☀️ DuskRay — Display Brightness & Warmth Control App

A small Windows system tray tool to control screen brightness (10%–100%) and warmth (in Kelvin, 2000K–6500K), with one-click enable/disable and a "run at startup" option.

☄️ How to Install (Easy Way)

🪟 Windows

1. Download the latest release.
2. Run DuskRay.exe.

💻 Setup (From Source)

1. Install Python 3.9+ — check "Add python.exe to PATH" during install.
2. Get the code, either:
   • Clone with git:

     git clone https://github.com/ErfanNamira/DuskRay.git
     cd DuskRay
     

   • Or download the ZIP: go to the DuskRay repo, click Code → Download ZIP, then extract it and open a terminal inside that folder.
3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

4. Start the app:

   pythonw duskray.py
   

✨ Using it

• Click the tray icon → instantly toggles warmth on/off. This is the fastest way to disable/re-enable the effect.
• Right-click the tray icon for the full menu:
  • Brightness → 10% to 100%, in steps of 10.
  • Warmth → Kelvin values from 6500K (neutral) down to 2000K (very warm/orange). Lower K = warmer.
  • Enabled → same toggle as clicking the icon, shown as a checkbox.
  • Run at startup → adds/removes a registry entry so DuskRay launches automatically when you log in to Windows.
  • Exit → resets the display to normal color and closes the app.

Settings are saved automatically to %APPDATA%\DuskRay\config.json.

🔧 Building DuskRay.exe

Compiling to a standalone exe gets you a proper icon, a small file size, and a correct name in Task Manager / Startup Apps (running the raw .py script via pythonw.exe would otherwise just show "pythonw.exe" there, since that's the actual program being launched, not the registry entry name).

1. Generate the icon (only needed once, or after changing the design):

   python generate_icon.py
   

   This creates duskray.ico from the same drawing code used by the tray icon, at multiple resolutions.

2. Install the build tools:

   pip install pyinstaller
   

   For a smaller exe, also install UPX (grab the -win64 build) and extract it somewhere, e.g. C:\upx.

3. Build:

   pyinstaller --onefile --noconsole --clean --strip --name "DuskRay" ^
       --icon=duskray.ico --version-file=version_info.txt ^
       --upx-dir=C:\upx ^
       --exclude-module tkinter --exclude-module unittest ^
       --exclude-module pdb --exclude-module doctest --exclude-module test ^
       duskray.py
   

4. The result is dist\DuskRay.exe. Run that instead of the .py file, and turn on "Run at startup" from its tray menu — the registry entry will point at DuskRay.exe, and Task Manager will correctly show "DuskRay" as both the process name and (from the embedded metadata) the description.

🧪 Notes on Brightness Control

screen_brightness_control uses Windows' built-in WMI brightness API, which reliably controls laptop built-in displays. External monitor support depends on the monitor/drivers supporting DDC/CI — some external monitors won't respond to software brightness changes; warmth will still work.

🧪 How the Warmth Effect Works

DuskRay adjusts the monitor's gamma ramp — the same underlying Windows mechanism used by Night Light/f.lux — using a standard color-temperature (Kelvin) approximation to compute the tint, rather than an arbitrary percentage. No overlay window is used. Turn off Windows Night Light if you use DuskRay, since two gamma-ramp tools will fight each other.

📄 License

MIT