> On March 31, 2013, 4:14 p.m., Àlex Fiestas wrote:
> > To be honest I don't like adding yet another configuration option by 
> > default, a configuration option that apparently is needed only in some 
> > systems.
> > 
> > There is no other alternative than this?
> 
> Danny Baumann wrote:
>     Well, I don't see any. I tried to approach this at the kernel level 
> first, but the kernel people rejected the idea. But I don't see it as a big 
> problem either: E.g. Windows (which isn't an example of overconfigurability) 
> has a dimmed brightness setting as well. While it's required for my laptop, I 
> think it can be useful for other people as well. When I hit the problem, at 
> first I couldn't believe this isn't configurable either ;)
>     
>     BTW, one thing I'm not yet certain about is whether the option should be 
> 'dim to' or 'dim by'. Currently it's the former, but the latter might it make 
> more obvious that the value is relative to the non-dimmed brightness.
> 
> Sebastian Kügler wrote:
>     Just set the minimum brightness to 1 instead of 0. We're generally not 
> adding config options for this kind of things.
> 
> Danny Baumann wrote:
>     That doesn't help though, as with intel-backlight 1 is still way too low 
> to be visible. I think the value corresponding to acpi value 0 is about 5%. 
> At this point, I think, I would alter the acpi behaviour again. Also, if the 
> user had set the brightness to 0 before for some reason (e.g. because he's 
> working in the evening), 'dim display' would suddenly make the display more 
> bright.
>     In general, the problem is the different backlight interfaces just behave 
> differently, which is why I think this problem can't be solved with a 
> hardcoded value as long as it's not possible to detect the used sysfs file 
> (which isn't the case as long as the used X driver provides a backlight 
> interface via Xrandr).
>
> 
> Sebastian Kügler wrote:
>     The "dim can brighten up" is a different problem that needs a different 
> solution, it's unrelated here.
>     
>     I don't see how a config option solves this problem. Even with a config 
> option, we still don't know what the default should be. Also, users are not 
> going to look for such an option (which maybe says enough about the option 
> itself). Users are going to hit the brightness slider when the brightness is 
> too low, so 1 actually does make sense.
> 
> Danny Baumann wrote:
>     A sane value for the default would be 'retain current behaviour' (that 
> is: dim by 100%).
>     Is there evidence for the 'users are not going to look for such an 
> option' assertion? I know for a fact that I _did_ search for that option 
> (until I looked up in the source that it's nowhere to be found). Surely this 
> one sample doesn't represent the KDE user base - but do you have any 
> representative data, especially given that the KDE user base in general 
> doesn't have a problem with a slightly-higher-than-usual amount of settings 
> (which is also evident in the very dialog we're talking about: are there that 
> many users who look for e.g. a highly configurable 'run script on power 
> status change' option?)
>     
>     I'm also not sure what you mean by 'Users are going to hit the brightness 
> slider when the brightness is too low', as we're talking about the 
> dimmed-down case after all, where the user was idle for the configured amount 
> of time. But as I wrote above, neither 0 nor 1 works for any user who is not 
> using the acpi_video backlight controls for whatever reason (e.g. because 
> it's buggy, or simply not present at all). I'm open for suggestions on how to 
> fix this problem without config option (even if I think the option makes 
> sense), but just raising the hardcoded value from 0 to 1 definitely does not 
> help.
> 
> Sebastian Kügler wrote:
>     What would probably make sense it to use 10% or 1 (whichever is more) as 
> lowest value. We do know the max value, so we can make sure it's low, but not 
> zero. This should be tried.
>     
>     How does raising it from 0 to 1 not help, btw?
> 
> Danny Baumann wrote:
>     Raising to 10% would help in my case, but how do you suggest handling 
> cases where either
>     - 10% is considered 'too bright' (given that it was darker before - 
> people might complain about 'more power usage than necessary') and
>     - 10% is brighter than the brightness before dimming?
>     
>     The answer to 'why does raising to 1 not help' is a few comments above ;)
>     "That doesn't help though, as with intel-backlight 1 is still way too low 
> to be visible. I think the value corresponding to acpi value 0 is about 5%"
>     
>     But can you please explain where exactly you see the problem of this 
> option compared to e.g. the way more sophisticated 'run script' options?
> 
> Sebastian Kügler wrote:
>     The option does not solve the problem. We have to make sure the system is 
> usable without changing an option. qMax(5%, 1) is also fine with me.
>     
>     In general, we can't expect users to look into options to fix obvious 
> breakage. The fact that *you* would look into it doesn't say anything 
> valuable, since we're not developing a system for people familiar with power 
> management internals, but for people who want to get their job done. UI 
> options come at certain costs, so we're only adding those where they really 
> add value. For cases of breakage, we have to find solutions that are 
> transparant to the user.

Well, the issue is that 5% solve the problem for me, but other people might 
need other values (glossy panels, less bright backlight, etc.). The 5% figure 
(BTW, all numbers dimdisplay.cpp deals with are in the 0..100 range) is an 
_empiric_ value for _my_ system. I don't have any kind of data for other 
systems, so I simply don't know at all whether there's any value that would 
work for all users.

To throw in some random data point I just found: Gnome dims to 30% of the 
maximum value (as opposed to 30% of the currently set value, what my patch is 
currently doing). That value is not mapped into their GUI, but it's not 
hardcoded either: It's configurable via dconf-editor. Maybe an approach like 
this (make it configurable, but don't map into the UI) would work?


- Danny


-----------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/109792/#review30173
-----------------------------------------------------------


On March 31, 2013, 4:07 p.m., Danny Baumann wrote:
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/109792/
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> (Updated March 31, 2013, 4:07 p.m.)
> 
> 
> Review request for kde-workspace and Solid.
> 
> 
> Description
> -------
> 
> This change does two things:
> - No longer dim display before the dim time set by the user elapses.
>   This fixes bug #304696
> - No longer assume that 0% display brightness produces a visible result.
>   This doesn't work with the intel-backlight backlight interface (as it
>   turns off the backlight at 0% brightness). According to the kernel
>   developers (see [1] and [2]), this isn't a safe assumption to make for
>   other backlight interfaces either. Instead of always dimming to 0%,
>   make the amount of dimming configurable.
> 
> [1]
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2013-March/026152.html
> [2]
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/intel-gfx/2013-March/026140.html
> 
> 
> This addresses bug 304696.
>     http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304696
> 
> 
> Diffs
> -----
> 
>   powerdevil/daemon/actions/bundled/dimdisplay.h 
> 426640ca7a2a2d23044052710fdfb4b1f65617d1 
>   powerdevil/daemon/actions/bundled/dimdisplay.cpp 
> 11554e3ba5d2f67d4d1de9d61c744c6c40a32d27 
>   powerdevil/daemon/actions/bundled/dimdisplayconfig.h 
> 14b787937249a512cf958a31fd3bd71d6051540d 
>   powerdevil/daemon/actions/bundled/dimdisplayconfig.cpp 
> bc116d6216c4624cbf14489d739d9d226fb70ff3 
> 
> Diff: http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/109792/diff/
> 
> 
> Testing
> -------
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Danny Baumann
> 
>

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