tigerlily's Screen Dimmer [a122] - Multi-Monitor Screen Dimmer for Developers, Students, Gamers & Digital Nomads

[boiler]

Virus scanning software is largely a scam — flagging software as malicious often for no other reason than it has not been downloaded by a significant number of other users of their software (where an honest evaluation would be to say at worst that is unknown). By finding and reporting “malicious” software that is actually innocuous, they make it appear that their software is performing a useful function and is therefore valuable.

I have been using this screen dimmer script and I have looked through its code line by line and have found nothing suspicious. To post unverified conclusions as @partof did (“Open source is full of virus”) even when admitting not being able to understand the code is irresponsible and does a disservice to the AutoHotkey community. It is fine to raise questions. It is not acceptable to make concrete accusations without any knowledge that they are valid.

[partof]

It isn't healthy, nor smart to trust anyone on the web, and to download stuff simply because the author declares it "malware-free". (Some of your arguments sound rights, but no, we simply can't check your code).

It would be easier to simply reveal your identity, where you work, and as much proof of who you are. People don't do silly things when they are known, because it would damage their reputation and they can get prosecuted. If I created such an awesome app and offered the source code, I would appreciate being known for that (that really something to be proud of).

May I ask you Tigerlily, why do you hide behind a pseudo while offering to the open-source community your awesome work? Why don't you reveal your identity (at least to solve the trust issue)?

[boiler]

@partof - That is a ridiculous suggestion. You don't know the actual identity of the author of most of the code posted on this forum, on Github, or almost anywhere else open source software is posted. You clearly don't wish to participate in an intelligent discussion on this subject.

[gregster]

@partof: Please abstain from further unsubstantiated accusations or innuendos.

If you have something substantiated to say, do it - the script and AHK itself is open-source after all. Feel free to reference any part of the source code - but if there is nothing further to contribute, you should stay calm and fair. If you want to clear up your own identity, feel free to do so, but don't demand something like that of any open source coders or forum members - there are plenty of reasons to remain anomymous, but there is no good reason to level such broad general accusations without proof or reasonable doubt (again, please refer to the available open source code). Thank you!

PS: For general discussions about open source, please use our Offtopic forum or any third-party platform that is suited for it. This topic is not the place for it.

[Tigerlily]

@partof

1. Your logic behind concealing identity is wrong, or else there would be no known scandalous activity ever to happen by a publicly known person

2. I reveal my identity to who I trust to have that valuable information, just as you would do if you were in a group of random people: you wouldn't tell everyone everything about yourself unless you felt it was safe to do so. I don't care for people like you to trust me, therefore I won't reveal my identity to you.

Furthermore, feel free to not use my app if you don't trust it. I would recommend anyone feeling this sketchy about open-source code to not use open-source code, and since many of the devices you currently use are likely not open-source, you should probably throw away all of your electronic possessions and live in a cave due to the inability to trust any electronic device.

[boiler]

I have a problem here which is what I was asking about before I had ever run the script because I didn't want permanent changes made to my system. It seems that the changes to Day mode have become permanent. The grey background from Day mode in Notepad and in Excel cells (as examples) are what appear, not only after exiting the Screen Dimmer script (which I believe is supposed to revert all changes to the default), but even after restarting Windows. I do not have this script in my Startup folder. It is definitely not running upon reboot.

The strange thing is that those grey color changes stay permanently including upon reboot even if I switch back to Default mode in the Screen Dimmer script. That is to say that Day mode is apparently permanent once selected, but selecting Default mode doesn't similarly make its changes permanent. When I reboot after being in Default mode (where those backgrounds are white), my windows are displayed using the Day mode settings (where they are grey).

I even switched to Morning mode (which apparently makes the white backgrounds a light green) and then to Default Mode, and then exited the script. And when I restart Windows, it sticks to Day mode (neither Morning nor Default mode).

It seems that if I want my computer to behave like I never had run this script, I would actually have to have it in my Startup folder to run it with Default mode selected so it switches back from which has now become my Windows default. How can I just make everything normal again?

[Tigerlily]

hi @boiler,

Sorry hear about about that, I have not encountered this issue. The SetSysColors WinAPI appears to have inconsistent effects on different systems. To fix this, simply select Windows Default Theme under the Background Themes tab. Note: This will reset your system colors to Windows Default color scheme and change your desktop background picture to the Windows Default Desktop Background image, so you will need to change it afterwards if you want a custom image/color scheme.

Also, I removed the feature in the latest update that made colors revert back on exit because after hours of testing on multiple systems, I found that the system colors always reverted back. I'll look into this more before I release my next update that has custom hotkey support.

Cheers,
tigerlily

[boiler]

@Tigerlily - That worked exactly as you said -- I had to restore my background and select my accent colors, but that was easy enough. Thank you!

[Tigerlily]

@boiler

Awesome, glad that worked for you. Thanks for testing my app!

Cheers,
tigerlily

[Tigerlily]

Wanted to post an update because I thought it was pretty cool:

So, since one of Chrome browser's recent updates now relies on the local system color scheme, this screen dimming app NOW also works as a great "Dark Mode" extension alternative for Chrome!!

UPDATE: I believe that this feature is due to Chrome going into high-contrast mode, which allows this sort of thing to automatically happen. This doesn't automatically work on my desktop computer, but on my laptop I didn't change anything and this setting just happened randomly about a month ago. So anyways, if this feature isn't working on your system for Chrome, try putting Chrome in High-Contrast Mode.

See example:





Additionally, I'm working on a cleaned up version of this screen dimming app that has a better, more minimalist GUI design. I'm about halfway finished, things IRL keep popping up and delaying. I've implemented my own custom slider controls, since the native AHK slider controls are clunky and ugly. And now v2 a128 just introduced some breaking changes I'll need to tweak, but for now here is a sneak peak:






A comparison showing how much smaller the new UI is:


Cheers!

[veksha]

Hi. I modified your script so it can change VCP codes 0x6C 0x6E and 0x70.
this is controlling BLACK LEVEL for RGB colors. it can enhance overall image and colors on some monitors but also crush blacks a little.
you can implement it too, if you want. i have TN+film monitor from BENQ (xl2420t) and for games and videos this VCP setting is must have for me! (also for text reading)

Thank you for your script!

[Tigerlily]

Hi. I modified your script so it can change VCP codes 0x6C 0x6E and 0x70.
this is controlling BLACK LEVEL for RGB colors. it can enhance overall image and colors on some monitors but also crush blacks a little.
you can implement it too, if you want. i have TN+film monitor from BENQ (xl2420t) and for games and videos this VCP setting is must have for me! (also for text reading)

Thank you for your script!

Very interesting veksha, would you mind sharing the code changes? I did not know of this feature, or of its usability. Definitely will look into it though! You may also want to check out my Monitor Class also found on the forums. its a little out of date though since a128 update though I believe, almost have patched it but too busy atm.

Happy that my script is useful for some folks! I literally cannot use a computer without it now haha.. drives me nuts.

Cheers.

[stealzy]

Code: Select all

Error at line 1063.

Line Text: GetPhysicalMonitorsFromHMONITOR(hMonitor, PhysicalMonitorArraySize, ByRef PHYSICAL_MONITOR){
Error: Missing comma

The program will exit.

Fix: ByRef → &

ResetSettings := Map()
This Func cannot be assigned a value


Script from GitHub / topic(line 1067)
AHK V2 32/64
File version 2.0.0.0
Product version 2.0-beta.1

[just me]

Code: Select all

,	overlay  := Map(), dimmerVisible := Map(), ResetSettings := Map()
...
...
ResetSettings(chkbx, *){

You must rename either the map object or the event function,

[stealzy]

I got it. But how TS run his code?

[tuzi]

Hi @Tigerlily, I came here to say thank you.

I can't adjust the brightness of my monitor in srgb mode, and your tool has solved the problem very well, now it's much more comfortable to use.

Also, I would like to make two small suggestions.

1 is to suggest that you don't have to re-download the icon file every time. In my country, access to imgur.com is very slow, which can cause a long lag when running.

2 is to suggest to use 0x1D2125 for background color and 0xCCCCCC for text color, because they have lower contrast and look more comfortable to eyes than black(0x000000).

Thank you for sharing.

[iseahound]

I think your overlay should be adaptive. malcev probably has some code lying around that can find the average pixel color of the screen. Maybe convert to HSL and modify the overlay value?

Great script. UI needs more love.

[Tech Stuff]

I can't seem to get any of the gamma sliders to go below 50% since I've upgraded to w11. It all worked fine in w10. Any ideas?

[Tigerlily]

Hey there, been away for quite awhile.

@tuzi
Thanks for the feedback, I'll be sure to fix the imgur download thing, it was sort of a placeholder until i found a better solution but haven't worked on this project in a long time despite still using it everyday myself. I understand what you mean about the high contrast of 0x000000 color, my next iteration will be to give more real-time customization of background color, text color, etc. but probably will take me a long time to get around to it as first I'll have to port my code to the latest v2, and I'm pretty busy with other stuff these days.


@iseahound
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Hoping to give the UI a major makeover sometime next year. I was worked on something that I showed above but my computer's hard drive failed and I lost my work on it lol.. oh well.


@Tech Stuff
tbh for me I haven't been able to get the gamma sliders to go below 50% for a very very long time, even on my Win10. I figured it was just some issue with the Microsoft breaking the WInAPI since it started happening despite no code changes for me. It's something I'd love to look into when I have more time. However, this app dev was already a huge time sink because all the info on implementing this kind of stuff out there really sucked last time I checked haha. It was worth the time for me, as I still use this every day, but typically 50% gamma dim is good enough, and if not then I just use the Dimmer slider. I'll report back if I find a solution.

[Tech Stuff]

Using the dimmer slider works for some use cases, but as a blue light blocker being able to block more than 50% of blue light would be useful, especially for when it's late at night.