@lydonjr
There are lots of programs that you can install just for adjusting brightness. I use f.lux for adjusting the color temperature because it's the best one for that. It does it in a way that's superior and more true than Night Light and Night Shift, resulting in a superior effect on the body. I don't remember the technical details, but I remember they talked about how Night Light and Night Shift and all third-party color temperature programs use an overlay or something while f.lux changes the actual color temperature, resulting in a superior effect on the body. So you might not be able to see the differences, but they're there and they have an effect.
For adjusting the brightness, I use one that fulfills all of my personal brightness adjustment needs called ClickMonitorDDC, but there are programs that are much, much simpler. I don't have experience with any of them, but I learned of a few today:
https://www.makeuseof.com/best-brightness-control-software-windows/
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/software-to-adjust-monitor-brightness-and-contrast-for-dell-studio-one-desktop/
https://windowsreport.com/best-screen-brightness-software/
I found these with this Google search: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=software+to+control+my+monitor+in+windows+10
If you want the kind of context menu you're talking about, then you can create one in ClickMonitorDDC. You can create 15 different menu items and you can name each one. You can also have up to 15 different keyboard shortcuts.
F.lux doesn't adjust the brightness of the monitor's backlight. It just adjusts the black level - or we can say it reduces the white point. This is nice to use in combination with reducing or minimizing the monitor's brightness, just like with the iPhone where you can turn on Night Shift and Reduce White Point. So I recommend setting f.lux to a very warm temperature, setting the monitor's brightness to 0 using something like ClickMonitorDDC, and then reducing f.lux's brightness so that you get a reduced white point. This way, you get a far superior experience compared to what you're dealing with now, and you'll be far happier with f.lux when you use it as it's designed to be used.