DonationCoder.com Software > Post New Requests Here

idea: Application to turn off a laptop's display.

<< < (5/6) > >>

tsaint:
On satellites, I think f5 is the function key for changing display to external monitors musicman.

Thanks all for your input. Unfortunately the FN keys do not turn off the monitor. F-6 and F-7 adjust the brightness, but that's all. App, I really dont' mind which hotkey you use. In fact I just used hotkeys as an example. it could be a button, or checkbox. Thanks for your help!
-musicman (January 18, 2008, 07:36 AM)
--- End quote ---

patthecat:
Another option is a utility called "PowerOff" (see link below) whose primary purpose is to power off, shutdown or reboot your pc, log you off, lock your workstation, go to standby or hibernation mode and even wake up another pc via Wake On Lan.  It can even run via the command line.  I've been using it in a batch file run via task scheduler to shut down my niece&nephew's computer when it has been inactive for a certain amount of time.

The reason I mention it is that it also has the feature to turn the monitor OFF or ON.  So with the capability to run on command line / batch file, maybe someone can map it to a hotkey or like I have done put it in task scheduler.

http://users.pandora.be/jbosman/poweroff/poweroff.htm

patrick

app103:
Another option is a utility called "PowerOff"-patthecat (January 18, 2008, 08:33 PM)
--- End quote ---

This will not work either.

3.2.7 Turn off monitor
This action will put monitor in standby (powersaving) mode. You need a monitor that is capable of this feature.

3.2.7 Turn on monitor
This action will turn on power to your monitor (get it out of stanby/powersaving mode). You need a monitor that is capable of this feature.
--- End quote ---

It is using the same API calls that we have already tried.

I'll tell you why this will not work.

It should run on Windows 95/98/Me/NT4.0/2000/XP
--- End quote ---

If he were running Windows 95 it would work. Windows 95 required code to both turn off and turn on the monitor. If you turned it off it would stay off till you made the call to turn it back on. But only Windows 95 works this way.

Power management in other Windows versions will automatically wake the monitor when mouse movement or keyboard activity is detected.

So if he were to use this application, it would behave the same as any attempt the rest of us has made when trying to make a tool to turn it off, because he isn't running Windows 95.

I guess Microsoft saw it as a poor decision to require both calls in Win95, and maybe there was a problem with prank programs turning off people's monitors and requiring a reboot to get them back on again. At some point during the development of their next OS, Microsoft decided there would never be a reason why you would want to type and move your mouse and still have your monitor off.

I guess they don't have any blind coders on laptops, without monitor power buttons, working for them.

app103:
The manual for his A205 says:

Fn+F5 switches between monitor output modes
--- End quote ---

and there are like 10 different ones it is stepping through with internal, external, tv out, and combos of those.

Got this info from another programmer while seeking answers to this problem:

Setting the power management profile to maximum battery lifetime gets you much more additional battery time than turning off the backlight.

c't (a rather good german computer mag) benchmarks battery life when testing notebooks and the last tests didn't show a big difference between backlight on and off.
--- End quote ---


Edited to link to manual.

musicman:
Thanks for trying to help guys. Really appreciate it. However it seems impossible to turn off the monitor and keep it off till I decide to turn it back on. Do any of you know other sites I could ask for help?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page