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BurpetheadX · Jul 2, 2004, 01:19 PM

Is there a third party add-on, or darwin command i can do to turn my G4's LCD screen completely off? This machine is in a darkroom and needs to have its monitor off for microscope viewing. If I could write a simple little applescript to do a darwin command I could just set a hotkey for it..

f1000 · Jul 2, 2004, 02:01 PM

Why not just put the computer to sleep? That's like two key presses on my PowerBook (power button and then 's'). Sleep and wakeup only take about a second.

BurpetheadX · Jul 2, 2004, 04:29 PM

The person explained to me that their proprietary microscope program crashes when the machine is put to sleep, and they lose the data they had been working on.

CatOne · Jul 2, 2004, 04:37 PM

What about turning it all the way down? It's not 100% BLACK, but it's very very dim. Shouldn't affect ambient light much at all.

osxisfun · Jul 2, 2004, 04:42 PM

what about making a screensaver that contains an all black image fit to the screen size. then you could set up hot corners for it so they can turn it on quickly.

Hawkeye · Jul 2, 2004, 04:50 PM

I would recommend simply tapping the brightness key (F1 on a PB and F14 on an extended keyboard) until the screen goes off; although I think this can cause some weirdness if the screen saver comes on or if the computer sleeps while you've got the brightness all the way down.

BurpetheadX · Jul 2, 2004, 09:54 PM

As far as the dimming keys, it doesnt turn the display all the way off. In a darkroom, this is still to bright for the microscope.

And as for the black screen saver, that still leaves the screens backlight on, this making it a very bright black.

Any other ideas? Thanks guys.

rjenkinson · Jul 2, 2004, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by BurpetheadX:
The person explained to me that their proprietary microscope program crashes when the machine is put to sleep, and they lose the data they had been working on.

then fix the bug.

-r.

Chuckit · Jul 2, 2004, 11:37 PM

You can find C code for dimming the screen in the OSXvnc server source.

Xeo · Jul 2, 2004, 11:39 PM

Originally posted by rjenkinson:
then fix the bug.

-r.

It sounds like the microscope is hooked up to the Mac. If you put the Mac to sleep, how are you supposed to have it record the results? I dunno, I could have deduced the situation wrong.

So are you guys saying that you can't make the LCD go completely black on a desktop Mac? 'Cause on my iBook, I can just hold the dimness key until it shuts off, and it does shut the backlight off completely.

chabig · Jul 3, 2004, 09:44 AM

As far as the dimming keys, it doesnt turn the display all the way off.

I'm not arguing with you, but are you sure about this? On all the laptops I've owned, the backlight does indeed turn completely off at the lowest setting.

Chris

jayg · Jul 3, 2004, 11:23 AM

Just throw a towel over it.

BurpetheadX · Jul 3, 2004, 12:55 PM

Originally posted by Xeo:
It sounds like the microscope is hooked up to the Mac. If you put the Mac to sleep, how are you supposed to have it record the results? I dunno, I could have deduced the situation wrong.

So are you guys saying that you can't make the LCD go completely black on a desktop Mac? 'Cause on my iBook, I can just hold the dimness key until it shuts off, and it does shut the backlight off completely.

Yup you have the situation exctly right. And no, it doesn't go all the way off. It does for laptops to save power, but for desktop LCD's you cant turn it off with the brightness keys.

Theres gotta be a darwin command to turn it off! How does the system tell the screen to shutoff in the enegy settings then?

Macola · Jul 4, 2004, 03:41 PM

Originally posted by BurpetheadX:
Yup you have the situation exctly right. And no, it doesn't go all the way off. It does for laptops to save power, but for desktop LCD's you cant turn it off with the brightness keys.

Theres gotta be a darwin command to turn it off! How does the system tell the screen to shutoff in the enegy settings then?

If you're using an LCD with a desktop Mac, why not just turn the LCD off?

BurpetheadX · Jul 5, 2004, 12:32 AM

Originally posted by Macola:
If you're using an LCD with a desktop Mac, why not just turn the LCD off?

It's an Apple display, it doesn't have a power button.

Link · Jul 5, 2004, 03:10 AM

I really, really, really wish apple would make it optional for the power button on the monitor to TURN OFF THE MONITOR!!!! For people like me who keep the machine on all the time it's nice to control when the monitor's off and put it in the mode where NOTHING turns it on but pressing the button.

screen sleep is nice but sometimes people drop things on my desk or something and it turns on the screen, not to mention changing the music volume and whatnot

Ohhh and sometimes there's those stupid programs that don;'t let the screen go off (gameranger for example) odd but yeah it happens

Xeo · Jul 5, 2004, 06:13 AM

Originally posted by Link:
I really, really, really wish apple would make it optional for the power button on the monitor to TURN OFF THE MONITOR!!!! For people like me who keep the machine on all the time it's nice to control when the monitor's off and put it in the mode where NOTHING turns it on but pressing the button.

screen sleep is nice but sometimes people drop things on my desk or something and it turns on the screen, not to mention changing the music volume and whatnot Ohhh and sometimes there's those stupid programs that don;'t let the screen go off (gameranger for example) odd but yeah it happens

On the first Apple LCDs (the blueberry ones), the switch on the front turned the display off. I would prefer a button to turn off the power to the display on the newer ones as well. However, my guess is that they don't do that because the mouse and keyboard are usually hooked up through them, so shutting of the display means shutting those off as well. But then again, having a switch to turn off the backlight wouldn't be bad either.

SS3 GokouX · Jul 5, 2004, 11:25 AM

Wow I have been wanting this for a long time. My G5 is in my bedroom and I can't shut it off or put it to sleep because it is also my webserver. So I am constantly switching to Energy Saver to set my display to go to sleep after 1 minute whenever I leave the room (or try to get some sleep!).

f1000 · Jul 5, 2004, 11:38 AM

Can the display simply be unplugged (I'm assuming that there's a separate power cord)?

You could buy a single-pole switch to minimize the inductive current surge from unplugging the display.

CubeWannaB · Jul 5, 2004, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by SS3 GokouX:
Wow I have been wanting this for a long time. My G5 is in my bedroom and I can't shut it off or put it to sleep because it is also my webserver. So I am constantly switching to Energy Saver to set my display to go to sleep after 1 minute whenever I leave the room (or try to get some sleep!).

This is exactly what I do. I run my powerbook with an external monitor and I usually leave it on at night: sometimes to download something like an xcode update, or rendering something, etc. And since it's in my bedroom I want the monitors off at night so I just turn the energy saver timeout to 1 minute.

Since I'm running an external monitor the brightness controls don't work.