Twinkle Tray lets you easily manage the brightness levels of multiple monitors. Even though Windows is capable of adjusting the backlight on most monitors, it typically doesn't support external monitors. Windows 10 & 11 also lack any ability to manage the brightness of multiple displays. This app inserts a new icon into your system tray, where you can click to have instant access to the brightness levels of all compatible displays.
Design & Personalization
Twinkle Tray will automatically adjust the look and feel to match your Windows version and preferences. Additional options are available to select the Windows version and theme of your choice.
Twinkle Tray features
Twinkle Tray offers a variety of options and features to match your preferences. All of which are 100% free.
- Seamlessly blends in with Windows 10 & Windows 11.
- Works with most laptops and DDC/CI-enabled monitors.
- Bind hotkeys to adjust the brightness of specifically or all displays.
- Control DDC/CI features such as contrast, volume, and power state.
- Supports brightness adjustments by time of day or when idle.
- Supports command line arguments for custom scripting.
- Normalize backlight across different monitors.
- Localized for over 20 languages.
- Starts up with Windows.
Twinkle Tray 1.16.0 Beta 1 changelog:
New features & improvements
- Added support for user-defined custom DDC/CI features per display. If you supply a valid VCP code (decimal or hexadecimal), a new slider will be added to the brightness flyout.
- Implemented additional customizations to DDC/CI features (contrast, volume, and custom). You can now set min/max values, and link the feature to the brightness slider. As an example, you could link contrast with brightness, so you can reach lower perceived brightness levels on your monitor than with brightness adjustments alone.
- Overhauled the hotkeys system. You can now assign multiple monitors per hotkey, set/adjust brightness to any value, and send arbitrary VCP codes (contrast, volume, power state, etc).
- Implemented per-app brightness profiles. When a specific app is the focused window, a user-defined brightness profile can apply to all displays. The original brightness will be restored when switching back from the app. This should be especially useful for games. Please note that Twinkle Tray does not track which display the app is on. There are no plans for that functionality at this time.
- Additionally, profiles can be saved to the system tray right-click menu to quickly switch the brightness of multiple monitors to the user-defined profiles.
- Added option to trigger brightness changes according to the sun's position. Please note that Twinkle Tray cannot get your coordinates. You must provide them yourself.
- Improved accuracy and details for CLI commands.
- Twinkle Tray now uses an internal UDP server for certain CLI commands. By default, it will not open ports to your local or external networks. It only communicates over localhost. If you would like to implement a UDP client for external brightness/DDC control, documentation will be available in the future.
- Changing the power state of a monitor via DDC/CI will now attempt to toggle the display back on, if applicable. You may need to adjust the new "Power State Signal" setting in order for it to work for your monitor(s). Please keep in mind that not all displays correctly support this DDC/CI command and can cause your display to become unresponsive. There is nothing Twinkle Tray can do to further improve compatibility for this DDC/CI command.
- The code for the Mica blur effect has been refactored to use fewer resources and apply quicker at startup.
- The amount of brightness changed when using the tray scroll shortcut is now adjustable.
- Several dependencies have been removed or replaced, reducing the app's size.
- Hidden displays will no longer be affected by brightness updates.
Other information
- The UIs for the new features are not final.
- Twinkle Tray now reliably builds using the stable Node/Electron versions (as of writing). Additionally, a GitHub Actions CI process has been implemented to monitor successful building. Artifacts from this CI process are not considered stable Twinkle Tray builds. I will not provide any support for builds generated from the CI process.
- It is strongly recommended that you use a DDC/CI app such as ControlMyMonitor to understand the capabilities of your display prior to setting up VCP code hotkeys. Twinkly Tray's UI is not designed for quick and arbitrary DDC/CI adjustments outside of brightness control. Twinkle Tray cannot help you if you send a VCP code that makes your display unusable.
Twinkle Tray 1.16.0 Beta 2:
- Fixed broken app updater.
- Fixed broken WMIC communication.
- Fixed profile name input losing focus when entering text.
- Fixed profile delete button not working.
Twinkle Tray 1.16.0 Beta 3:
- Added "Refresh Displays" hotkey action.
- Fixed Twinkle Tray not starting if no hotkeys had been set prior to v1.16.0.
- Fixed "aggressive" overlay type not working as intended.
- Fixed multiple profiles being deleted at once.
- Fixed non-brightness VCP codes not being tracked properly when changed through Twinkle Tray.
- Fixed profiles with empty paths getting triggered on any window.
- Fixed contrast/volume hotkeys not activating.
Download: Twinkle Tray 1.16.0 Beta 3 | 69.3 MB (Open Source)
Links: Twinkle Tray Website | Twinkle Tray @Microsoft Store
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