MonitorControl v4.0.0-beta2

[JoniVR]

Changes compared to v4.0.0-beta1:

Enhancements

• Added Internet Access Policy
• Don't relinquish control over brightness keys with no external display connected if fine brightness OSD scale is active
• Changed icon order in menu (when icon mode is enabled)
• Gear shape icon is used for preferences + stands a little bit apart to help user focus.
• Changed default to a minimum software dimming of 15% for safety reasons.
• Added advanced option to enable zero brightness with software dimming.
• Added 'Avoid gamma table manipulation' option for coexistence with f.lux.
• Set relevant options to disabled when keyboard control is disabled.
• Added Command + Q shortcut in menu when it is in standard text mode (not icon mode).
• Made preferences more spacious + more room for verbose languages

Updated translations:

• English - base language
• Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan) - thanks to @stiiveo, @dororojames
• Dutch - thanks to @JoniVR
• French - thanks to @the0neyouseek
• German - thanks to @jajoho
• Hungarian - thanks to @waydabber
• Italian - thanks to @picov
• Korean - thanks to @zzulu
• Turkish - thanks to @mennan

Under the hood changes & fixes

• Register DDC command touched status. When write on startup enabled, apply only touched command values.
• Reorganised PrefKey list to be less confusing.
• Disengage custom shortcut keyboard after 100 key repeat to prevent possibly endless loop if keyUp event never arrives due to any circumstance.
• Fixed text for external display brightness control keyboard shortcut.
• Fix cumulative darkening bug upon toggling 'Disable dimming as fallback'.
• Make sure that key repeat speed for custom shortcuts do not go below a certain threshold.
• Fixes text clipping issues for various languages
• Added beta channel update backend
• Fixed layout issue at brightness custom shortcuts.
• Fixed custom key shortcuts going runaway when menu was opened during a key repeat streak.

Known issues

• Some preference panes may not fit to low resolution screens (1280x800 or less) in Advanced mode.

Notes

• This is a beta release. If you encounter any issues, you can try the last stable release v3.1.1 or the previous beta.
• If you are new to v4.0.0, please take a look at the changelog of v4.0.0-beta1 for the list of major new features!
• If you discover issues, make sure to report them in the linked release discussion.
• If you want to help translating, see Translating MonitorControl to Your Language! #637
• Thanks to everyone who helps make MonitorControl better!

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This discussion was created from the release MonitorControl v4.0.0-beta2.

[jajoho]

Great update!
However, two small things still caught my eye:

1. The update description is loaded as a full website and not as an enumeration or similar.

2. With my screen size (MPB 13") the settings window in german is too small and it can not be scrolled

[JoniVR]

I'm working on the changelog in Sparkle issue, had noticed it too, first time doing Sparkle updates so obviously a learning curve 😅

[JoniVR]

Update: Should be better now:

We will probably still update the style of these a bit, I just put this together real quick as it's a beta anyways, lots of stuff still needs to be improved/automated for Sparkle updates but at least the basics seem to be working.

[waydabber]

You are right, even with the English version of the page barely fits on 1280x800 which is the default resolution for a 13" MBP in Advanced mode. I'll figure something out!

[waydabber]

I combined the three startup options into a single popup menu to condense the page (and make it more clean). I hope this now fits in German as well.

.

[waydabber]

(other things could be changed but I do not want to change anything that upsets already translated texts in beta2)

[jajoho]

When I search for updates, I would expect that I could also do that in the settings somewhere. Maybe a button could be added under "About"?

[waydabber]

The app will check for updates periodically anyway. We could add a 'Check now' button under 'Automatically check for updates', but the General tab is already a bit crowded.

[jajoho]

Thats why I thought a button under "About" (where the version number is displayed) could be suitable?
But this is definitely nothing important. I just thought about this and wanted to write this down before I forget it.

[Sayvai]

One question, since i've updated from v4.0.0-beta1 to v4.0.0-beta2, i noticed that whenever i lowered brightness below 50% on my external LG UltraWide 34UC99-W monitor, the software keeps bumping up the brightness to 50%, either via Mac Keyboard brightness keys or through menu slider.

Also, even when the brightness jumps to 50%, the level indicators (on-screen display and menu slider brightness position) doesn't reflect the 50% jump.

However, this cannot be replicated on the main MacBook screen, which can still go down and stay at zero brightness.

Is this intentional? Anyway to stop the fixed minimum brightness jump to 50% on external monitors? 🤔

[Sayvai]

@waydabber - Not sure if you caught my earlier message thoroughly, but that option; Avoid gamma table manipulation is not selectable for me for some reason. I assume it's not supported for my device (MacBook, or External Monitor).

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OS: Big Sur 11.6 (20G165)
Model: MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2020)
Processor: 1.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
External monitor: LG UltraWide 34UC99-W

[waydabber]

It is not selectable for built in displays (which is shown on your screnshot), but for the external display it should be selectable. If you have two displays then you should scroll to the external display in this window. :)

[waydabber]

As the window content is scrollable (maybe it is not obvious enough from the UI, which is a problem) if there are more than one displays:

[Sayvai]

Aha, yes, i did not realise that window was at all scrollable until now!

Maybe the UI could be improved to indicate more options, as the scrollbar is only visible when I actually scroll within the window.

Perhaps, maybe consider a statically-fixed-positioned set of dynamically generated tabs for each connected monitor at the top, underneath the big main icons (i.e. General, App menu, Keyboard, etc), where the tabs could be labelled with the various display names derived from the available connected displays metadata. And when clicked on, would only load the configurations for the selected display. Basically, something like what is suggested below with my mockup image, if possible?

And also to enable the scrollbar display to be permanent, if it can be calculated for when there is overflowed content exceeding current window size? 🤔

Other than that, i've successfully activated Avoid gamma table manipulation for the external monitor, and am now able to experience a very-close-to-full-blackout on the external monitor too, just like my in-built display, no minimum brightness threshold jumps this time, and with f.lux running at the same time!

Many thanks @waydabber 💯

[waydabber]

Yes, the extra content should be more obvious. I'll simply add a permanent scroll bar to indicate that there is more.