When using a projector to work on a task with multiple people, we turn off the lights in the office so we can better see the projector's image. However my screens are configured for when the lights are on, so I'm then staring into two enormously bright displays. On a laptop, I'd simply adjust the backlight, but on desktop displays, this is cumbersome because it requires fiddling with the monitor's configuration, which usually sucks.

Googling reveals that display brightness can also be tuned in software using a command such as this:

xrandr --output HDMI1 --brightness 1.0 --output HDMI2 --brightness 1.0

Xrandr can also find out whether or not a specific display has a backlight that can be controlled. I'd love if the laptop widget would simply also be there on a desktop and adjust the brightness of all attached screens, either by adjusting the backlight or the brightness, without me even need to think about laptop or no.


Reproducible: Always