[omarv]

I want to turn my iMac's screen off when I go to bed at night, and don't want to wait the five minutes for energy saver to do this, plus it's a hassle to keep changing the energy saver settings during the day. I have a screen saver I like to use already and don't want to switch. Is their a utility that will just turn the screen off when I launch the program, and wake up on a mouse click or pressing a key on the keyboard. I use my iMac as a webserver, and never put it completely to sleep, so just putting it to sleep won't work. Thanks in advance.

You know I don't think I'm the only person with this problem.

[mchladek]

I hear ya! I've been wanting to know the same thing. I've looked for an app that would do this but haven't found one. The only thing I could think of is the possibility of writing an AppleScript that would change the Energy Saver settings so you could just run that. Don't know though.

[zappy]

Just turn the brightness all the way down. On my iBook the screen turns off. But there is still the problem that you have to do it manually on the iMac G4. On the iBook the function keys f1 and f2 control the brightness of the screen. These keys are missing on the pro keyboard that comes with the iMac G4.

[yc]

Function 14 and 15 can be used to adjust brightness on my iMac G4. They don't have the mark on that two function keys. How about others.

[spiky_dog]

F14 and F15 do the brightness trick for me, too (on a G4 tower, OS X 10.1.3).

[Aussie John]

open screen saver pref and go to hot corners tab - select which ever of the corners you wish to put the mouse pointer to turn off the screen.
i think that is what you are after

[omarv]

well I tried the brightness trick, but the screen still stays on, it just gets dimmer. Thanks for the keyboard brightness trick, though. As for the screensaver, while a useful tip, that just activates the screensaver, and doesn't turn off the screen. Thanks for the advice.

[chris v]

You could make a custom slide show out of two black JPEGS, set the screen saver to run it, and voila!

Got to pref pane for screen saver, select slide show, and click configure to select the folder with your jpegs.

Then set a hot corner, roll the mouse into it, and presto, black screen.

CV

[nana2]

Originally posted by chris v:
<STRONG>You could make a custom slide show out of two black JPEGS, set the screen saver to run it, and voila!

Got to pref pane for screen saver, select slide show, and click configure to select the folder with your jpegs.

Then set a hot corner, roll the mouse into it, and presto, black screen.

CV</STRONG>

But does that turn the back light off?

[chris v]

Originally posted by nana2:
<STRONG>

But does that turn the back light off?</STRONG>

No, that won't turn the backlight off, but it sure will look black. Energy Saver will turn your backlight off later, if you've got it set. I set mine to 10 minutes, and I don't think another 10 minutes a day is going to kill your backlight prematurely.

The only problem with Slide Show is that it chews proccessor time, so if you're crunching SETI at night or something, it'll lag because your machine is busy fading in and out black jpegs.

I was just trying to come up with a way to visibly blank the screen instantaneously.

CV

[iamnid]

Why don't you just put the computer to sleep?

[Danny Ricci]

Originally posted by iamnid:
<STRONG>Why don't you just put the computer to sleep?</STRONG>

That's what I was thinking. Just push the power button once and it should go into deep sleep mode. This works if you're logged out, too. I do this on my PowerMac every night.

[OzTiBook]

If you use the F14 key to turn the brightness to the lowest level, the screen should blacken, meaning that the backlight is infact off.

I dont know if the iMac will let you do this, but on my TiBook, this is the trick I use.

Hope this helps -- but why not just hit the power button (thus putting it to sleep ZZzzz)

[nana2]

I think he's using it as a webserver.

[abrody]

There is a black screen saver for Mac OS X and one for Mac OS 9, though I wouldn't run one in Classic while the other is running in Mac OS X. You will still see a very slight glow from the screen before it actually goes to sleep, but it is bearable. Here's the screen saver URL:
http://www.versiontracker.com/morein...d=14051&db=mac for Mac OS X
http://www.versiontracker.com/morein...?id=675&db=mac for Mac OS 7 and through 9.