> On Feb. 10, 2015, 10:01 a.m., Mark Gaiser wrote: > > I'm not quite sure if a user wants to see a warning message at all. > > When i use my notebook in a dark environment i usually put the brightness > > all the way down (depending on the notebook). > > Kai Uwe Broulik wrote: > As I stated above, "all the way down" can mean "completely off", which I > wouldn't expect as a user. I've never seen any other device that does that, > apart from some black and white seven-segment display calculators. > > Mark Gaiser wrote: > Then it's device specific even! > - My notebook: all the way down = still visible > - My macbook: all the way down = off > > Can you detect that? > > You message does make sense if the lowest step = off. It doesn't if the > lowest step is still on. > > Martin Klapetek wrote: > Note that this is only for when you are dragging it by mouse - if you > drag it all the way down and your screen goes black, there's no way to > recover if your keys don't work. If your keys work and stuff, you probably > never use the slider, so this for a minority of users. It's the same reason > we ask confirmation when deleting a file. > > Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > Wait wait wait wait... Could it be that we've come up with an overly > complex solution to a rather simple problem? > Actually, those devices which turn the backlight off at 0% brightness are > the only ones doing it _right_. I always found it very weird when my screen > brightness OSD said "0%" but I could still see things. 0% brightness means > zero brightness means _dark_. > So why should the user even be able to set the brightness to 0% anyway? > Since turning off the backlight without turning off the screen doesn't > make sense practically, there just should be no way for the user to set the > brightness to 0%, period. > So let the slider start at 1% and don't allow the brightness to go zero > neither via power management nor via brightness keys. > That solves two problems: Accidentally setting to zero _and_ that > semantic bullshit of "0% brightness but I can still see stuff". > > Martin Klapetek wrote: > > So why should the user even be able to set the brightness to 0% anyway? > > To save battery time when the screen is not needed *right now*, perhaps? > I quite often compile things on my laptop when on battery, this can take up > to 5 minutes and it's already quite a battery drainer, why the screen > backlight should help it when it's not needed? I listen to music while > cooking, screen backlight not needed. Etc etc. > > > So let the slider start at 1% and don't allow the brightness to go zero > neither via power management nor via brightness keys. > > I disagree there. It's a hardware design after all, there's no reason the > software couldn't/shouldn't take advantage of that. Also setting it to 1% > does not really make a difference (not on my laptop at least), it's so dark > it's useless, so I'd have to be higher, like 5% or 10%, which is...weird, I > think. > > Mark Gaiser wrote: > Quote: "So let the slider start at 1% and don't allow the brightness to > go zero neither via power management nor via brightness keys." > > Please, no! I don't really care if 0% is a hardware flaw or design. We > apparently are stuck with the fact that we have hardware behaving > differently. The software should not limit prevent me to use my hardware at > it's full capacity. If 0% in my case is still visible then so be it and that > should be allowed just fine. If you forbid this then i expect quite some bug > reports for that will flow in. > > If you want 0% to be off then you should buy hardware that obeys that. > > Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > > To save battery time when the screen is not needed right now, perhaps? > > Turning the screen off when it's not in use is a perfectly useful thing > to do, but that is _not_ what a brightness slider is for. The brightness > slider is there to allow users to set the optimum brightness for their > current surroundings. > Check out your mobile phone or tablet. Regardless of which OS it runs, I > am very confident that pushing the slider all the way to the left will _not_ > turn off the backlight. > > With a sensible power setting, the screen will turn off after some idle > period when on battery anyway. If we want to allow the user to turn it off > manually, there should be a keyboard shortcut for it. It _must not_ be a > button in the GUI, because then there would be now way to turn it on again > because you could not see it. > > Turning off the screen via brightness slider doesn't only have the > problem this patch is supposed to solve, but also the disadvantage that you > have to find your optimal brightness setting again afterwards. If the screen > is turned off by a shortcut or via power management, it should return to the > previous brightness setting again after it's turned on again. > > > Also setting it to 1% does not really make a difference (not on my > laptop at least), it's so dark it's useless, so I'd have to be higher, like > 5% or 10%, which is...weird, I think. > > That's why other OSes display percentages but only graphical > representations of relative britghness. Which makes sense given that the same > percentage of brightness means very different things with different hardware. > > Martin Klapetek wrote: > Btw. sometimes it's (just) a driver issue, if you're on Intel, try adding > > ``` > Section "Device" > Driver "intel" > Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight" > EndSection > ``` > > to your xorg.conf (or equivalent), then you should get 0% == backlight > off. Similar is with nvidia binary, that requires > > ``` > Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1" > ``` > > Martin Klapetek wrote: > > I am very confident that pushing the slider all the way to the left > will not turn off the backlight. > > But you also don't have dedicated keys to control brightness like you do > on laptop. How else would you turn in on if you've turned it off? On laptop, > you have dedicated keys. If you try to turn it off using the slider, it warns > you. Seems pretty sensible to me. Plus, on mobile phone you have a dedicated > button to turn off your screen right now. I don't think many laptops have > that same dedicated key...? > > > but also the disadvantage that you have to find your optimal > brightness setting again afterwards. > > If I'm skilled enough to turn my brightness off, I'm also skilled enough > to find my optimal brigthness. This honestly is a non-issue, it could as well > be used ad-absurdum to disallow the users any brightness changes at all. > > > there should be a keyboard shortcut for it > > We already do have rather simple way for it, 0% brightness means no > brightness (as far as drivers allow). It's that simple. Why should the user > learn another shortcut? (which would be just as undiscoverable as say > krunner). > > Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > > But you also don't have dedicated keys to control brightness like you > do on laptop. How else would you turn in on if you've turned it off? On > laptop, you have dedicated keys. If you try to turn it off using the slider, > it warns you. Seems pretty sensible to me. > > See, the problem is that we allow users to switch off the screen via GUI > but they don't have a way to turn it on again via GUI (because, you know, > they can't see squat). That makes zero sense. > If we allow users only to turn it off via keyboard, they can turn it on > again via keyboard. Everything is fine. > > If a user doesn't have keys to turn the screen on again, it can only turn > off via power management, which means it will turn on again on any input. > Everything is fine. > > > We already do have rather simple way for it, 0% brightness means no > brightness (as far as drivers allow). It's that simple. Why should the user > learn another shortcut? (which would be just as undiscoverable as say > krunner). > > Maybe I see what you're getting at: How about allowing setting brightness > to 0 (= off) via keyboard brightness controls (because that way it can be > turned on again as well) but not via the slider? > > There is a rule in design for safety: > 1. Prevent users from performing a dangerous action > 2. If 1. is not possible, use a warning > > This rule exists because warnings are never 100% safe, so they can only > ever be "better than nothing". > > Thomas Pfeiffer wrote: > > If I'm skilled enough to turn my brightness off, I'm also skilled > enough to find my optimal brigthness. This honestly is a non-issue, it could > as well be used ad-absurdum to disallow the users any brightness changes at > all. > > I meant that more as an argument for the convenience of having a way to > directly turn off the screen instead of setting the brightness all the way to > zero. It's exactly the same thing as with "mute" functions on volume > controls. They do the same as setting the volume to zero, but > a) It's quicker > b) You get your previous volume setting back after un-muting
But note that 0% volume also means "turning off" (muting) and in that sense I see those two actions very similar. But yeah 0% volume is not as "destructive" as 0% brightness can be. > How about allowing setting brightness to 0 (= off) via keyboard brightness > controls (because that way it can be turned on again as well) but not via the > slider? Yes, that's what Kai is getting at - keyboard controls should remain unaffected, but if you try lowering brightness to 0% using a slider, it will stop you at a sensible low value and issue a warning. If the user still insists, then, well, his bad luck. But maybe the slider simply could have a hard limit, plus the warning saying to use brigthness keys instead. I also had an idea to detect during a running session if brightness keys work and then just skip the warning step altogether as Plasma would know that recovery by keyboard is possible...but just a 2c idea. - Martin ----------------------------------------------------------- This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/122505/#review75756 ----------------------------------------------------------- On Feb. 9, 2015, 11:25 p.m., Kai Uwe Broulik wrote: > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit: > https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/122505/ > ----------------------------------------------------------- > > (Updated Feb. 9, 2015, 11:25 p.m.) > > > Review request for Plasma and KDE Usability. > > > Repository: plasma-workspace > > > Description > ------- > > Some graphics drivers, notably Intel, turn off the backlight completely when > brightness reached zero, which is also in the spec (0 = off, 1 = very dim) > but imho that's unexpected. To prevent the user from accidentally turnign the > screen off, especially when keyboard brightness controls don't work, which > sadly still happens quite often, the slider breaks free from the user's drag > (by becoming disable for two (perhaps 1 is enough?) seconds, so we also catch > the mouse wheel case) and displays a warning (which stays there until screen > brightness is dialed up again). > > > Diffs > ----- > > applets/batterymonitor/package/contents/ui/BrightnessItem.qml 546ab58 > applets/batterymonitor/package/contents/ui/PopupDialog.qml a2acf31 > > Diff: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/122505/diff/ > > > Testing > ------- > > Works pretty well, I just realized I forgot the mousewheel-on-trayicon case. > Also, I'm open to wording suggestions since it sounds more like "we suck, > sorry about that". (Note in the screenshot I used the mouse wheel, hence the > displayed 4% rather than 5) > > > File Attachments > ---------------- > > Screenshot > > https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/media/uploaded/files/2015/02/09/8b585088-e33e-4862-9c46-207d06f566f1__dimwarning.png > > > Thanks, > > Kai Uwe Broulik > >
_______________________________________________ Plasma-devel mailing list Plasma-devel@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel
