Idea for night dimming

**lifeboat** · 01-17-2006, 08:26 PM

Can't remember if this was proposed previously, so here goes:

Rather than messing around with gamma and such, why not just overlay a click-through transparent window on top of CF? Allow adjustment controls for the background color and tranparency, and you would have almost infinitely customizable dimming. I have messed around with some of the window transparency applets that are available, and they seem to do exactly what we need.

Comments?

**justintime** · 01-17-2006, 09:08 PM

I'd rather see a BRIGHTNESS setting, instead of the gamma setting that David coded in. Gamma is kind of useless, as it hardly makes images dimmer.

**lifeboat** · 01-17-2006, 09:38 PM

Google 'click through transparent window' for some apps to play with and code examples...

**RPM_VR4** · 01-17-2006, 09:46 PM

What advantage does a click through semi-transparent window have over altering brightness/gamma settings?

Other solutions:

You could have girder send IR commands to your Lilliput via an IR-Blaster to lower its brightness.

You could use Ol33l's Gamma Control.

You could use a night-skin (this would allow embedded windows such as GPS to retain their brightness which could be a good or bad thing).

Personally I like my monitor as bright as possible all the time (at least when I am looking at it). One thing I have not seen anybody do yet is a gamma control that fades down the screen after inactivity and fades it back up when you "move the mouse" kinda like a screen-saver. That would be cool.

**justintime** · 01-17-2006, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

One thing I have not seen anybody do yet is a gamma control that fades down the screen after inactivity and fades it back up when you "move the mouse" kinda like a screen-saver. That would be cool.

PowerDimmer
http://www.whitsoftdev.com/powerdimmer/

**evandude** · 01-17-2006, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by justintime

PowerDimmer
http://www.whitsoftdev.com/powerdimmer/

bravo. that's awesome

**justintime** · 01-17-2006, 09:56 PM

Make sure you set the 'Complete Fade in...' parameter to something like 3 seconds or so.

ALso, it is too bad that the minimum amount you can set in windows is 1 min. So it will take 1 min for the fade to 'trigger'. At that point, it will perform a 3 second transition from full bright to your desired brightness.

**lifeboat** · 01-17-2006, 10:05 PM

I'm pretty sure Power Dimmer is using window transparency code, it gives exactly the effect that I'm talking about.

**lifeboat** · 01-17-2006, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by RPM_VR4

What advantage does a click through semi-transparent window have over altering brightness/gamma settings?

My knowledge of how each of the methods works is limited, but I think there is a difference. Gamma changes seem to mess with the colors, the translucent window effect is more like an overlay or filter. Subjectively the transparency thing looks better to me, anyway.

Maybe one of the graphics/coding folks here can explain it better.

**RPM_VR4** · 01-17-2006, 11:27 PM

Lifeboat: You should be able to give the exact same effect as an alpha-blend using gamma/brightness/contrast controls, but I guess people just havent had it adjusted for that look. ...or I could be totally wrong, but I don't see how it could be impossible to give the same effect using gamma/brightness/contrast.

JIT: I will check out power dimmer... sounds cool. That 1-min thing doesn't really work though... I would want it to fade out after 5-seconds of inactivity, and fade back to full after 1.5 seconds (and I wouldn't want it to dim very much either).