monitorctl

A way to control monitor brightness through the command line. You can change the brightness of all monitors simultaneously.

Features

• Change brightness of all monitors
• Add multi-threading for perfomance boost
• Use the ddc-i2c crate for perfomance improvement
• Increase/Decrease from the current value using -i and -d flags
• Change Contrast of all monitors
• Change Volume of all monitors
• Add the ability to change the brightness of a laptop screen.

Installation

Install the dependencies first and then build and install the binary into PATH.

Dependencies

1. DDC/CI feature need to be turned on in the monitors.
2. i2c-dev kernel module should be loaded during boot.
3. Add ~/.cargo/bin to $PATH Environment variable. Add export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.cargo/bin to ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zprofile
4. Rust Toolchain and git

To preload with modprobe

Add the following line to /etc/modules-load.d/i2c-dev.conf

i2c-dev

or run the following command

sudo echo "i2c-dev" > /etc/modules-load.d/i2c-dev.conf

To preload i2c-dev in ArchLinux with mkinitcpio

1. Open /etc/mkinitcpio with the following command: sudo vim /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
2. Add i2c-dev to MODULES -> (MODULES=(... i2c-dev))
3. Finally, run sudo mkinitcpio -P to generate linux kernel binaries
4. Reboot your computer.

If the MODULES is empty in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf then, MODULES=(i2c-dev) should be enough. ... represents other modules that are present

Build and Install

1. Clone this repo. git clone https://github.com/5iddy/monitorctl.git
2. Change directory to the repo. cd monitorctl
3. Run make install

Add cargo folder to the $PATH

You need to make sure that the binary is located in a folder that is part of the $PATH environment variable.

You can either run make install-local which will copy the binary to ~/.local/bin or you can build the project first with make build or cargo build --release and copy target/release/monitorctl to a directory that's in the path.

If you have used make install or cargo install --profile release --bin monitorctl --path ., you should make sure to add the following line in ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zprofile

export $PATH=$PATH:~/.cargo/bin/

Running without sudo

If you want to bind the commands to keyboard shortcuts. You user must be a member of the i2c group. In order to add yourself to the i2c group:

sudo usermod -aG i2c <your-username>

Usage

A command line tool to control monitor settings.
You can Increase/Decrease/Get/Set all connected monitors'
brightness, contrast, volume simultaneously.
Examples:
    monitorctl b 100   # set brightness to 100
    monitorctl b -i 10 # increase brightness by 10 points
    monitorctl b -d 10 # decrease brightness by 10 points
    monitorctl b -g    # get current brightness
    monitorctl c 100
    monitorctl c -i 10
    monitorctl c -d 10
    monitorctl c -g
    monitorctl v 100
    monitorctl v -i 10
    monitorctl v -d 10
    monitorctl v -g

Usage: monitorctl <COMMAND>

Commands:
  brightness  Change Brightness [aliases: b]
  contrast    Change Contrast [aliases: c]
  volume      Change Volume [aliases: v]
  debug       Debug Information
  help        Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help     Print help

brightness help

Change Brightness

Usage: monitorctl brightness [OPTIONS] [Value]

Arguments:
  [Value]  Value needed if '-i'/'--increase' or '-d'/'--decrease' flag is not used [default: 5]

Options:
  -g, --get-current-value  Get current value
  -i, --increase           Adds the value to the current value
  -d, --decrease           Subs the value from the current value
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

Contrast help

Change Contrast

Usage: monitorctl contrast [OPTIONS] [Value]

Arguments:
  [Value]  Value needed if '-i'/'--increase' or '-d'/'--decrease' flag is not used [default: 5]

Options:
  -g, --get-current-value  Get current value
  -i, --increase           Adds the value to the current value
  -d, --decrease           Subs the value from the current value
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

Volume help

Change Volume

Usage: monitorctl volume [OPTIONS] [Value]

Arguments:
  [Value]  Value needed if '-i'/'--increase' or '-d'/'--decrease' flag is not used [default: 5]

Options:
  -g, --get-current-value  Get current value
  -i, --increase           Adds the value to the current value
  -d, --decrease           Subs the value from the current value
  -h, --help               Print help
  -V, --version            Print version

Note: Volume sub command doesnt change pulseaudio or local volume, it changes the volume of the inbuilt monitor speaker which would have been otherwise set in panel menu.