Adjusting the display screen brightness to the current environment has several benefits. The most important ones are a better display quality in that environment, say a dimmed screen at night to avoid to bright screens, and the positive impact a dimmed screen has on the battery of mobile devices.
Most laptops come with programs that offer to change the display screen brightness, but many of those programs are everything but lightweight, and some seem to have been developed a long time ago.
DimScreen is a portable alternative by Donation Coder’s busiest member Skrommel.
The application, like all of Skrommel’s apps, has been created with Autohotkey, which sometimes is recognized as malware by antivirus software.
The program provides screen dimming options via hotkey and the system tray. The hotkeys Ctrl+ and Ctrl- on the main keyboard decrease or increase the screen brightness respectively.
Main keyboard in this regard means that the keys do not work on the numpad, which is understandable since most notebooks come without it.
Users who prefer to use the mouse to change the display screen brightness can instead locate the icon in the Windows system tray to adjust it.
A right-click on the icon and the selection of a screen brightness percentage from 0% to 100% adjusts the brightness of the screen immediately.
display screen brightness
A value of 0% means a screen brightness level of 100%, a value of 60% a brightness of 40% and so on.
DimScreen is an unobtrusive program for the Windows operating system, that is especially helpful for mobile users who want a lightweight program for changing the display screen brightness.
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As for my eyes, F.Lux is the best.
you don’t need this program. Pressing the fn plus the f7 or f8 keys lowers and highers the brightness.
I didn’t know that ! . Thanks very much !
Fn + key is on laptops which dont have dedicated monitor controls. also, what is F7 and F8 is F4 and F5 or could be anything really on other hardware. This software is still useful, The dimmest that my monitor will adjust to is still too bright (personal opinion), and on some monitors the menu to so convoluted or it just it takes forever to make an adjustment, so point in case for this software…
I have a laptop that the Fn brightness keys don’t work properly, and this program is perfect for that. Can be useful for other people with similar problem too.
Thanks for the tip Martin. :)
Chocobito, you are welcome ;)
How much memory does it use?
I use a freeware called “Desktop Lighter v1.4″ that uses 4 MB of memory. It’s excellent. Currently I have my monitor set at 35% brightness. Not only does it save on energy, it makes the screen A LOT easier on the eyes.
Highly recommended if computers don’t have a built in dimmer.
It uses a little bit more than that on a 64-bit system, but not a lot.
Thanks Martin but how does it differ from the method that “XD” mentioned above ? Pressing the Fn button with F7 or F8 . I guess the only difference is the percentage display but both do the same function.
f.lux anyone? It automatically adjusts the brightness depending on times of day (or night).
Where this program is a great help is with computers whose minimum built-in brightness is still too high for sensitive eyes.
This little program worked the needed miracle for me with a Toshiba laptop whose minimum brightness was bright, too bright. One of the best little tweakers I’ve come across. And this is my first opportunity to express my appreciation to its creator. So thanks.
DimScreen is absolutely useless for an LCD as it does NOT dim the backlight.