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.

In which situations might this come in handy? In all were mouse and computer keyboard usage might interfere with another process, be it statistical analysis or programs that react immediately on mouse or keyboard input and where this is unwanted.

The time that the computer mouse and keyboard are blocked can be defined in the program’s options. There is also an option to change the hotkey that starts the blocking from CTRL Q to another hotkey.

The program will display a tooltip next to the mouse cursor that is counting down the remaining seconds that all input devices are blocked on the computer system. The software program adds itself automatically to the Windows System Tray. A right-click will open a context menu that provides links to the program’s options. It uses roughly 4 Megabytes of computer memory while running and should be compatible to most versions of the Windows operating system.

Then I discovered Toddler Trap by Skrommel a member of Donation Coder. Toddler Trap is like a filter that takes all the pressed keys and mouse actions and suppresses them. Pressing a key or a mouse button will have no effect on the computer, there is no way to close windows or open right-click menus. Some special keys are still working but the Windows key for instance is blocked as well.

So, whenever he comes the first thing I do is start up Toddler Trap and let him have his fun. I don’t have to worry anymore and he is happy. The Toddler Trap window centers on the screen but it is possible to move it away from there. The window will always be in the foreground to catch all the input and this proves to be a problem when watching movies.

You can move the Toddler Trap window with the mouse normally but it will not be released until you press Return.

The real value of this application is that it is highly customizable. You can basically point it to any folder on your hard drive which you want observed. This can be the Internet Cache of Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera but also other folders, say those of P2P applications.

The heart of Cache Sort is the configuration file which can be accessed by right-clicking the Cache Sort icon in the Windows system tray. You can change the folder that is observed in here, the file extensions, if they should be moved or copied, the scan interval, the minimum file size of the files, files that should be ignored and where to put the files.

Guess what. Ten hours after making the request Skrommel posted a reply in that thread with a link to a software that he had created that would do exactly what the thread starter wanted it to do. To be more precise Skrommel posted the Autohotkey code that could be used to make the Taskbar behave this way.

To sum it up again. This little piece of code automatically hides the Windows Taskbar and prevents it from showing up when the mouse is moved in the area of it. The taskbar is only shown when the user presses the Windows key on his keyboard and hidden again when the key is released.

If you have not checked it out yet I suggest you do so. The Donation Coder forum is a excellent place to learn about new applications and ask for software advise. As you can see if it does not exist it could be that it will be created just for you.