View Full Version : Blanking display.
Is there a way to blank the display for listening in the dark? (This feature should be on the remote, IMO.) The display brightness won't dim all the way, and this is a tedious process anyway.
soundcheck
2010-04-23, 22:30
I second that.
I use iPeng as external interface. I don't need the screen at all.
Just a screensaver wouldn't be OK from my perspective either.
There should be an option to turn the screen off completely ( under linux it is "vbetool dpms off").
A function like "Screen off" or "Screen Off after XX minutes" would be nice.
That should be pretty easy to accomplish.
Beside that it'll bring power consumption heavily down I guess.
Cheers
No, that's another nice Squeezebox feature that didn't make it to Touch. The list is getting long.
If you can find an old remote with a Brightness button then you'll find that all it does on the Touch is bring up the Brightness settings menu. From there you have to hit down-arrow, right-arrow, then lay on the down-arrow for about 20 seconds to darken the screen.
What it _should_ do is cycle through a few preset brightness levels, say 100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 0%.
Check that... It's TWO Squeezebox features that didn't make it.
No brightness control via the remote.
No brightness settings for the different player states.
Check that... It's TWO Squeezebox features that didn't make it.
At least not yet...
No brightness control via the remote.
No brightness settings for the different player states.
If this is something we want, make sure to look at http://bugs.slimdevices.com and see if there is an enhancement request for it and register a new one if there isn't.
With the decreased development team within Logitech we can no longer rely on them finding missing features through posts in various threads in the forum. They will still find some of them but not as much as they did before when they had a larger team. If there is something we really want, make sure there is an enhancement request for it and then vote for it at http://bugs.slimdevices.com
Without any written structured requirements, it's not strange that some things were missed and with the tight time frame it's not strange that some things had to be given lower priority and due to this haven't been implemented yet.
Some features may intentionally not be included on the Touch because Logitech didn't think they were critical to users, if there are any features like this which we really miss it's important to make sure there are enhancement requests for them and that we vote on them. Without that, Logitech doesn't have a clue that they have removed something that users want.
Removing features that users don't think is important is a good thing, it means that there will be development resources that can be spent on more important features which we really want.
By the way, I'm pretty sure it would be possible to implement both the above features as third party applets or patches, so if anyone really want this and is interested in doing some development...
Cant you just set the Screen off screensaver to come on after 30 secs?
Cant you just set the Screen off screensaver to come on after 30 secs?
You can, but then you're stuck with the Now Playing screensaver at 'screen off' and have to dig through the screensaver settings to change it. That's a lot of work just to go from a darkened screen back to a usable Now Playing screen.
Valentino
2010-04-24, 04:56
My workaround is to show only the album cover in "Now Playing". At least nothing moves then.
soundcheck
2010-04-24, 04:58
Screensaver "Black" is something else then Screen Off.
I'd like to see that it goes physically off. As said before
there is a program called vbetool under Linux which does this
on standard GPUs.
BTW this little project could be also called :
"Green Touch" ;)
The point is how to switch it back on once it is off.
Either "the new feature" recognizes it via the Touch Screen.
E.g. just by touching the screen the OS turns the screen back on.
But if the screen is off touching it might not going to work.
The other option is to do it via settings on the server.
Or maybe by changing the startup scripts on the linux side. Which needs to be investigated first anyhow.
I'll look into the Linux side soon.
Cheers
JohnSwenson
2010-04-24, 08:26
Lets define exactly what it is that wants to be done before anybody goes off and implements things.
For one saying "just do exactly the same thing as the SB3" is not a good suggestion, the SB3 didn't have a touch screen, its hard to use the touch screen if you can't see the buttons. I know its obvious, but its things like that which can mess up such a project if the spec doesn't include them. Whats obvious to the people generating the spec may not be obvious to the implementer. Its important that a spec really cover everything so there is no ambiguity.
I'll start this off by going over a few things as they are now as a starting point for how you all would like it to be different.
Currently there are three "general" brightness mechanisms, plus sreensavers which can be used in some way to affect brightness.
There are two overall brightness schemes: manual and auto. In manual you get a slider which sets the brightness for everything. It will not go all the way to completely black. If it did it would be difficult to ever get it out of black since you could not see the screen to change the brightness. I personally think this is a good idea, just imagine the forum posts from people who think their Touch is broken because they can't see anything.
In auto mode an ambient sensor is used to adjust the screen based on the room light level. There is an adjustment for minimum brightness when the room is dark.
There is an override on top of these: if the screen is up near the top of its brightness range it will dim slightly after a certain number of seconds of inactivity, this is to increase the longevity of the LED backlights. They have a phosphor coating to give a white light and that coating looses efficiency with use.
Then there are screen savers. One of the options is "screen off" which does turn the backlight off. The touchscreen is still working.
There is no direct brightness control on the IR remote, actually adding a new button would get kind of expensive and most people do not have the skills to do so. In order to have a "brightness button" you would have to usurp the function of one of the existing buttons. This CAN be done but be careful which one you choose.
For the people that want a black screen, what is wrong with the screen off screensaver? If you have all the screensavers set to screen off the screen turns off a few seconds after you stop touching the screen. Using Ipeng or WebUI does not turn it back on. It only comes back on when you touch the screen or use the IR remote. I can't imagine anyone NOT wanting the screen to come back on when you touch the screen, so is the problem the IR remote? You want to push buttons on the IR remote and NOT have anything visible on the screen? If this is true do you want some button pushes on the screen to be visible and some not? For example pushing browse on the remote without turning the screen on seems a little useless.
OK, so that is how it works now, what specifically do you want to change?
John S.
How hard is it to add UI buttons to the existing screens that add functionality?
I can see removing some items from now playing or shortening the volume slider and adding a button to simply toggle the screen off screen saver.
soundcheck
2010-04-24, 08:48
John.
What you're saying is that the screen-off screensaver turns the backlight and screen physically off. I wasn't aware of that screen-off function.
If that is working as you say, I'd be more then happy about it.
When reading the first posts in this thread I was thinking there won't be an option for turning the screen off.
Not to forget though: screensavers are usually resource eating processes, causing quite some load on the system.
Cheers
This raises an interesting question.
I have a touch in a bedroom. The first night it was like a floodnight. The second I disabled the screensaver when powered off to blessed relief. The third I found the minimum setting and turned it down very low. Looked good. Later I turned off the light it was fine for about a second and then adjusted way up. I disabled the screen saver again.
Just wonderring if anyone else had experienced this?
Mr_Sukebe
2010-04-24, 13:56
My Touch is again experiencing issues with refusing to go into standby.
A workaround for this would be a button on the remote which could cycle through the screen brightness, as per the SB3.
Ah, the Screen Off screensaver is perfect, thanks. I'll just leave it on all the time as my eyesight is not good enough to read the display from my listening chair, anyway. I still think a button on the remote that would start the Screen Off screensaver immediately would still be a good addition for a later version of the remote.
soundcheck
2010-04-26, 00:08
I also think that a "real headless" workmode, which switches off all graphic related routines on the SW side and the hardware side would be nice.
Because even if the screen is turned off it doesn't necessarily mean
that the SW in the back stopped working.
This mode should be manageable via a parameter config on the server or from the remote control.
BTW:
What I realized is if I stop playback by deleting the entire playlist (iPeng) the "screensaver off" handling gets scrambled. The screen is no longer off. It goes into "black mode" with backlight on or no screensaver at all anymore. I guess this must be a bug.
Cheers
JohnSwenson
2010-04-26, 12:26
I also think that a "real headless" workmode, which switches off all graphic related routines on the SW side and the hardware side would be nice.
Because even if the screen is turned off it doesn't necessarily mean
that the SW in the back stopped working.
If you are showing a static screensaver (it doesn't really matter what it is as long as its not changing) the code is not sending anything to the frame buffer.
The processor IS continuously sending data to the LCD display even when the backlight is turned off. Completely disabling the video subsystem so it doesn't send anything to the LCD at all is a very different task. It certainly CAN be done, there are registers in the processor that do this, but I don't think there is currently any way for the code running in squeezeplay to do that. It might take a new device driver to implement that.
John S.
Pascal Hibon
2011-12-14, 00:30
I'm just in a couple of days use of my new Touch and I'm kinda missing a great feature the SB3 had. Actually this great feature was provided by a plugin called Auto Dim Display. This plugin obviously doesn't work for the Touch and Radio due to their different OS.
I like to darken the display completely between a certain time period (night time). In the morning the display comes to live again. Is there any similar applet or patch for the Touch?
I'm just in a couple of days use of my new Touch and I'm kinda missing a great feature the SB3 had. Actually this great feature was provided by a plugin called Auto Dim Display. This plugin obviously doesn't work for the Touch and Radio due to their different OS.
I like to darken the display completely between a certain time period (night time). In the morning the display comes to live again. Is there any similar applet or patch for the Touch?
Do you just want it to be black or do you want it to be darker ?
There is at least:
- Screen Switcher applet which allows to you configure different screen savers for different time of the day
- Custom Clock which allows you to design your own clock screen saver, for example one with a darker color of the text.
Both are commercial, so you will also need License Manager applet and a license for them, but you can apply for a free 30 day license through License Manager plugin in SBS to evaluate if it works as you like.
Pascal Hibon
2011-12-14, 03:53
Do you just want it to be black or do you want it to be darker ?
I want the behavior exactly the same as with my SB3: during the "dim period" the display should not emit any light. That probably means that the backlight should be switched off and the display itself must be black. Is this possible with the options you mentioned?
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.1.12 Copyright © 2013 vBulletin Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.