Feature Request: Cloudy Day
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I work in a desktop environment with 3x 27" cinema displays in a bright room. Normally, f.lux's daytime settings are fine, but there are times like when it's cloudy out or my eyes are just tired when I would like to knock down the BRIGHTWHITELIGHT just a little during the daytime.
Disclaimer: I'm fully aware there's a dimmer for my monitors. That's not what I'm needing as that doesn't necessarily solve the problem.
My feature request is for an easily selectable preset group (e.g. the Color Effects submenu) that lets me temporarily put f.lux into one of my already-defined settings for the various times of day (e.g. Daytime, Sunset, Bedtime) without having to dive into the preferences pane and mess up my settings.
Thanks,
StevePS - My apologies if this has already been suggested. I looked before posting and found nothing.
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@sstringer You are aware that you'll save a LOT of power by actually just dimming your screens correctly.
If your monitors do not have a dedicated brightness shortcut then I think it's time to get new monitors.
Ben Q makes it really easy to take down brightness with two button presses. One to bring up menu and press the same button for the brightness shortcut.
My monitor uses 37 watts at full brightness and 18 at the lowest.
You have THREE monitors so you're power savings will be much bigger.
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@Tungsten_smooth As I apparently failed to make clear, I am aware that I can reduce the brightness on my monitor with a few button clicks. Again, that isn't my goal.
I'm simply suggesting a feature that exposes the pre-existing time-of-day setting presets via a select menu so they can be temporarily activated in unusual circumstances (e.g. cloudy days) without permanently altering f.lux's preferences.
For what it's worth, turning down the brightness doesn't necessarily reduce eye strain since the white point values roughly the same unless you crank it down so far you can barely see things, and it affects all apps whereas f.lux can be disabled for apps like Photoshop. F.lux's yellow shift is a much more effective solution in my circumstance. And, yes, I know this isn't the intended purpose of f.lux; it's just a happy side-benefit.
Cheers,
Steve -
@sstringer so you want to reduce brightness AND add a yellowish effect. I'd say that's very much like Windows (Alt + PageDown) feature. It software dims the screen and warms up the colors as you dim.
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No, I don't want to reduce brightness. Not sure how to say that any clearer.
And I'm on a Mac.
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when I would like to knock down the BRIGHTWHITELIGHT just a little during the daytime.
Makes it seem like you want lower brightness. So have you tried movie mode?
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This was a simple feature request intended for the f.lux engineers.
If you're trolling me, stop it. If you're not, then, seriously, find something better to do with your time. You're not helping.
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@sstringer We got your request, thank you - we think about stuff like this a lot. Cloudy days do have a different feel.
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I would like to add to this discussion. I live in the Portland, Oregon, area, which is famous for low, dense cloud cover, heavy rain, etc. Think about the first few scenes of Dune, and that's our climate. We have the highest per capita consumption of caffeine in the world, plus a high level of clinical depression, and the lowest level of skin cancer. We also drink a lot of beer and have a booming wine industry.
I have Flux set to my geographical location, but on many days I find myself sitting in my office and using control+alt+command+8 (on mac) to invert colors because even though the clock may read 2 or 3 pm, the ambient light through the large windows my desk faces feels like dusk. And if I decide to flee the office, the headlights on my car turn on because the car's sensors agree that the sun has set.
For those of us in the Pacific Northwest and other cloudy places, an additional setting would be welcome
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Not to question anyone's preference for a warmer screen on a cloudy day (or for manual control of f.lux, which has been suggested many times), but fyi the colour temperature of light from an overcast sky can be significantly higher - more blue - than direct sunlight.
One way to reduce eye strain is to adjust your screen to better match your environment. By that measure, you might want to actually increase the monitor's colour temperature above 6500 K - something that f.lux can't do, so you'd have to use the Display system preference pane or your monitor's controls. There are many other causes of eye strain though, which are probably more significant. Taking regular breaks is important.
Another thing is that blue-green light during the day can help make you feel more alert and energetic. It's actually used to treat seasonal depression. It can also help synchronize your body's clock so you get to sleep easier at night. On the other hand the blue light of computer screens borders on the wavelengths that may contribute to long-term eye damage, though you won't notice it at the time.
Again, it's understandable to want something warm-looking on a rainy day, and there's nothing wrong with that, if it makes you feel better. Just chiming in on behalf of Science...
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@Elhem-Enohpi Interesting about the color temperature of the light through the clouds. I will experiment and see if I can find a setting that is more comfortable. Thanks!
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This is interesting - actually a screen is calibrated to look something like a cloudy day already - but rarely are we talking about "matching" things numerically, and instead it's more about what looks right, because the light levels are so different.
On a sunny day outdoors, you see the blue sky (very blue) and the sun (somewhat warmer like ~5000K). So what's missing on a cloudy day might be the "sun" and not the color matching of the sky.
Potentially we should do some kind of "eyestrain/cloudy day" mode around 5800K, or something like that.
If you dim your screen a lot on those days, it might go lower like 5000K. At least that's my guess.A lot of this is subjective, so I always like it when people post what they like using numbers too.
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@herf Yep, I thought direct sunlight reflecting off things was a bit warmer than 6,500 K. I don't have a way to measure it though. I've also liked using my iPad (when I was jailbroken, I've ruined that for now) on a warmer 4000 or 3000 K setting when it's dim outside, it's much more relaxing.
I think it's not really the color, but the lack of cyan, and that big spike of blue that most displays have, not being a nicer shade of white. Maybe I eyes are just weird, but I feel most of these LED (not oled) lit devices usually have a purplish tint to them, and on a cloudy day, that becomes more easily seen, so shifting some of that away to yellow makes it nicer.
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@Elhem-Enohpi I want to thank you, again. You really helped me adjust my monitor. Today is a cloudy day with the sky full of white clouds, and you are right. They do send a lot of light through my office window, and I need a brighter, bluer monitor rather than a dimmer, yellower or redder one. So, I tried disabling Flux, and I could see the monitor more clearly. Then I turned up the brightness a little, and this helped, too.
Thanks, again.
Peyton
