Tag: Download

I added another new tool to my Tiny Tools Collection: ToggleDisplay

Code: https://github.com/sgrottel/tiny-tools-collection/tree/main/ToggleDisplay
Released Binary: https://github.com/sgrottel/tiny-tools-collection/releases/tag/ToggleDisplay-v1.0

It allows you to enable, disable, and toggle a display.

Why? My computer is connected to 2-3 displays. Two computer monitors on my desk for work. And a TV on the other side of the room, e.g. to play games from my computer or to watch video files in style.

Often enough I boot the computer, and then my mouse disappears from the desktop, because I forgot the TV was configured “on” before, and the mouse moved beyond the desktop monitors. Annoying. The built-in feature “Windows-Key + P” is understandably limited to two monitors. So, I always had to press “Windows + P”, then “Further Settings”, wait for the dialog to appear, fiddle around, press apply, … you get my point.

So, I researched the net a bit on how to programmatically enable or disable a display. And there are several free tools to do that. I tried two, and both did not work. Then there is a hack with using a Windows 10 executable on Windows 11. Yeah, no. Ok. Search on!

It turns out, there is an easy API for that: ChangeDisplaySettingsEx. Some experimental code later I was able to deactivate the display, but not to (re-)activate it. Not good enough. Search on!

Some search later, turns out there is a second API, not as simple and with next to no useful documentation: SetDisplayConfig. This one seems to be the API the windows built in display configuration dialog uses. But … how. I found code by “PuFF1k” on StackOverflow (https://stackoverflow.com/a/62038912/552373) who reverse engineered the API calls of the windows dialog. I tried his code, and it works. Nice! Thank you, PuFF1k!

The core of the trick is to not provide any modeInfo data to SetDisplayConfig, and to set all sourceInfo.modeInfoIdx and targetInfo.modeInfoIdx of all paths to DISPLAYCONFIG_PATH_MODE_IDX_INVALID.

Some refactoring and some cleanup later, I have ToggleDisplay, ready to be shared with the world.

By the way, I now also included source code of some of my older tools in this Tiny Tools Collection repository:

I uses that opportunity to also update these projects to recent DotNet runtimes. I did not set up any automated build pipeline or releases. Maybe some other time.

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Redate is another tool in my growing toolbox. The idea is simple: many applications generate files, write files, update files, with exactly the same content as before. The file write date, of course, is updated. The content stays the same. Other tools, then again, us the file write date as indicate if the files have been changed. Which makes sense, right.

So, this little tool, “Redate,” stores the MD5 hashes of the files, and their original write dates. When the tool is then re-run on that list of files, it restores the original write dates for all files with unchanged MD5s. And, that’s it.

I use it for Vue.js projects, to keep the write dates of files in the dist folders. Then, a simple FTP-sync only needs to update changed files for the final deployment. This helps for projects with many unchanged assets.

You can grab source and binary releases from github.

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Once again, it is time for one of my little tools, which the world does not need (but I do). The idea is simple: think of a series of files in one directory, e.g. music files of a audio book or video files of a TV series. Every once in a while you watch/listen to one of the files and days later you do not remember, which was the last file you have seen. My tool registers to the context menu of the Windows Explorer and provides a simply way of setting a bookmark at the file in the directory. The bookmark is an empty file with the same name, additionally using an extra file name extension). The whole thing is no shell extension, but a simple, normal DotNet application which writes to the right places in the registry. Simple, not elegant, but working.

FileBookmark.zipFileBookmark.zip File Bookmark Utility
[91.2 KB; MD5: bd58a615775c9897ae82536bb678b05b; Mehr Info]

And, just because I can, here is the source code::

FileBookmark_src.zipFileBookmark_src.zip File Bookmark Utility Source Code
[60.2 KB; MD5: 84071f778ccb81b0c39101577a3fa204; Mehr Info]

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Software should solve problems. Sometimes this is the case.

I had a problem:

I have a somewhat older convertible laptop, an ASUS Aspire 1820PT. A nice and cheap convertible of it’s time. With touch screen support for up to two fingers and with an acceptable computational power. I have upgraded it in the meantime with an SSD and I am now running Windows 8. So far so good. The problem, however, is that the tilt sensor is no longer supported by Windows 8. :-(

So I needed a solution. Hacking drivers or even writing drivers myself is not up my alley. I am an application developer. But, if something does not work automatically (anymore), we just need to make the manual use as comfortable as possible. That’s why I wrote a tiny tool: the DisplayRotator.

The idea is simple: the tool is attached to the taskbar. As soon as it is started it shows DisplayRotatorScreena simple window with four buttons for the four possible display rotation settings. Press one of these buttons and the display settings are changed accordingly. With this, I can setup my desktop orientation of my convertible with two clicks, even two tapps with my finger, and rotate the desktop aynway I like.

DisplayRotator.zipDisplayRotator.zip Display Rotation Tool
[152 KB; MD5: 07c3efddd05a98bf4d02db595b87f2fe; Mehr Info]

And, because I can, the zip also contains the source code of the tool. It is written in C# and naturally uses the Windows API to change the display settings. Nice and easy. With the same code basis all display settings can be changes, like screen resolution and refresh rate. Even detaching or attaching monitors to the desktop is possible. Ok, the code for these functions is not in the tool, but the API calls are the same.

Maybe the tool can be of use to someone else too.

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