BezelServices does what you say, but not only !

It seems to also manage the ALS preferences. In the com.apple.BezelServices.plist you can see preferences concerning ALS behavior on the keyboard backlight and the display brightness, like :
– alsLGPVersion
– dAuto (display auto birghtness from ALS, the pref I would like to change)
– kAuto (keybloard backlight from ALS)
and there is also values for the ALS change brightness fade speed, etc…

I know that that should not be in Bezel, but Apple seems to have put this here. DisplayServices would be a more logical choice, but Apple might have their reasons, maybe it was simpler because some code is here for the keyboard brightness commands. Also, when I am Sampling SystemPreferences, when changing the "Auto- adjust brightness when ambient light is changing", it deals with BezelServices, but it has noting to do with visual display notifications (no feedback, and there is not any key or key combination to change this preference but this checkbox in the Display tab of SystemPreferences).

Moreover, another clue is that some methods in BezelServices are things like "ambientFeatureAvailable" "setKeyboardValue" (to set up backlight value), "setDisplayValue" (to set up brightness value). So BezelServices is not only related to visual feedback, but more like a controller. As I said, there is a BezelServices plugin that resides in the loginwindow process (that is always running), and that process is firing regularly timers to listen to the sensors and detect ambient light changes, and the BezelServices Framework is dealing with this plugin. Try to sample loginwindow on a MacBook Pro and just change ambient light, you will see that it reacts. Also, when changing the auto-adjust brightness when ambient light is changing in SystemPreferences, there is related activity in loginwindow an evidence that it is this loginwindow plugin that is dealing with ALS auto-adjust feature on or off.

It is so complex to simply change one boolean value ! SystemPreferences is able to change this value, me no, and the only way is to deal with BezelServicesWireProtocol, but I do not know what it is or how to invoke the object having this protocol.


SystemPreferences is not scriptable for that feature too. That wold have been a solution to remote setup this preference.


Le 3 juin 08 à 21:11, Jean-Daniel Dupas a écrit :

BezelServices is not used to control ALS but to display visual notification like the one you see when you change the audio volume, or when you press the eject key.


Le 3 juin 08 à 20:58, Gabriel ROUSSEAU a écrit :

Hi,

There is one thing that should be accessible from UserDefaults or by AppleScript, or some kind of CGDisplay or NSScreen methods, but it is not the case. On MacBooks Pro and PowerBooks (don't know for MacBooks and iBooks), there is a feature called ALS (Ambient Light Sensors) in the hardware. The computer know the ambint light level.

Thats cool, and it is used to automatically adjust keyboard backlight and display brigthness. In System Preferences theses features can be enabled or disabled.

I will concentrate on the Display side : In System Preferences, in the Display Tab, there is a way to activate or deactivate the feature. Great, but wait a minute ! It is the ONLY way to activate or deactivate it ! No way to AppleScript this, no way to do this using defaults, no way to change it programatically.

Why ? Because in fact, this feature is managed by a loginwindow plugin called BezelServices.loginPlugin that resides in /System/ Library/LoginPlugins/ It seems that SystemPreferences is using a PrivateFramework to communicate with loginwindow ; this Framework is called "BezelServices.Framework". Of course, since this is a private Framework, no way to activate or deactivate ALS officialy, and it means no support, no documentation :-(

I have managed to have some more info using classdump, Instruments developer tool, but I am stuck. Here are all the info I have found : – The BezelServices.plist preference file is only read and write at startup and shutdown, or probably User session starting and stopping. Thats means trying to change values in this plist are useless.
– The BezelServices.Framework can be classdumped, here is the dump :

----------
/*
*     Generated by class-dump 3.1.2.
*
* class-dump is Copyright (C) 1997-1998, 2000-2001, 2004-2007 by Steve Nygard.
*/
#include "CDStructures.h"

@class NSMutableDictionary;

@interface BSFWClient : NSObject
{
  NSMutableDictionary *addCall; // 4 = 0x4
//    struct ProcessSerialNumber _process;      // 8 = 0x8
}

- (id)init;
- (void)dealloc;
- (short)addCallback:(void *)fp8 ForType:(unsigned long)fp12;
- (short)removeCallbackForType:(unsigned long)fp8;
- (int)callbackCount;
- (BOOL)isValidEventType:(unsigned long)fp8;
- (unsigned short)handleBSProxyEvent:(CDAnonymousStruct1)fp8;

@end
----------
/*
*     Generated by class-dump 3.1.2.
*
* class-dump is Copyright (C) 1997-1998, 2000-2001, 2004-2007 by Steve Nygard.
*/
/*
struct ProcessSerialNumber {
  unsigned int highLongOfPSN;
  unsigned int lowLongOfPSN;
};
*/
typedef struct {
  unsigned int _field1;
  unsigned int _field2;
  unsigned int _field3;
  unsigned int _field4[6];
} CDAnonymousStruct1;
-----------
/*
*     Generated by class-dump 3.1.2.
*
* class-dump is Copyright (C) 1997-1998, 2000-2001, 2004-2007 by Steve Nygard.
*/

@protocol BezelServicesWireProtocol
- (BOOL)registerProxyClient:(id)fp8 ForProcess:(id)fp12;
- (BOOL)unregisterProxyClientForProcess:(id)fp8;
- (id)preference;
- (int)setPreference:(id)fp8;
- (id)objectForPrefKey:(id)fp8;
- (int)setObject:(id)fp8 forPrefKey:(id)fp12;
- (int)ambientFeatureAvailable;
- (int)isKeyboardSaturated:(int *)fp8;
- (void)setKeyboardHold:(int)fp8;
- (void)setDisplayHold:(int)fp8;
- (void)setKeyboardValue:(float)fp8;
- (void)setDisplayValue:(float)fp8;
- (void)kernelPreferenceChanged:(id)fp8;
- (void)kernelPreferenceCreate:(id)fp8 ResetToDefaults:(BOOL)fp12;
- (int)remoteControlFeatureAvailable;
- (void)remoteUIToggle;
- (void)handleRemoteEventWithPage:(unsigned short)fp8 usage: (unsigned short)fp12 flags:(unsigned short)fp16 value:(long)fp20;
@end
-----------
Interesting, we can see that the BezelServicesWireProtocol is what we need ! But wait, what object conforms to this protocol ? How to get an instance ? What the hell is a WireProtocol ? To have an idea, I have used Instruments to sample SystemPreferences exactly when I click the checkbox to change the ALS setting, and I have found this :
Library                 Symbol Name
...
AppKit                  -[NSApplication sendAction:to:from:]
Brightness              0x1667f01a
BezelServices   BSSetPreferenceBool
CoreFoundation  _CF_forwarding_prep_0
...
Very interesting, whe have a BezelServices Framework object using BSSetPreferenceBool ! Exactly what I want, but I don't know the Class of this object, the way to instantiate it, etc… I am still stuck. What is this "Brightness" library ? Another Private Framework ? I am lost at this point.

So, if someone have an idea, that would be kind. The only tihng I want to do is activate or deactivate this ALS setting. I am not really insterested in the reverse engineering challenge or anything like that, only to find a way to activate or deactivate this ALS thing from my code.

Regards._______________________________________________

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