montools

Simple CLI Monitor Tools

shmon - SHutdown MONitor

Very simple CLI tool for turning off monitors.

Usage

./shmon - turns off all monitors

./shmon [DURATION] - turns off all monitors after the time DURATION has passed

Duration

Format: [POSITIVE INTEGER]([UNIT])?

Duration dictates how much time should pass before turning off all monitors. UNIT includes 's', 'sec', 'm', 'min', 'h' representing seconds, minutes and hours, respectively. If the UNIT is not provided, default unit (seconds) will be used.

Argument example (shmon)

./shmon 10 or ./shmon 10s or ./shmon 10sec - will turn all displays off in 10 seconds

monb - MONitor Brightness

Very simple CLI tool for controlling monitor brightness.

Usage

./monb - display brightness value for all monitors (same effect as ./monb *:)

./monb --help - shows the help message

./monb [BRIGHTNESS ARGUMENT]... [FLAGS and PROGRESSBAR STYLE]... - tries to apply all provided brightness arguments

FLAGS and PROGRESSBAR STYLE

-z, --zero - Enables zero-based monitor enumeration

--nocolor - Disables colored terminal output

-v, --verbose - Prints debug information during execution

-l, --length - Sets the length of a progressbar, measured in characters

-s, --style - Sets the progressbar style. Possible styles: [ wsl, classic, arrow, wsl_arrow, filled ]

Brightness Arguments

Brightness arguments (BArg) can either set the brightness value (setter) or get brightness value (getter). The argument consists of a scope (BScope) and a value (BValue). All brightness arguments can start with an optional forward slash (/)

Getter arguments

Format: <BScope>: This type of argument is very simple.

It just has a scope and it will return the brightness value of a monitor. Scope determines which monitors will be selected. Scope values include unsigned integers (indexed scope) or an asterisk (*, global scope). If a global scope is present then all indexed scopes will be ignored, because they are included into the global scope.

Example:

./monb 1: - will display brightness value for a monitor with index 1

./monb 1: 2: - will display brightness value for monitors with index 1 and 2

./monb *: - will display brightness value for all monitors

./monb 1: *: - will display brightness value for all monitors

./monb *: or ./monb /*: - will display brightness value for all monitors

Setter arguments

Format: (<BScope>:)?<BValue>

This type of argument is a bit more complicated then a getter argument. It consists of a scope and a value. Values have an action (BAction) and a brightness value. In this type of arguments scope value is optional, assuming global scope if not provided. Brightness value can be an unsigned integer, 'minimal', 'minimum', 'min', 'maximal', 'maximum', 'max' or a ratio. Ratio is just two unsigned integers separated by a / character. The value can also end with %, but it is only used for ratio values. If the percentage sign is not provided the value will be a simple integer division between two unsigned integers, otherwise it will be treated as a percentage, or simply multiplied by 100.

Setters support incrementing, decrementing or setting a brightness value. This is dictated by brightness action. Brightness action can be '+', '-' or empty (setter action). Increment action (+) will increment the brightness by some brightness value and decrement action (-) will decrement it. If the action isn't provided it will default to setter action that will set the monitor brightness to desired brightness value.

Argument example (monb)

./monb 10 or ./monb *:10 or ./monb /*:10 - will set the brightness for all monitors to 10

./monb +25 or ./monb *:+25 - will increase the brightness for all monitors by 25

./monb +25 1:-50 - will increase the brightness for all monitors by 25, except the monitor with index 1, because the brightness of that monitor will be decreased by 50

./monb max - will set the brightness for all monitors to 100

./monb 2400/120 - will set the brightness for all monitors to 20

./monb 2/5% - will set the brightness for all monitors to 40

./monb 1:20 2:30 - will set the brightness for monitor with index 1 to 20 and brightness for monitor with index 2 to 30

./monb 1:10 2:30 20 - will set the brightness for monitor with index 1 to 10, monitor with index 2 to 30 and all other monitors brightness to 20

Info

First version was written for Windows in C++ and is on the cpp branch. The cpp branch is deprecated. On linux, shmon is using xset command to turn off displays so Wayland support is currently non-existent.