[TUTORIAL]Making a macro for turning off the keyboard and setting monitor(s) to black

This tutorial will allow you to press a button to turn off the keyboard lighting as well as set your monitor(s) to black. Note that this will not truly turn off the screens.

 

First you want to make a new profile and name it whatever you want. I named mine "Black." Check the "Link profile to program" box and hit Browse.

 

In the file name box, you want to put in one of the following, based on whether you have 32-bit or 64-bit Windows:

 

• C:/Windows/System32/scrnsave.scr
  
• C:/Windows/SysWOW64/scrnsave.scr
  

 

Hit Open after entering one of these. Make sure your profile is set up correctly, then hit OK. Your profile settings should look like the following:

 

http://i.imgur.com/XQoQgeB.png

 

Next, you want to make a new action. Name it whatever you want (I'm naming it "Turn Off Screen") and click "Shortcut" on the left. Click the bubble that says "Run the following program" then put in the scrnsave.scr path you used above in the box next to the Browse button. When your action is setup correctly, hit OK. Your action's settings should resemble the following:

 

http://i.imgur.com/fzpRImw.png

 

Make sure "Automatic profile switching" is enabled by right clicking the CUE icon in the system tray and checking "Automatic profile switching."

 

http://i.imgur.com/y3pCTCi.png

 

Lastly, assign your "Turn Off Screen" action to any key. Pressing that key should turn off the keyboard and black out your monitor(s) until the mouse is moved.

Just an FYI: If you're running Win7-64, it still calls the blank screensaver in the Win32 folder.

 

C:\Windows\System32\scrnsave.scr

 

This also starts the profile when your screensaver kicks in automatically.

 

EDIT: Aaaaand... It doesn't work once the monitor turns off. I guess Windows is smart enough to disable the screensaver. Back to using IdleKey...

How would this work if you wanted to black out one of your 2 screens, to create a dark movie setting? So only 1 monitor will be lit and everything else will black. TY in advance!

Hi theace,

How would this work if you wanted to black out one of your 2 screens, to create a dark movie setting? So only 1 monitor will be lit and everything else will black.

 

The same principle will work.

1. Find a program that sets your display as you wish (e.g. one monitor on, one monitor off)
   
2. Use the CUE profile given in this thread to black out your keyboard AND launch the program you identified in the preceding step
   

 

It is left as an exercise for you to find or write a program to control your display setup..

An alternate method:

1. Set your hardware profile to be dark, to cover reboots when CUE is not running.
   
2. Create a "dark" profile, with all lighting off, including indicators set in performance settings (and mouse DPI lighting settings).
   
3. In your default profile, define a profile switch action to your "dark" profile, and do not bind any keys to this.
   
4. In your default profile, create a TIMER action that will, upon expiry, call the profile switch action. Set this TIMER to restart if key is pressed, and assign it to your Enter key.
   
5. In "dark" profile, define key actions for every key to switch to your default profile.
   
6. Make the "dark" profile your new default.