unfocused.
Report parsing	HidP_GetCaps / HidP_GetValueCaps / HidP_GetUsageValue / HidP_GetUsages from hid.dll to extract X, Y, TipSwitch and ContactID per finger. Handles both per-finger and batched multi-contact reports.
Brightness	WMI WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods.WmiSetBrightness.
Volume	CoreAudio via NAudio (MMDeviceEnumerator → AudioEndpointVolume.MasterVolumeLevelScalar).
Settings UI	A dark HTML/CSS page hosted in a WebView2 control.

Source is organised one-concern-per-file: TouchpadListener / ParsedDevice (input), StripGestureDetector (validation/mapping), BrightnessController, VolumeController, OverlayForm, SettingsForm, TrayApp, Settings, NativeMethods.

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Build from source

Requires the .NET 10 SDK on Windows (the app uses WinForms and Windows-only P/Invoke, so it only builds and runs on Windows).

dotnet build -c Release        # debug/dev build
dotnet run   -c Release        # build and run

Convenience scripts:

• build-portable.bat—produces the standalone dist\EdgeSlide.exe (self-contained, what ships on the Releases page).
• build.bat—builds framework-dependent and installs to %LOCALAPPDATA%\EdgeSlide with a Start Menu shortcut (handy while developing).
• packaging/—MSIX (Microsoft Store) and NSIS installer builds.

The app runs as a standard user; it never requests elevation.

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Known limitations

• Precision Touchpad only. Older "legacy" touchpads that don't expose a Windows Precision Touchpad HID digitizer won't work; the app shows a tray warning and runs in a disabled state.
• Brightness needs a WMI-controllable display. Many desktops and external-only monitor setups return no WmiMonitorBrightnessMethods object; brightness control is disabled gracefully in that case (volume still works).
• OEM utilities may compete for input. Lenovo Vantage, Asus Armoury Crate and similar tools also hook the touchpad. If raw-input packets stop arriving, EdgeSlide logs a warning rather than crashing.

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Support

EdgeSlide is free and pay-what-you-want. If it's useful to you, buy me a coffee ☕. The privacy policy and terms live in legal/.

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License

EdgeSlide is open source under the MIT License—free to use, modify, and share.