Updated - Jan 19th, 2019 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fixed the tendency of Dim Mon to steal the active window's focus every time you press alt+D. The active window should now remain active. The only exception is when you first run dim mon. I couldn't seem to counter that.
Simplified the tray menu. It now just contains Turn off Monitors and Exit. I think this is easier to deal with.
Added a half second pause when you Select Turn off Monitors from the tray menu to account for mouse jiggling and unintended movement that would wake up your monitors right after.
Updated text - Dec 8th, 2017 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Finally made a little change to this program. Now it will "un-dim" any screen your mouse is over and "re-dim" every other screen. ALT+D is still the shortcut to toggle it on and off.
I actually tried to make two other versions of this that ended up being very bloated at 196 lines of code. This new one only uses 32 lines, hah! The original bare bones Dim Mon was 33 lines of code. I always wanted Dim Mon to stay simple and small and I'm glad I could stay with that :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Original text - Feb 8th, 2013 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I made this quite a while ago because I found it difficult to watch a movie or focus properly on it with two other screens to either side having bright backgrounds or windows. At first I would just turn off one monitor and close my laptop. But because I would watch shows so often, this became annoying to do.
This started off as a very basic simple app, and it still is mostly. You hit a hotkey and it will cover your other monitors with solid black. Push the key again and it disappears. You can choose which monitors to show or hide when the program first runs. Also, it's required that you set up a hotkey for it, so I made it nag you for one until you do XD. It's super easy. My own personal hotkey for Dim Mon is ALT+D.
I hope you guys find this useful. I sure have! Been using this thing for...over a year I think. Wasn't until recently that I decided to make it more user friendly and share it. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to lemme have it! ^_^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just another suggestion: if you want to emulate the multiple virtual workspaces feature of X desktop systems on a Windows machine, you can. This might be another alternative, especially if you're running a single monitor - switch between your movie workspace, your coding workspace, your porn, etc.
Just throwing it out here, because I also have trouble focusing on one window/monitor when I have too much going on at once. This is a good way to separate tasks and switch between them, and most people who use Unix-like systems end up loving this feature.
Hmm! Not a bad idea! I've thought about making some configurable 'workspaces' before, especially for streaming because I always use the same group of apps. But aren't there already lots of apps out there that do virtual workspaces? One of my faves is Dexpot. It's pretty simple to use and has plenty of options.
Actually, what I'd like to make is something more along the lines of a custom app launcher. Like, with one shortcut, you could launch a couple of most used programs and they would all go to a precaptured size and position on your screens. For example, since I stream , I would run procaster, firefox, sai and/or photoshop, and winamp. Or with programming: pspad, ahk's help file, and an explorer window.
Hmm! Not a bad idea! I've thought about making some configurable 'workspaces' before, especially for
I actually haven't tried a lot of Windows workspace apps; I saw some reviews that named Virtuawin as "the only one that doesn't suck" so I tried it first, and it seems to work flawlessly. It's still nowhere near as flexible as an X11 desktop environment in this area, but it does the job well! I might check out Dexpot though, looks way more fully featured. Thanks!
That actually sounds like a good idea. I'm pretty sure you could do that on an X system easily, using just a script (you can pretty much tell X to do exactly what you want it to, such as where to draw windows), but I haven't got a clue even where to begin for Windows. :S I've seen people make "dock"-like applications to frame and position other applications using Visual Studio. Not that I could do it. Definitely not a developer here (bit of a dummy, actually! :c)
I actually haven't tried a lot of Windows workspace apps; I saw some reviews that named Virtuawin as
That depends on what we're doing at the time. I tend to borrow the next workstation's monitor at least. In the networking/virtualization labs and all that, some of the stations can take up to 3 monitors. And we have admin privileges on those machines.
Usually we're not doing anything that intensive, but sometimes it's worthwhile to cut back on distractions!
That depends on what we're doing at the time. I tend to borrow the next workstation's monitor at lea
*smiles* You're welcome. I haven't really had many people interested in this one, but atm I have mine to where it detects either one or two extra screens. Might have to go back and recode this lil thing to be easier to use sometime. Lemme know how you like it so far :)
*smiles* You're welcome. I haven't really had many people interested in this one, but atm I have min
Nice especially for me because I used to just turn on/off my second monitor and it takes forever to boot up; so I'd be in the middle of a game and get a skype message like "HEY LOOK AT THIS" and constantly have to go back/forth >>
seems pretty straightforward to me as it is :P Nice especially for me because I used to just turn o
Oh no, erf, that sounds so annoying. Another thing that used to bother me is having the taskbar constantly flashing, but I started using ObjectDock instead of Windows taskbar...startbar whatever it's called ^^; And that took care of that. One of these days I'm going to make a custom dock app that's much better than ObjectDock or RocketDock ^^
Oh no, erf, that sounds so annoying. Another thing that used to bother me is having the taskbar cons
