Support

Comments

If you would like support from the developer or the user community, feel free to leave a comment below. Your feedback (both positive and critical) helps to improve the software. Please be respectful to other users and don't include any information that you don't want to be visible to the public.

Alternatively, feel free to contact the developer directly.

Comments (175)

Jarrad
Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 7:31 AM
This product works great with 3 screens - really increases focus. Would love to see it develop into a drop down (pop down) function, rather then a box as it would increase the ability to access it while working - i.e not having to change windows. I have probably described this poorly, so I've provided a link below - I'm referring to the section "Quick Capture to work Faster" http://www.screenpresso.com/screenpresso-1-6-0-featuring-our-best-screen-capture-release/#more-1789 Anywho, thank you!! Its Brillant.
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Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 8:51 PM
@Jarrad Actually it already has this feature -- look in your notification area for an icon. You can right-click on the icon for various options, including blanking/revealing an individual monitor or a group.



You can make it auto-start in this mode by going into Settings and checking the "Start with Windows" box. That way you'll never even see the main dialog box unless you want to!f
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David
Friday, December 11, 2015 at 9:43 AM
Glad we have the command line options now. I can't seem to get the reveal and toggle command lines to do anything, They just do the same as the blank command line.
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Jan
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 4:18 AM
Yeah, /blank, /reveal, and /toggle all do the same and none of them let's you reveal the screens again. A fix for that would be very much appreciated. This program is exactly what I was looking for, but at present the only way I can command-line reveal the screens again is via taskkill
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Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 2:27 PM
I have released an update (version 2.0.5) that fixes the issue.
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Jan
Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 5:24 PM
@nookkin Oh wow, that is rapid bug fixing! :-) Thank you very much! Blank and reveal works now, but toggle only seems to work with a single screen. If i try to toggle a group, i get "fatal: Unable to create instance".
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Ringo
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 8:59 AM
I realize this is a general question, but if I make a shortcut to multiscreenblank2 to toggle a screen, how can I make it so that shortcut works from anywhere in windows or any program? I'm having really bad luck with my google searches finding an answer, thanks.
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Elra
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 9:48 AM
Can someone please help me into making the toggle command for a screen turn into a universal windows shortcut. I don't know the terminology for a good google search and am getting any random stuff. Do I need to make a batch file? How do I do that? Please, thanks.
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Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 12:47 PM
@Ringo One way is to just create a Windows shortcut the normal way (right-click -> New Shortcut), then set the "Shortcut key" property. Unfortunately this isn't global so it won't work if you're within an application that processes shortcut keys.

Another way is to pin this shortcut in your taskbar. You'll then be able to press Win+1, Win+2, etc.

I would recommend using AutoHotkey or some other global hotkey manager to run the command line, since it's able to grab keypresses even if another app has focus.
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Ringo
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 12:49 PM
Thank you very much! Sorry for the double post.
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Bowen
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 1:49 PM
@nookkin Tried making a toggle command for one of my monitors, and followed the instructions listed above exactly. However, every time I open that shortcut (with the toggle command) there is a slight delay, then my firewall notifies me that Multiscreen is attempting to connect to the internet. This happens every time I double click that shortcut. If I block the connection, nothing happens to the monitor that I had intended to toggle. If I allow the connection, then the monitor then toggles blank/unblank. Could clarify whether this is intentional or not? If so, why?
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Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 2:26 PM
@Bowen MultiscreenBlank shouldn't connect to the internet for any reason. Can you post a screenshot of the error? Another thing you can try is right-clicking the .exe, going to Properties, and clicking "Unblock".
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Bowen
Saturday, January 16, 2016 at 3:30 PM
@nookkin If you'd like, I can send you an email with all the information I can gather on it. Also, when yo say 'right click on the .exe" are you referring to the "MultiscreenBlank2.exe" ? If so, I can't find the option to "Unblock" in Properties. (Win7 Pro 64bit)
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Anthony
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 4:11 PM
I am guessing I need to change a setting to fix this issue, however, when I activate the screen blank, it only blanks most of the screen and not all. After checking get the "information" it is showing my screen resolution to be lower than it should. How can I change this?
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Anthony
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 5:35 PM
@Anthony what is the MAX resolution compatible?
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 9:17 PM
@Anthony The "lower" resolution is caused by Windows scaling (it's the effective resolution that the program sees). Can you provide a screenshot of the "most but not all" issue? It's likely related to scaling (though my testing with high DPI showed that it pretty much worked.) You can try disabling scaling by right-clicking MultiscreenBlank2.exe -> Properties -> Compatibility and checking "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". That should fix both issues although the rest of MultiscreenBlank's UI might be a bit small as a result.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 9:18 PM
@Anthony There is no arbitrary maximum but Windows (I think) limits to around 65536x65536.
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Anthony
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 10:08 PM
@nookkin yeah that's what I was wondering. I checked the resolution windows was set to and then checked the resolution settings in the "information" under the interface and it is lower than what is set in windows.

I am no longer around the setup in question, basically 3/4 of the screen is blanked, showing the bottom of the screen and the right side. Like a backwards L.
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Anthony
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 10:10 PM
So to con@nookkin so to confirm there is no max resolution for screenblank itself?
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 10:17 PM
@Anthony Did you try the temporary workaround of disabling scaling? Getting programs to work consistently with Windows DPI scaling is a royal pain to put it lightly... I'll need to look into it when I have some free time.

And yes, there is no artificial limit imposed by MultiscreenBlank itself. There is a practical limit imposed by Windows but I don't know what it is.
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Anthony
Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 10:21 PM
I would also like to request instructions on how to use the "virtual screens" option. I am using a laptop that connects into a hdmi switch. That switch connects into a monitor, two of 70' vision tv's, three 40' vision tv's, and a projector.

What I am looking to do is this: Blank the tv's and projector, and use the monitor as a preview source. So, if at all possible, I need the option to put my tv's and projector into one group separate from my monotorious and laptop lcd screen. If it can be done GREAT! Thanks in advance.
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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 at 10:42 PM
@Anthony Is it a switch or a splitter/expander? Because if it's a hardware switch, there's nothing I can do.

Now assuming it's a splitter/expander like a TripleHead2Go... Windows will treat each splitter as a single big screen. So you'd go into MultiscreenBlank settings and then the Virtual Screens tab. Select the physical display that corresponds to the combined splitter screen and click on it.

You can then split it in half horizontally/vertically (if both screens are the same size) or click "custom split" to split it into even more pieces (e.g. 3+ screens). If the different screens are different resolutions, you might need to directly edit the .ini file.

Once you have the virtual screens in place, you can group them just like physical screens and then use the regular grouping feature to manage them.

If you want to preview content on a blanked screen... you're sort of out of luck for now since MultiscreenBlank deals with Windows-based screens and not hardware screens. But I'm thinking of adding a feature where it can use accessibility APIs to take screenshots of blanked screens and allow you to sort of get an idea of what's going on under them.
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Anthony
Thursday, March 3, 2016 at 8:40 AM
@nookkin Thanks for the help! I will try the scaling option when I get around it today.
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DavidE
Thursday, March 24, 2016 at 7:52 PM
Brilliant piece of software, does exactly what I need. However, I am getting an unhandled exception. Can't give the exact sequence but it involves switching between "Blank all but Main", "Blank All" and "Reveal All" from the tray Icon. Running Win 7 x64. Here's the error:

************** Exception Text ************** System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (0x80004005): The parameter is incorrect at System.Windows.Forms.Form.UpdateLayered() at System.Windows.Forms.Form.set_Opacity(Double value) at MultiscreenBlank2.frmMain.SetMonitorState(MonitorIcon[] Monitors, MonitorAction Action, Double DimAmount) at MultiscreenBlank2.frmMain.mnuAppContextBlankAll_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks) at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripDropDown.WndProc(Message& m) at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam) ************** Loaded Assemblies ************** mscorlib Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll ---------------------------------------- MultiscreenBlank2 Assembly Version: 2.0.0.5 Win32 Version: 2.0.0.5 CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/MultiscreenBlank2/MultiscreenBlank2.exe ---------------------------------------- Microsoft.VisualBasic Assembly Version: 10.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 12.0.51209.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll ---------------------------------------- System Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Core Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Windows.Forms Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll ---------------------------------------- System.Drawing Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0 Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.34209 built by: FX452RTMGDR CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll ----------------------------------------
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Corelee
Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 2:29 AM
Thank you for this great tool! Is there a way to set dimming from command line? Would love to see that in a future update maybe...
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ceravis
Tuesday, January 3, 2017 at 10:22 PM
I'd like to also humbly vote to toggle dimming from command line, such as:

multiscreenblank2 /toggle group 1 dim 65

So that if a display is currently dimmed to 65%, restore to normal... otherwise if normal, fully blanked, or dimmed to anything other than 65%, dim to 65%. Otherwise, brilliant program, thanks! I'm using EventGhost to capture the Pause/Break key to run MSB via command line to toggle one of my displayport monitors, since turning this monitor on/off using the power button causes it to disappear in Windows (this is a "feature" of displayport) and any windows/icons are moved to other monitors. MultiscreenBlank fixes the problem perfectly!
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Ringo
Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 10:56 AM
hi nookkin, on first run after starting the computer I get an error message that the settings can't be saved, any idea how to fix this? Thanks and happy new year!
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Wednesday, January 4, 2017 at 8:56 PM
@ceravis I plan to implement that in the next release, unfortunately I can't provide a timeline.

@Ringo Make sure you extract the program to a writable location, or alternatively use the provided .ini file and edit it to a different writable location.
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Matthew Lewallen
Monday, March 6, 2017 at 5:58 AM
This was exactly the piece of software I was looking for. However, the new version (2.0.0.6) does not appear to work with my configuration. The old version does (1.1.0), which is strange. Both seem to detect two displays.

My configuration is this:
NVIDIA GeForce 980 Ti
Primary Display: Samsung LU28E590DS/ZA (running off of DisplayPort)
Secondary Display: Philips 277E6 (running off of HDMI)

The 2.0.0.6 version will dim the primary display but not my secondary.

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Monday, March 6, 2017 at 8:51 PM
@Matthew Lewallen Can you send me your MultiscreenBlank2.ini file and a screenshot of the main window showing the monitors? Can you also test with scaling disabled in Windows just to rule that out?
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Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 9:42 AM
I just want to say thank you for this. Thank you. Thank you! Thank you so very much. DisplayPort is great... except for this asinine little "feature" (it's a bug) where switching off a monitor (but leaving DP powered and connected) will cause Windows to lose track of the monitor and ruin the window/icon layout. This application allows me to selectively blank out certain monitors in my setup without having to turn off the monitor or anger the pathetically fickle DisplayPort gods.

Thank you so much!
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Ed T
Wednesday, May 31, 2017 at 2:22 PM
Just got this program, really liking it so far! Is there any way to set a keybind to black out a certain monitor?
Thanks!
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Joe
Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 2:42 AM
This program is excellent, clean-interface, and very tiny!
I use it to watch full screen video on external monitor #2 (dimming 1 and 3) and to dim all screens at night (since current Win10 Night Light only seems to dim/red-shift my primary screen on my Surface but not the other 2 external monitors).

Feature Votes and Ideas
- Dim from the command line
- Save dim settings with a group
- Double-click group toggles default (dim or blank)
- Dim on sun schedule (dim sunset, un-dim sunrise)
- Dim to a different color temperature (like Night Light)
- Assign a screen to more than one group

Bug
- I see a very thin, bright line at the far left of my external monitors when I dim or blank the external monitors.

Thanks for the good work.

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BioLight
Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 3:33 AM
When I try to use /toggle on a group, the app crashes.
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Jasper Wegdam
Tuesday, August 22, 2017 at 6:03 AM
Maby add a hotkey fuction because i am using it on and of witch makes it kind off annoying to have to go to the application in the bottom off my screen to disable my screens. would be nice if i could just press a combination off buttons and it would activate what i want it to.
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Shaun
Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 10:27 AM
I like to have this run when I get into a game, but not while I am waiting to get into one. So I setup multiple batch files (/toggle won't work for groups) and assigned them for toggling through AutoHotkey.

I can't, however, stop the command prompt from taking focus from the game, which makes the use of the program very situational. Anyone have a better solution or no of a way I can make this work?
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Wednesday, September 20, 2017 at 9:07 PM
@Shaun Can you run the batch file in hidden mode via AutoHotkey?

Run, batch.bat, , Hide


I plan to add (working!) support for toggling groups in a future update.
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Monday, November 6, 2017 at 12:35 AM
I have released a significant update that fixes command-line issues mentioned in various comments and DPI scaling issues. Also added some new features (add right-click menu to desktop, dim from command line). See the product/download page for more details.
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Ringo
Tuesday, December 12, 2017 at 6:32 AM
Hi I'm getting this error since today:

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
at MultiscreenBlank2.INIFile.Load(Boolean IgnoreError)
at MultiscreenBlank2.INIFile..ctor(String Filename, Boolean IgnoreError)
at MultiscreenBlank2.frmMain.frmMain_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2600.0 built by: NET471REL1LAST
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
MultiscreenBlank2
Assembly Version: 2.0.0.6
Win32 Version: 2.0.0.6
CodeBase: file:///E:/Downloads%20E/Program%20stuff/Install%20Files/MultiscreenBlank2.0.0.6/MultiscreenBlank2/MultiscreenBlank2.exe
----------------------------------------
Microsoft.VisualBasic
Assembly Version: 10.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 14.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.VisualBasic/v4.0_10.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Core
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2600.0 built by: NET471REL1LAST
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Core/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Core.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Runtime.Remoting
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.7.2556.0 built by: NET471REL1
CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Runtime.Remoting/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Runtime.Remoting.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.
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Frederik S
Monday, January 29, 2018 at 2:52 AM
@Jarrad
Hi there,

in a similar way, I would like to have this tool accessible via the "sidebar" from 8gadgets package. This would be really nice.
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Monday, January 29, 2018 at 9:21 PM
@Ringo Can you reset the configuration?

@Frederik S You'll need to figure out a way to add a custom shortcut/widget. You can then use command line arguments to actually have MultiscreenBlank do its thing.
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Christiane Burch
Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 8:06 AM
Is there a way to keep the program open on the desktop (like a clickable app) so that the current status is always displayed or could the notifications bar show when 2 screens are on? We have "back to back" monitors in our shop (one for Customers) and are searching a solution that shows the sales representative when the customer screen is on or off (so as to not forget)!
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Wednesday, February 14, 2018 at 10:11 PM
@Christiane Burch That's how the program should work -- it will display a window with virtual monitors on it and this window will remain open until you minimize. Darker ones are dimmed, lighter ones are visible.

Do you want it to stay open on top of all other windows?
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Darrell Hale
Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:04 AM
Can a text label be added to each screen icon to differentiate which monitor each represents? Right now I only see the tiny "All" button and two large, unlabeled, and otherwise identical blue icon blocks.

Something similar to how Multiscreen Blank 1.1.0 labeled each monitor icon with 1, 2, etc but using more descriptive text.

The new feature could allow a user supplied text label field for each icon to be shown, or a checkbox option that would display the Physical Device ID (shown after the last slash in the "Information..." popup such as DISPLAY1, DISPLAY2, etc) within the icon.

Thanks, and thanks for the great utility!
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 5:56 PM
I'm a total newbie and I love this app but have no clue how to *actually use* any of the command lines.

Would be nice to have some guidance other than "here are the command lines, just throw them at the computer until it does what you want"
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Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 6:52 PM
@djshokwave You can run a command in various ways, including:
1. Open the Command Prompt and run from there (one off).
2. Create a batch file (text file with .bat extension) and list those commands in there. Double-click to run it.
3. Create a Windows shortcut with that command. Double-click the shortcut to run it.
4. Run as a script from another program that supports it, such as EventGhost

As for what to put in the command itself... unfortunately that depends heavily on what you're trying to accomplish here. That's why they're provided as examples. If you can describe your display configuration and what you want to do with MultiscreenBlank, I can likely point you in the right direction.

General format is

multiscreenblank2 /OPERATION SELECTOR PARAMETER



OPERATION is what you're trying to do -- blank, reveal, etc
SELECTOR is the screen(s) you want to apply that operation to -- a specific screen based on pixel bounds, a group of screens, etc
PARAMETER is the details of selectors that require it -- actual pixel bounds, group number, etc. Some selectors (current, all) don't take parameters so nothing needs to be specified for those.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 6:55 PM
@Darrell Hale Thanks for the suggestion, should be doable when I get a chance to work on it!

I am intentionally not adding automatic numbers to the monitor display due to Windows being rather arbitrary with them -- but user-specified text (with whatever numbering scheme you choose) should be doable.
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 7:04 PM
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 7:09 PM
So it turns out I'm doing the right thing and it's not working. Much worse than I thought.

Either that or you've left out a crucial detail. If that's the case, then I guess that's what I'm asking for.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 7:59 PM
@djshokwave Do you need help with running command lines in general, or with getting my specific program to respond in the expected manner? Can you describe "not working" -- are you getting error messages?
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 8:21 PM
@nookkin
My other comment must have gotten lost. It contained a link to a lightshot screenshot.

If it's as simple as opening the command prompt, typing any of the example commands, and pressing ENTER, then it simply doesn't work because that's exactly what I did. The following error is displayed, no matter which example command I try:

'MultiscreenBlank2' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

The app is saved in a folder with the same name on my secondary HDD (F:\Programs\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2.exe) and running in standalone mode.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 8:26 PM
@djshokwave Ah, gotcha. You need to either switch to the directory it's saved in:

F:
cd \Programs\MultiscreenBlank2


or update your PATH variable as described here to include the install directory if you want it to work from any command prompt (no matter what working directory it's in).

These are steps you'd need to take with pretty much any command-line utility that you manually copy to a given location.
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 8:48 PM
@nookkin
Wow. Way more too this than I thought, lol. Like I said, total newbie here.

If I understand you correctly, using the much MUCH easier of the two options, I would have to include the cd command in the batch file I want to write, yes?

I *think* from there I can figure out how to make a keyboard shortcut (ALT-CTRL-M or something like that) and run the batch file.

Thanks for your help.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 8:53 PM
@djshokwave You can add cd to the batch file, include the full path in the command (so type "F:\Programs\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2 /command..." in the file), or put the batch file in the same directory as the program.

If you're trying to use AutoHotkey or something to make keyboard shortcuts, you should be able to just call MultiscreenBlank directly (using its full path) with no need for an extra batch file.
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 9:00 PM
@nookkin
Never used AutoHotkey, would prefer not to. I was under the impression that setting macros to shortcuts was pretty simple to do in Windows, though.
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 9:47 PM
For some unknown reason, I can get Windows' built-in kb shortcut function to work with my dim command, but not my reveal command.

What I know:
- Both shortcuts work when double-clicked, even when both are hidden (set to still "show" in explorer obviously)
- Swapping the respective key combos - no change.
- Changing the reveal selector from ALL to specific display ID - no change.
- Changing the reveal command from /REVEAL to /DIM00 - no change.
- No errors are shown, reveal command/batch simply doesn't run except when double-clicked.

The reveal command outright refuses to work with key combos. I'm stumped.

I will not download and install AutoHotkey just to use it for this one, simple thing!
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djshokwave
Tuesday, August 28, 2018 at 9:53 PM
(update)

Changing the Dim command to toggle the specified display does not work with key combos either, but at least I can simply double-click the blank screen to reveal it again.

This is just bizarre, and I guess it's down to the app's programming.

Still won't use AutoHotkey. That's a rabbit hole I just don't have room for in my life.
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Bart
Saturday, September 1, 2018 at 7:35 AM
Hi,

is there any option to add feature like:

If I open full screen app (game or movie) the second (or more) screen will be blanked automatically? It could be a new checkbox in settings tab.

It would be awesome, really ;)

Cheers
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Sunday, September 2, 2018 at 7:30 PM
@djshokwave There's nothing hotkey-specific in the programming. If you're using the hotkeys built into Windows, they only work if Windows Explorer has focus (which it won't if the screen is blank because MultiscreenBlank uses a layered window). Thus MultiscreenBlank isn't even receiving the commands. What you need is something that has a system-wide keyboard hook, which sadly means 3rd-party software like AutoHotkey.

AutoHotkey is really simple. Just install it and create a new text file. Name it something like "blank.ahk" (the ".ahk" extension is needed). Then put this in:

^!b:: Run, C:\Path\MultiscreenBlank2.exe /dim75 all return ^!r:: Run, C:\Path\MultiscreenBlank2.exe /reveal all return


^!b:: means "when Ctrl+Alt+B is entered, do the following" and the command below it will dim all screens to 75%. So if you press Ctrl+Alt+B, the above script will dim all screens. If you press Ctrl+Alt+R, all screens will be revealed.
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Sunday, September 2, 2018 at 7:38 PM
@Bart No feature in the program itself, but you can of course automate it with a batch file (for that specific program) otherwise it should be possible to do some AutoHotkey magic to detect any full-screen programs. I unfortunately have no plans to add that as a built-in feature since detecting full-screen windows can be rather difficult programmatically.

As an example, this is the batch file I use for launching GTA V. I have MultiscreenBlank2 in my PATH and put the batch file in the same folder GTA V is installed in.

MultiscreenBlank2 /blank allexcept ID \\.\DISPLAY1 start /wait GTAVLauncher.exe MultiscreenBlank2 /reveal all

This blanks all screens except the one GTA V is running on, launches GTA V, waits until it closes, and then reveals all screens.
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Curtis
Wednesday, November 14, 2018 at 2:20 PM
Thank you. For the last 2 days I have been modifying my "SecondMonitorBlanker" program since I have once again, tried different screen resolutions and DPI settings. I have 2 monitors, but different sizes, resolutions and DPI settings. I have been able to get my program to work by using a large hammer and beating the snot out of the code till it worked. Well, I gave up, for now, and found your program. I was happy to see that the DPI issues are addressed. So, for now, I bow to your programming skills and say thank you once more !!!!!!
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Bernhard
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 8:48 PM
Hi,
thx for providing this great tool! I think it could be the first step to solve my problem, but I'd need some more help to get the second step done too.

I run a sim rig with one large nvidia surround triple screen and another 4th info monitor. I would like to be able to blank the 4th info monitor by a joystick button (while in the simulator) to show or hide the info on the 4th monitor.

With this tool I can select and blank this monitor. But I'd need to bind a hot-key to blank/show this given monitor and a way to call this hotkey via a joystick button (usb button boxes). So far I don't know how to do either of that.

Maybe some of you can help me with that?
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Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:16 PM
@Bernhard I'm not sure if AutoHotkey or EventGhost can do it easily -- depends on the USB button box. If it's HID class (treated like a keyboard device that sends keycodes) it should be trivial. Otherwise EventGhost might have a plugin for that specific type of device.

Once you figure out how to detect the button with those programs it's easy, just make AHK/EventGhost run the correct command line to toggle that screen.
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Bernhard
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:33 PM
@nookkin
Thx so much for your quick reply. I was looking into Autohotkey - I'd prefer to avoid using another tool - but I am currently struggling to configure the same hotkey to start your tool to blank a given monitor and then reveal it at the second press. The script does not allow the same hotkey for two actions. At least not in that simple way I tried to copy from another reply from you above. I could use this as a temporary workaround to be used with hotkeys of my corsair keyboard until I get the joystick solution working - but it only makes sense if it works with the same hotkey to blank and reveal the monitor.

The buttonboxes are shown as HID-compliant gamecontroller. But I have no clue of how to address them directly. Window diver preferences give some hardware IDs, but I have still no clue of how to select and bind a given button to a hotkey - script. : (
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Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:35 PM
@Bernhard Instead of using separate "blank" and "reveal" actions, just use a single "toggle" action.
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Bernhard
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:47 PM
@nookkin @nookkin
I can address buttonbox's buttons within EventGhost and make it start MultiscreenBlank. I can make it work with configuring one button to blank and another to reveal the screen.

Any idea how to make it work with using the same button?
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Bernhard
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:55 PM
@nookkin
Works like a charm! Thank you sooo much for this tool and your fantastic idea to use EventGhost. This seems like an amzing tool by itself..

Successfully bound a buttonbox button to blank and reveal the 4th info monitor! That's absolutely fantastic to be used while in the sim to show those additional infos when necessary and hide them otherwise!

All the best in 2019 and thx for your super quick help!
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Bernhard
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 10:18 PM
@nookkin
Works like a charm! Thank you sooo much for this tool and your fantastic idea to use EventGhost. This seems like an amzing tool by itself..

Successfully bound a buttonbox button to blank and reveal the 4th info monitor! That's absolutely fantastic to be used while in the sim to show those additional infos when necessary and hide them otherwise!

All the best in 2019 and thx for your super quick help!
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Daniel
Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at 3:10 PM
It works great. The only feature that is missing is a feature to password protect the locked screens. I use this program to blank out my computer screens when I leave my desk instead of using the Windows Lock (Windows key+L) because Windows Lock rearranges all the applications that I have left open, after I unlock my computer.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2019 at 9:43 PM
@Daniel Glad you're enjoying it!

Unfortunately a password-protect feature would be completely worthless since you can easily kill it with Task Manager and can even access the Start menu by pressing the Windows key.

Windows lock should not be rearranging things -- is it possible that your monitors are sleeping soon after the lock, which is what's actually causing the rearrangement? In that case you should be able to disable "Turn off the screen" in Windows power settings.
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maritza
Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 11:55 AM
Congrats developer-designer-dreamer. This was a much needed program. You develop perfectly, design beautifully and dream big.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2019 at 8:42 PM
Update released that added the ability to rename screens, easily copy usable command lines, screen mirroring, and a dark theme! And now it will notify you of future updates right in the app!
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Bernhard Gehberger
Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 8:54 AM
When I start Multiscreen Blank it is always starting minimized in the background task tray.. But I need it opened on one of my screens as I have to use it with the mouse. (Sadly the EventGhost solution to use it with joystick buttons does not work so far due to application crashes (of EventGhost))..

Is there a way to have it opened as regular window instead of minimized?
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Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 9:01 PM
@Bernhard Gehberger If it's set to start with Windows, that will open it minimized by default (and subsequent commands will keep it running in the background). So you can do one of the following:

1. Don't start with Windows. This way it will open to the last on-screen position when you launch it without command line arguments.

2. Quit and re-open.

multiscreenblank2 /quit
multiscreenblank

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David Spohr
Monday, March 18, 2019 at 2:31 PM
Can you please add a feature to dim every screen you don't have a cursor at?

I've found this program based on an idea I had, that a monitor should be dimmed when you don't look at it. My ideal would be to have it use eye tracking AI and a webcam feed, but it might be simpler to base it on a cursor location.

Thanks for your consideration!
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Fred
Friday, June 21, 2019 at 10:31 AM
Hi,

Thank you for doing such a nice job. I am testing the software at this moment and it seems to do exactly what I want it to do!
You thing that makes it 100% perfect for me is to have command line parameter for the fade duration. This is because sometimes I want to fade out/in more quickly than other times in a batch file.
Do you think that is possible?

I also noticed that you can’t use /minimized and an other parameter at the same time. Is that correct?

Regards,

Fred
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Friday, June 21, 2019 at 8:01 PM
@Fred Not currently possible to set fade duration via command-line parameter but it is a configuration option. I'll keep that in mind for the future. Can you describe how you intend to use it so I have a better idea of how else I can improve?

You CAN run /minimized together with other parameters, but /minimized has to be the first one. So you can do:

multiscreenblank2 /minimized /blank current


...but you cannot do this:

multiscreenblank2 /blank current /minimized

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Fred
Saturday, June 22, 2019 at 2:27 AM
Using /minimized as first parameter worked perfect!!!

I am a volunteer to be a technician to do a "school play" (more like a summer school) and I have to show some videos (as backdrop) on a beamer.

The problem is that the children performing the play are really young (5-10yrs). So it is impossible to create a video with fixed length.
I start the video and wait until they say a line that would be my cue to fade the video. However I have to show multiple videos with different fade times. There lies the problem.

As work-around I created multiple ini files with the fade times and a script to replace the ini file that should be active. On one occasion I have to set a different fade time while the screen is dim at 50%. Using /quit will set the brightness back to 100%, so that trick cannot be used in that case. But your program is now already 95% perfect, And although I would kindly request this feature, I don't want to push you in any way!

Many thanks for you quick reply and have a nice weekend! Regards, Fred.
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Saturday, June 22, 2019 at 1:05 PM
@Fred I actually made the original MultiscreenBlank for running a school play and it has per-monitor fade amounts. (Just not nearly as intuitive for daily desktop use.) I think it might actually suit your needs better!

At the very least you could run both programs simultaneously to hold a 50% fade on one monitor while independently doing a full fade on top of it.
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Charlie
Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 12:41 PM
Your program is a godsend - it really keeps me from being distracted when I only want to work on one screen.

One issue: I work on a laptop which I connect to a docking station into which 2 screens (tvs via hdmi) are plugged in. It works fine. But at the end of the day I close the laptop and put it to sleep. When I open it and hit "blank all but main" it blanks the main instead. Not only that, I can't seem to blank the non-main screen at all until I restart.

Is there something I'm missing? Thanks!
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Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 8:19 PM
@Charlie That's unfortunately an issue with Windows moving the "blanker" window away from "nonexistent" screens. I'll see what I can do, but you can probably rig up a script to restart Multiscreen Blank in the meantime.
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Charles
Wednesday, August 14, 2019 at 12:03 PM
@nookkin I figured Windows was the culprit - big surprise. I'll try to figure out how a script would work in this case. Thanks for the prompt reply.
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Charles Martin
Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 12:47 PM
Program is running wonderfully. One suggestion:

I suspect that many people (me included) use the "Blank all but main" command more than any other. Right now I right click on the taskbar icon and click "Blank all but main" many times during the day. It would be great to configure the taskbar icon so that a left click did your most common operation - in my case, blank all but main.

Just a suggestion - many thanks for a great program.
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Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 11:54 PM
@Charles Martin
I will look into adding a "single click action" setting when I get a chance. For now you can create a Quick Launch shortcut or bind a key on your keyboard (via AutoHotkey or EventGhost) and run the following command to accomplish the action you want:

MultiscreenBlank2 /blank allexcept id \\.\DISPLAY1

Or if you want to blank all screens except the one the current mouse is on:

MultiscreenBlank2 /blank allexcept current

Personally I use the keyboard macro for this, using /toggle so pressing the key a second time reverts it.
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Michael C.
Monday, September 23, 2019 at 6:15 AM
Oooh, I was wanting to make a similar utility until I ran across this one. That said, there's a couple of features I had been wanting that this is still lacking.

1. I'd love if there could be a running program watchlist of sorts, where you specify the programs to watch for, and when they're detected, blank/dim the specified monitors/groups. For example, I have a 3-monitor setup, and when I run Netflix or Plex (on the center monitor), I want my side monitors to dim or blank.
2. For my use cases, I actually prefer dimming instead of blanking entirely. Is there a way to set "Dim x%" as default for various operations (eg. double-clicking a monitor representation) instead of "Blank"?

Thanks for an awesomely-useful app!!
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Michael C.
Monday, September 23, 2019 at 6:38 AM
Also, a `/toggledimXX` parameter would be very welcome, something that goes from fully visible to XX% dim and back to fully visible. ;)
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Monday, September 23, 2019 at 8:07 PM
@Michael C. Per-program dimming would be better done with AutoHotkey (rather than me attempting to re-implement that functionality)

Default operations and "toggle dim" is a good idea, I'll see what I can do next time I get a chance to work on it..
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Michael Cohen
Friday, September 27, 2019 at 3:16 AM
@Michael C. Per-program dimming would be better done with AutoHotkey (rather than me attempting to re-implement that functionality)


Just to be clear, I didn't mean applying dimming to individual programs. I meant dimming entire (selected) screens when a specific program was detected running. Not sure if that's what you understood or not, just clarifying. :)
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Saturday, September 28, 2019 at 7:29 PM
@Michael Cohen Yep that's how I understood it. AutoHotkey has much more robust support for that kind of behavior than I'd be able to make myself, and you can use existing commands to make MultiscreenBlank react as you want it.
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Sunday, October 27, 2019 at 10:18 PM
Released an update with various fixes and some cool new features including the ability to blank regions of a screen!

@nookkin Added shortcuts including left and middle click on the tray icon. Downside of left-click is Windows doesn't provide a good way to distinguish between two single clicks vs. a double click for tray icons.

@Michael C. unfortunately didn't get a chance to implement default dimming action yet as that would require a bigger rewrite, but it'll happen eventually!
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Dima
Friday, November 15, 2019 at 5:08 AM
@nookkin hey, thanks for your software it's quite handy. However, I have a suggestion: please consider adding a support for hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) to it. Similar to how you made custom context menus which can execute any commands, but instead of context menu - keybinds/hotkeys.

Currently I achieved the result I want with additional third-party software which listens to my key combinations and executes multiscreen blank executable with certain parameters and while I was downloading that software and setting it all up I kept wondering why this is not a feature in your software :)
This is also achievable with Windows shortcuts (you can specify key shortcuts there), but it's quite unreliable and sometimes randomly you have a few seconds delay before it is executed. From what I understood this is because Windows waits for other apps to respond to that hotkey and not all apps are responsive in this matter so there is timeout of 3-4 seconds or so. This method doesn't require any additional software but I found it unreliable and decided to go with WinHotKey.
Of course this is also doable with AHK and AutoIt too.

This functionality seems quite logical for this type of software so I hope you'll consider adding it :)
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Dima
Friday, November 15, 2019 at 5:10 AM
Also I second that suggestion on /toggledim. I also prefer dimming over blanking, but in my setup I have to use toggle.
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Friday, November 15, 2019 at 11:11 PM
@Dima The reason I haven't made my own implementation of keyboard shortcuts is that I'd basically need to reinvent AutoHotkey's global keyboard hook and I probably wouldn't do as good a job of it as they did. Thus it just makes more sense to use an existing piece of software for that part, in my opinion. The shortcuts in the menu, on the other hand, were trivial to implement :)

Toggle Dim is planned for the next release! Can't give you an ETA unfortunately. Hopefully before the end of 2019.
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Friday, November 22, 2019 at 7:41 PM
@Dima Added "toggle dim" support, didn't have much of a chance to test it but let me know how it works!

multiscreenblank2 /toggledim50 current

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Tony Cross
Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 9:07 AM
Very many thanks, this is perfect for blanking the monitor whilst we watch the (extended display) HDTV. There's just one extra feature that would be good, is it possible to turn off the monitor backlight as well as blank it?
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Thursday, December 19, 2019 at 6:30 PM
@Tony Cross Unfortunately not possible today, as that would probably require putting the monitor to sleep via DPMS (and that tends to make Windows not see the monitor any more, rearranging all the windows). You'll have a better chance using the button on the monitor as some of them keep the signal alive.
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Tony Cross
Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 2:15 AM

@Tony Cross Unfortunately not possible today, as that would probably require putting the monitor to sleep via DPMS (and that tends to make Windows not see the monitor any more, rearranging all the windows). You'll have a better chance using the button on the monitor as some of them keep the signal alive.

Ok, that's fair enough, I've experimented with other software that turns one monitor off and seen how that messes up where all the windows end up.

However, the monitor backlight is affected by the brightness control isn't it? It certainly seems to be so on my Asus ProArt monitor. Would it be possible to set the monitor brightness to 0 to reduce the backlight when blanking the screen? Perhaps add a setting value to specify the screen brightness to be restored when un-blanking?
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Saturday, December 21, 2019 at 1:17 PM
@Tony Cross Dimming physical monitor brightness is theoretically possible via DDC/CI but not necessarily possible to dim all the way. There's also a lot of buggy implementations out there.
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Tony Cross
Sunday, December 22, 2019 at 8:38 AM

@Tony Cross Dimming physical monitor brightness is theoretically possible via DDC/CI but not necessarily possible to dim all the way. There's also a lot of buggy implementations out there.

I am changing the brightness now using a tool from Nirsoft but it means two separate actions; dim the brightness then blank the screen, followed by revert the screen and replace the brightness. It would be so much better if your tool could do both. :)
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Tony Cross
Friday, December 27, 2019 at 3:45 AM



@Tony Cross Dimming physical monitor brightness is theoretically possible via DDC/CI but not necessarily possible to dim all the way. There's also a lot of buggy implementations out there.



I am changing the brightness now using a tool from Nirsoft but it means two separate actions; dim the brightness then blank the screen, followed by revert the screen and replace the brightness. It would be so much better if your tool could do both. :)

I have two batch files working now that use your tool to blank/reveal the screen and a NirSoft tool to dim/brighten the monitor settings. The reveal batch file shortcut is assigned a keyboard hotkey which works - except when the (primary) screen is blanked via your tool.

I have a shortcut on the taskbar so can reveal my primary monitor via the second screen, but do you know why the shortcut hotkey doesn't work when the primary screen is blanked?

What would be really good is if I could map the 'double-click on a blanked screen' to a specific batch file, then I could run my reveal batch file just by double-clicking the screen. I already have the 'blank the screen' batch file mapped to a right-click on the screen.
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Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 7:54 PM
Hi,

I switch between two screen setups using Helios Display Manager. This allows to switch between single screen setup and nvidia surround screen setup.

Normally I use MultiScreen Blank to turn off the 4th info screen sitting above a triple screen monitor setup as one large nvidia surround screen. Sadly I have to switch to a 4 single screen setup for a few games. In order to be able to use MultiScreen Blank after having swtiched the screen setups (MSB then still shows the old/wrong screen setup) I have to open settings and close them again, which reloads the correct screen setup.

So in this situation it would be great to have a F5 / refresh function to load the current (changed) screen settings into MSB.

cheers,
Bernhard

PS Super thankfull for the existence of this tool as I used it many times daily!!
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Bernhard
Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 8:37 PM
sorry - I changed my workflow and probably won't have to switch monitor configuration any more - therefore - at least in my case, a refresh function is not necessary any more... : )
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Guy
Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 12:27 PM
Hello,

Is it also posible to add a image? Maybe also combinate it with the brightness function?
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nookkin
Friday, January 3, 2020 at 9:20 PM
@Guy You can do this with a scrap but not a full blank. (Note that a scrap can cover the entire screen but you can't click through it.)

@Bernhard I'll keep this in mind for a future version, will probably want this configurable in some way as reloading will likely end up revealing screens unexpectedly if the dimensions don't match exactly
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Guy
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at 3:14 PM
I use for now the blank option on several machines, this with the taskmanager.

But sometimes it won’t blank and the taskmsnager says it couldn’t run.

Is there some how a force run?

Guy
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azumukupoe
Friday, April 10, 2020 at 8:44 AM
How do I make them come on top?
I'm still seeing notifications and stuff on them.
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Friday, April 10, 2020 at 4:56 PM
@azumukupoe Unfortunately Windows only allows for "topmost", which means that both MultiscreenBlank and notifications are at the same relative level. Beyond that a new window will open over the top of an existing one which is what you're seeing.

I implemented a timer a while back (where it would repeatedly bring the window to the top) but that made it almost impossible to close and introduced lag. I'll revisit that when I get a chance!
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dan stevenson
Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 7:04 PM
This is an awesome app. I can't believe its actually free; I couldn't even find a "Donate" link. You might consider a Free and Pro version, especially if you intend to add any new features. Most people would consider $10 or $20 a small price to pay for a simple, customizable solution to monitor dimming/blanking (free support for Pro, free version ... meh)

I tried every monitor app I could find for a simple solution to dimming or blanking monitors with the mouse. Either they did not have the feature or I could not figure out how to set it up. Most had way more features than I was looking for anyway. The screen savers, split screens and customizable task bars were nice but I wasn't really looking for all those bells and whistles.

Finally I decided to dig deeper into the Multiscreen Blank help files because they seemed to be saying that I could create some kind of clickable shortcut. I'm not big on Hotkeys; its too much trouble trying to fumble around and find the right keys to press. I prefer to just click my way around the internet.

After some trial and error, I finally managed to create a working desktop icon that would blank my second monitor. I never could figure out how to make a proper shortcut so I finally just right clicked on another exe file and selected create shortcut. From there I renamed the new shortcut, changed it's icon and modified its properties to reflect those in the Multiscreen help files. With one working shortcut, making two more was easy.

I decided to go one step further and make some customized icons that have a blue background to match my taskbar with the text D1, D2 and T2 (toggledim1, toggledim2, toggle 2). All three shortcuts were then placed in the quick-launch.



I use this every day, working, watching movies, working while watching movies etc. Glad I decided to take a closer look at Multiscreen Blank. It ended up being exactly what I was looking for.

Its pretty much perfect like it is but here's some suggestions anyway :).

Make a YouTube help video. No videos anywhere for people like me who don't know how to make shortcuts or set up any of the options.

Don't know if its even possible but another cool feature would be some kind of slider in the main window. Instead of needing to change the shortcut you could just do toggledim_slider and dim to whatever level you have preset.

Larger font for the monitor names, they are really small on my display.

That's it. Thanks for making a great app.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 7:11 PM
@dan stevenson Thanks for the feedback and glad you're enjoying the app!

For shortcuts, you can use MultiscreenBlank.exe and right-click-drag to create it, then modify the parameters.

There's no slider in the main window but you can right-click an icon and select a specific Dim level from a few presets (custom levels will happen eventually).

You can also create shortcuts for the tray menu (which you access by right-clicking on the MultiscreenBlank icon instead of wasting taskbar space). Do this from the "Shortcuts" tab in Settings.

I'll consider more UI customizations like font size too. Unfortunately can't promise an ETA as I'm unusually busy these days.
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Mambans
Thursday, May 7, 2020 at 5:02 PM
I absolutely love this software, the very thing I needed, especially with the command line arguments.

1 question: I current have:
"D:\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2.exe /blank id \\.\DISPLAY3 id \\.\DISPLAY4"
to blank 2 screens but is it possible to also add a dim arg to also dim \\.\DISPLAY2?

example: "D:\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2.exe /blank id \\.\DISPLAY3 id \\.\DISPLAY4 /toggledim70 id \\.\DISPLAY2"
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Saturday, May 9, 2020 at 9:33 PM
@Mambans You can't do it directly as a single command at the moment, but you can definitely do this by combining the commands into a script (such as a batch file) and then calling that batch file from wherever you need to launch it. Are you doing this from a keyboard shortcut, icon, or as part of launching some other program?
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Mambans
Saturday, May 9, 2020 at 9:47 PM
@nookkin Ah oke, I run the program as part of another program.
Just solved it by launching the program twice with two different shortcuts with different arguments.
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Sergio
Sunday, May 17, 2020 at 1:20 PM
Omg omg this is what I looked for to save older screen of my laptop in multiscreen configuration!
Am I right that blank screen will prevent burn ins?
Moreover, is there any workaround to make timed blanking of screen which is not used (mouse cursor is not used on it)? And revealing when cursor moves in?
P.s. make "donate" page :)
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Darrell
Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 3:10 PM
Dan and Sergio,

While there is not a Multiscreen Blank donation link at present, there is a donate link for the NPS Image Editor program at:

http://nps.nookkin.com/donate.ndoc

Even though the link is specified for another program, any money donated there will still end up supporting Alexey "Lyosha" Blinnikov.
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daniel stevenson
Saturday, May 23, 2020 at 12:04 AM
"While there is not a Multiscreen Blank donation link at present, there is a donate link for the NPS Image Editor program ..."

Done and done. Thanks Darrell !
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Karl Tremain
Tuesday, June 30, 2020 at 5:55 PM
Hi All, just a note to those that are discussing hotkeys/shortcuts for use with this, i've just set up buttons on my Elgato Streamdeck that calls the app with various command-line parameters to perform my required screen blank/unblank tasks.

Thanks for the app Nookkin!
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Gustavo
Monday, August 3, 2020 at 12:07 AM
Hi there!

I went through the whole thread and saw a couple of guys asking the question I'm about to ask but it seems it remains unanswered... or I just didn't see the answer for what it was, so here I quote Sergio:

Is there any workaround to make timed blanking of screen which is not used (mouse cursor is not used on it)? And revealing when cursor moves in?

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Jared
Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 11:48 AM
Hi Nookkin,

First off, love the software, and thank you for giving it out for free!

Second, I've got an issue that I hope you can help with. Right now I'm using the software to create a mirror of a display, and display it on a second display, which works perfect. The issue that I'm running into, is that I don't have a way to CLOSE the mirrored window, without running a batch script as an admin, which I can't do for the use-case I have. Is there any way to close a mirrored window with a command line shortcut?
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Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 12:21 PM
@Jared I think you discovered a missing piece of functionality! There should be a "unmirror" command but I didn't add it. I can do that next time I have a chance to work on the software, maybe this weekend?

As a sort of nuclear option workaround you can run the below to close everything which will close all mirrors as well

multiscreenblank2 /quit



And of course you can manually close a full-screen mirror by right-clicking on it
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LOK MAN WONG
Friday, December 11, 2020 at 12:48 AM
Hi everyone,

I would like to know if this software is able to fully blank a 34 inch ultrawide screen?
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Sunday, December 13, 2020 at 9:05 PM
@LOK MAN WONG It will fully cover any size of monitor supported by Windows (and if it doesn't, that would be a bug so please report it here!)

The limitation is it can only display a black image, it won't actually put the monitor to sleep via DPMS.
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Dashii
Friday, March 5, 2021 at 7:46 PM
Sorry, I'm kind of new to this, but I love what you've done! Is there any way to make the toggle wait before toggling the monitor back on? Say toggle off for 10 seconds, then back on?
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Jocelyn Viau
Saturday, April 3, 2021 at 12:27 PM
GREAT TOOL!
I would like to be able to blank a screen using another color than black. I know that I can use scraps to do that but it is much more work to create the scrap, change its color and size, and then clone it to the other screen I also want to make white.

Why white? The first reason is that, during a Zoom or Teams meeting on my main (center) monitor, I would like to use my left and right monitors as a light source to improve the camera image quality. Many smartphones are already using this technique as a makeshift flash for improving lighting while taking selfie pictures. The second reason is that, during a corporate meeting, the white color is more elegant when blanking a PowerPoint presentation which has a white background.

So, having the ability to save scraps profiles would be a great feature to add. If saving scraps profiles is complex to implement, just having the ability to choose the blanking color would already be a great improvement. Thanks!
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Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 1:54 AM
@Jocelyn Viau Released an update that gives you the ability to quickly invert a blank screen to white in the right-click menu, or quickly convert it to a scrap for more options.

Oh but there's more! You can also copy a command-line for any scrap you have open so you can save it for later (either a Windows shortcut or MultiscreenBlank's custom commands)!
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Doug
Sunday, May 16, 2021 at 10:26 AM
I am seeing bugs when using this tool in conjunction with switching virtual desktops (Win + Ctrl + Left/Right).

It seems like it tracks the blank status per virtual desktop, but I ended up in the situation where the tool shows all displays are on but one was still off and nothing I did could make it come back on.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 10:30 AM
@Doug It's possible to "pin" an app and all of its windows to all desktops -- go into Task View, right-click the blanker window, and choose "Show this window on all desktops" and "Show all windows from this app on all desktops".

Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't seem to provide an API to programmatically do this. It also "forgets" which windows were pinned so it won't remember in the future, and "show all windows from this app" doesn't seem to work at all for me, so even this workaround isn't great. When I have some free time I'll poke around a bit more and see if there's some undocumented way to do it.
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Brandon
Friday, June 11, 2021 at 1:25 AM
So this program was working fine for me earlier today, however I reinstalled windows earlier, and reinstalled this as well, but now it refuses to open. Ive tried two versions, and extracted it from the zip to a new folder. Im kinda lost on whats going on.
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Friday, June 11, 2021 at 10:25 AM
@Brandon How is it "refusing to open"? Are you getting errors?

If you delete multiscreenblank2.ini, that will reset everything and it should work. Note that the default configuration redirects to %appdata%\nookkin\MultiscreenBlank\MultiscreenBlank2.ini
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CaptainYan
Friday, June 18, 2021 at 10:24 AM
Hello there,
Firstly thanks for this great tool. My question is that for some reason, "show mouse cursor on black screens" after checking and applying it. Do you know how to fix it? It is a newly installed windows 21H1. I did not have such issue before I remembered.
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Hackerman
Thursday, July 15, 2021 at 9:31 PM
@CaptainYan
I have the same issue. In fact, none of the settings in that specific tab seem to save properly. They all reset after pressing "OK"
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Kalleheikki
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 2:24 AM
@nookkin Awesome, thank you!
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novemberlc
Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 3:17 PM
@CaptainYan @Hackerman
I'm also having the same issue. I can't change the fade duration or the function.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2021 at 5:16 PM
@CaptainYan @Hackerman @novemberlc I've released an update that fixes this
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cadaei
Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 11:23 AM
Hi, thanks for creating this software, I use it for some years now frequently and it's very useful.
I'm experiencing a bug where MultiScreenBlank toggles only the main monitor after the monitors went to sleep and are activated again. I have two monitors and if after some time windows puts them to sleep mode and I reactivate them, MultiScreenBlank only targets the main monitor when I toggle the visibility or dimming, no matter if I target the main monitor, the second monitor or all monitors. The second monitor is always ignored. Restarting MultiScreenBlank fixes that until the monitors go to sleep again.
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Reki
Wednesday, November 24, 2021 at 4:51 PM
@cadaei Same issue, don't know how to solve as I use sleep function all the time.
The app forgets that only secondary display needs to be faded. Instead, it fades the main one.
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Wednesday, November 24, 2021 at 5:15 PM
@Reki and @cadaei - the latest update provides an option to reload the display configuration when a change is detected (and there's a setting to do this automatically). The reason it "forgets" the secondary monitor is because when the monitor sleeps, Windows acts as if it was disconnected and moves windows around. If this doesn't fix the issue then let me know and I'll try another method to detect and reload.
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Reki
Wednesday, November 24, 2021 at 6:15 PM
@nookkin I can confirm newest update works. "Reload monitor configuration" option helped and now monitors are detected correctly.
Thanks a lot!
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Reki
Thursday, November 25, 2021 at 5:41 AM
@Reki It appears, it stopped working again. It reverts to fading the main screen (thinking its Display 2 instead of Display 1).
I am not sure is this related to my KVM, as I switch back and forth between my PC and laptop (maybe it can't detect signals properly).
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Robert Finson
Tuesday, April 5, 2022 at 11:23 PM
I'm experiencing a problem when attempting to use shortcuts. First, when I click the Shortcuts tab, the line of text that reads "Left click action:" is not showing properly. It looks sort of like the text field has a background that matches the color of the dialog box background, and is overlapping on that entire row of text and the field to the right of it.

More importantly, I've made a shortcut named "Sides" with the command line value "/blank allexcept current", and assigned this to the Middle click action. When I attempt to launch this shortcut, I get a small dialog box pop up that reads "Invalid action specified: sides". I've tried various other commands, omitting the MultiscreenBlank2, with similar results. I've rebooted my computer after installing Multiscreen Blank 2
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Obi
Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 12:18 PM
@Robert Finson
You have to write the command directly in the middle click action textbox, the shortcuts at the bottom are just extra shortcuts you can access through right clicking the icon.

Also @nookkin thank you very much for the amazing software!, I have one question though, right now there appears to be an idle/inactivity timer that automatically blanks all monitors after just one minute, but I can't find any mention of it nor way to configure it, it would be awesome if it could be integrated into the settings and even better if it could be per monitor.
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Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 12:32 PM
@Obi MultiscreenBlank doesn't have any sort of auto-blank timer -- in theory you could make that happen with Task Scheduler and use the command line. Do you possibly have a "Blank" screensaver or screen timeout configured in Windows?
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Obi
Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 2:37 PM
@nookkin
You were right my bad, it must have turned on while trying other similar software. Yours seems to be the best one with the customizable blanking duration and ease function and also seems to be the most responsive, so thanks!

Hopefully in the future windows allows detecting if a particular monitor is idle, but for now I guess the shortcut to blank non current monitors is the best solution.
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Matt D
Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 10:27 PM
Hello there

The multiscreen blank continues to revert back to the standard default settings everytime windows restarts, the 500ms fade time etc comes back, there is no .ini file in the app data folder and there isnt one in the folder that i use to keep the .exe.

I have no idea why the .ini is not appearing, I also have some questions.

Is there an option to get blank all screen on the context menu, when I leave my PC I want to blank them all in one hit from right click.

I do not understand how the shortcuts work and the cmd options, there doesnt seem to be an example anywhere and when I copy your it just says it unrecognised.

Are you able to give some options to have blank all screen on one right click on content and blank all, is it possible to get the registry key to that context menu option to change it all.

Again I cannot find a way to keep the settings of the program, right click blank all, even make a shortcut to blank all, there is no examples on how to do any of this.

I need to be able to shut my monitors off without having to right click blank one screen then across to the other screen, very convoluted,

Can someone please help with some into on how to do these things
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Matt D`
Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 1:24 AM
@Matt D Ok I have Found the context Menu, thats great.

Can someone tell me where I can access the context menu entries from right clicking a blank screen?

I am trying to just have one option only as on the 4k screen the context menu item when I right click the 4k screen when blanked is really small.

I am wanting to reduce the options from 4 to Reveal All Screens when you right click a blanked screen, the 4 options are way too small and one option will be easy just to select it because I know what it will do.

Can you tell me the Reg Entry for the Blank screen context menu please?

Thank you
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Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 12:03 PM
@Matt D Both the tray icon's right-click menu and a blank screen's right-click menu contain options for "Blank All", "Reveal All", and "Blank/Reveal Group" (where you can define groups of screens instead of every screen).

The only things stored in the registry are system integrations. Multiscreen Blank's settings live in the .ini file.

Are you saying that there is no .ini file being generated? Are you using the full installer or standalone, and if it's standalone, did you delete the .ini file that came in the .zip folder? Make sure you have write access to the file, e.g. if you manually copy it to Program Files it won't work. I would recommend using the full installer (it can install for just the current user without admin rights).
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Matt D
Monday, May 16, 2022 at 2:28 AM
Ok i have the .ini working in the directory now thank you, is it possible to have just the one option on the right click context menu when the screens are blank??

I am only wanting the one context entry as on the 4k screen these options are really small and having the one reveal option the one that is highlighted in the screenshot is all I am after, its too hard to look for the exact entry out of the 4 due to the context menu not scaling properly on my 4k screen.

Again is it possible to have just the one option on the context menu that appears when the screens are blanked ?

This context menu is your specific one that comes up, can it be edited please?

Here is a link to the screenshot

https://i.imgur.com/nqpggLi.jpg

Cheers
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Monday, May 16, 2022 at 9:56 AM
@Matt D Unfortunately there's no way to customize the menus presently. I can keep this in mind for the future. In the meantime you can use command line arguments with AutoHotkey to create a key binding.
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Matt D
Monday, May 16, 2022 at 5:27 PM
I have just added reveal all to the regular windows context menu for now and will use it on the non blanked screen. Your context menu whilst blanked doesn't scale properly and its painfully hard to scroll through 4 options. I only need one option hence asking the question, thank you!
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Ludwig
Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 3:22 PM
@nookkin
Hey thanks for the tool and explanation for hotkeys! AutoHotKey isn't working with the toggle function but I can do blankall + reveal.
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Ludwig
Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 5:50 PM

@nookkin

Hey thanks for the tool and explanation for hotkeys! AutoHotKey isn't working with the toggle function but I can do blankall + reveal.

Actually I did "/toggle allexcept current" and it's working now!
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Math
Monday, August 1, 2022 at 8:27 PM
I feel like I'm going insane so I kinda need some help I guess..!
Is there a way to keep the monitors in "duplicate" mode, but only blank one of them?
Thanks in advance! Cheers
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Monday, August 1, 2022 at 8:40 PM
@Math Kind of? If you duplicate Monitor A to Monitor B, you can blank Monitor B while leaving Monitor A visible. However you cannot blank Monitor A by itself because the screen mirror will also mirror the "blanking" onto monitor B.
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Math
Monday, August 1, 2022 at 9:38 PM
@nookkin Yeah that's the thing, ideally I would have Windows duplicating my PC monitor to the TV, and I'd be able to blank my monitor at will (cause if I turn it off the OS and/or the hardware considers that screen unplugged and it messes up everything). Oh well! Thanks
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Cain
Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 11:22 PM
Hello! this is a absolute blessing, i have one issue, im currently running on windows 11 and it doesn't open? i would have to reinstall it to get it to open, but on other instances it just doesn't open , im not sure if it is just my end and im not sure were to get help on this
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Pro
Saturday, August 27, 2022 at 5:37 PM
Hi how do I make a shortcut please help?
I dont know where to put /blank all
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cadaei
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 at 3:53 AM
@Pro Create a link to the application, then right click, properties, then append the command to the target. It looks similar to these:
"C:\Program Files\Nookkin\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2.exe" /blank all
"C:\Program Files\Nookkin\MultiscreenBlank2\MultiscreenBlank2.exe" /toggle group 0
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David
Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at 6:31 PM
Has anyone had an issue passing percentage values through the command line? When attempting to use /toggledimXX, I find that no matter what value I put in, it defaults to ~10-25?
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Rob
Tuesday, September 27, 2022 at 4:28 PM
Is there a way to have the screen go black when not in use but come to life when I bring the mouse over to it? It would be great for it to stay dark most of the time until I need it without having to go into the settings and turn it back on. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
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PhreakyByNature
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 at 8:33 AM
@Rob
For that I usually just use a shortcut on the desktop to "C:\Windows\System32\scrnsave.scr" with a Shortcut key "Ctrl+Alt+S" usually. Seems to work from anywhere and blanks all screens (because it runs a blank screensaver).

In my Windows Screensaver setting I have it set to (None), so it doesn't come on automatically, but only when I trigger it. Of course you can have it come on automatically by selecting "Blank" and have it come on at a set time.

I use this for immediate blanking with mouse wake up for short periods of time but use MultiScreenBlank2 for individual screens in a multi monitor setup as needed. It would be great if there were more context menu options or even right-click-icon options for dimming a screen, but this is great stuff anyway. Thanks nookkin!
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Matt D
Tuesday, October 25, 2022 at 4:50 PM

@Rob

For that I usually just use a shortcut on the desktop to "C:\Windows\System32\scrnsave.scr" with a Shortcut key "Ctrl+Alt+S" usually. Seems to work from anywhere and blanks all screens (because it runs a blank screensaver).



In my Windows Screensaver setting I have it set to (None), so it doesn't come on automatically, but only when I trigger it. Of course you can have it come on automatically by selecting "Blank" and have it come on at a set time.



I use this for immediate blanking with mouse wake up for short periods of time but use MultiScreenBlank2 for individual screens in a multi monitor setup as needed. It would be great if there were more context menu options or even right-click-icon options for dimming a screen, but this is great stuff anyway. Thanks nookkin!

I did something like that for conext for both my screens, its a lifesaver now that I wont do without Phreaky

#########################################

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank]
@="<< Blank All Screens >>"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MultiscreenBlank2\\MultiscreenBlank2.exe\" /minimized /blank all"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank 2]
@=">> Blank This Screen <<"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank 2\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MultiscreenBlank2\\MultiscreenBlank2.exe\" /minimized /blank current"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank 3]
@="<> Reveal All Screens <>"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\MultiscreenBlank 3\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\MultiscreenBlank2\\MultiscreenBlank2.exe\" /minimized /reveal all"

########################################
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Nicholas Courtier
Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 11:23 AM
The [Shortcuts] tab in Settings doesn't display properly. It looks like one should be able to scroll up or enlarge the window but that is not possible. Any suggestions? Multiscreen 2.8.0.0.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1X6aj9xjX_4G2oqFOuAT4l7nrZaOmNYpO&authuser=nicholascourtier%40gmail.com&usp=drive_fs
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Nicholas Courtier
Thursday, November 10, 2022 at 7:30 PM
@Nicholas Courtier Answer by email. Thanks to nookin.

Lyosha Blinnikov
5:24 PM (3 minutes ago)
to me

Thanks for the feedback! This is definitely a bug, caused by a combination of how Windows and .NET handle scaling. In the meantime it should work correctly at 100% scaling but you'll need to log out and back in to apply it (because again Windows will try to "virtualize" the old settings when you change it and just scale the bad one down).
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MEL
Thursday, December 22, 2022 at 8:37 PM
Is there a way for image scraps to resize/fill to the width or height of the scrap window ?
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TronKitten
Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 1:57 AM
Sent a bug report as well, but figured I'd post here as well.

Trying to blank my second monitor in portrait mode (1080*1920) only blanks about half of the monitor while the remainder is still visible.
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MathieuG
Friday, December 8, 2023 at 5:35 PM
Hello,

It is possible to control the Multiscreen Blank software remotely. To be able to turn the screens on and off from another PC, for example, simply and intuitively? Thanks for your help
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Hackerman
Friday, December 8, 2023 at 6:06 PM
@MathieuG
I'm not the developer, but personally I use UnifiedRemote on my phone with some custom remotes that I've set to trigger some MultiscreenBlank commands.

If you really need to use another computer, you could probably ssh and run the same commands.
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Friday, December 8, 2023 at 7:42 PM
@MathieuG I'm actually starting to work on a web-based remote control built into Multiscreen Blank that automatically updates itself with your current configuration! But in the meantime you can use 3rd-party software to do it. I use EventGhost with its HTTP server and a custom front-end I use for my other home automation, but anything that can run commands will work,
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Jae Choi
Friday, May 3, 2024 at 12:32 PM
What a great app Alexey. Windows 10/11 is missing so many basic but important features and this is one of them. One suggestion: Although I trust you, it's still scary to see Windows warns about the potential threat of the program and you have to manually click "run anyway" button. Please give it a proper sign and make the installer not display such text that can scare people off.
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Der_Mundi
Monday, June 24, 2024 at 4:47 PM
Hi, is there any way to Shortcut mirroring a screen, ive just figured out how to hotkey shortcuts and it would help me a bunch if i could do it for mirroring aswell

(im running version 2.12.0)
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Monday, June 24, 2024 at 7:55 PM
@Der_Mundi You have a few options.

Mirror a region of the desktop to a specific monitor

MultiscreenBlank2 /mirror region 0,0,640,480 to id \\.\DISPLAY2



Mirror the second monitor to the default location

MultiscreenBlank2 /mirror id \\.\DISPLAY2



Similar arguments to blanking.
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Tony
Saturday, June 29, 2024 at 1:04 AM
@Karl Tremain
How did you do this?
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Thursday, July 25, 2024 at 12:57 PM
I am normally extremely particular about what I install on my system via "full installer" nowadays, which is why I love tools like this that offer standalone binary executables to run as needed and keep things light. That said... I have been running this tool for the past few months and have grown to love it, and the developer has been more than helpful with supplying fixes. So the greatest compliment I could note here is by acknowledging that with the latest version I moved over to the full installer version, seeing as I use it all the time, and it has proven to be very lightweight on the system in the past couple months of use.

This is the first time in a long time that I have come across a new tool that is both free and and developed well. It reminds me of the early 2000s when hacker-developers would release tools purely to help themselves and the community they are a part of, an idea that seems to have been lost more and more in time. Thanks for this useful tool sir!
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Pyrocumulous
Saturday, September 28, 2024 at 10:30 PM
In case anyone else is trying to use this to blank a primary (OLED) monitor while playing in VR, suggest using /toggledim99 (or similar) as complete blanking of the screen for prevents using the mouse in the VR in session (lose focus from the application). Voice attack is ideal for triggering this.
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Charles Martin
Monday, October 21, 2024 at 10:24 AM
Longtime very happy user of Multiscreen Blank. A request:

(Windows 11) I use 2 displays, and sometimes the program I'm using on the main screen (Scrivener) blocks access to the tray icons. I have to hit esc and exit the viewing mode of the program to hit the Multiscreen Blank tray icon.

WIndows doesn't allow a second set of tray icons on the secondary display -- just pinned program icons. I could reverse main and secondary display, but is there a way that a regular program icon could be introduced that would be pinned to the taskbar, and which would do the one-click blank? Probably not, but I thought I'd ask.

Many thanks
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Dillon F
Monday, November 18, 2024 at 7:18 PM
Amazing! Thank you for making this! I wanted a way to easily blank a screen to reduce OLED burn in while I was playing on another monitor / VR. This worked PERFECTLY! Weird that VirusTotal flags it as a virus, but it seems okay .. lmao
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