Dim Everything Else - Program Idea

[cmoschini]

I like Ghoster a lot, and have been looking for something similar for a long time.

When playing Hulu it has a "Dim Lights" feature to the right, which dims the rest of the page but not the rest of the desktop.

I'd really like an app that dims the entire screen except a specific window, or potentially, a specific box. It would be even cooler if it could do something as smart as dimming everything but a specific object on a webpage, but that seems VERY difficult to pull off (I guess if it was IE-centric... maybe you could use the MSHTML API to get down to that level?)

In any case the obvious goal is to be able to work in other dimmed windows while Hulu is playing at full brightness. Ghoster works great while Hulu is the active window, but once you switch away the opposite of the intended effect occurs.

Would you be interested in building something like that?

Thanks for all the cool apps, a real treasure trove on your page!

[joiwind]

This already exists - but I can't remember the name ... 

[IainB]

@cmoschini:
Clutter Cloak should be able to do what you need - it focuses on screen videos/objects/windows.
Mouse Shade is pretty handy too, but not for what you need - it focusses around the mouse.

[anandcoral]

Hi @cmoschini,

You may try http://www.hellogram...ing.com/cinemadrape/
It is free (req. Net Framework 2.0)

Features of CinemaDrape:

    Change of background color – Change background to any color you want
    Customizable opacity – Set how opaque you want the shadow to be
    Dim desktop – dimming desktop except for the parameters that you choose
    Custom focus windows – create windows in sizes up to 1280×1024
    Focus window presets – Eight different presets for you to work with

See if it helps.

Regards,

Anand

[IainB]

Just found the Lifehacker link: Clutter Cloak desktop distraction blocker (Windows)
It seems like quite a sophisticated (non-trivial) tool.

[MerleOne]

This already exists - but I can't remember the name ... 

-joiwind (October 19, 2011, 06:30 AM)

Zorro ?
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/zorro.html

[anandcoral]

WOW @MerleOne !

Zorro is tiny, great. +1

Regards,

Anand

[joiwind]

This already exists - but I can't remember the name ... 

-joiwind (October 19, 2011, 06:30 AM)

Zorro ?
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/zorro.html

-MerleOne (October 19, 2011, 09:52 AM)

Yup - that's it, thanks for jogging my memory !
Very good but a shame you can't resize the window with the mouse.