[SLYDoggie]

I do some amateur astronomy and have used a prior Palm device which allowed you to turn the backlight so dim that you could barely see it. I would like to find a way to do this on the Treo 650. Even on the lowest backlight setting from the standard software, it would totally screw up your night vision. Obviously, I need to be able to greatly dim both the screen backlight as well as the keyboard backlights.

I have seen mention of several add-on applications like kblights, keyshades, and twilight. Rather than have to try many different apps, I thought I would toss this out to the forum to see if anybody had suggestions on applications that would accomplish this.

Regards, Steve Yarbrough (aka SLYDoggie)

[skillllllz]

Change your color theme in preferences to "Midnight" and set the backlight to the dimmest setting.

[SLYDoggie]

Dang, I thought this would be the easy answer but the screen is still too bright and the keyboard is way too bright on the lowest setting using the "Midnight" theme... Better but still not nearly dim enough.

[SLYDoggie]

Oh yeah, and that flashing green light (the one that signals that you have reception) is like a blinding beacon when your eyes are dark adjusted. Another thing that totally messes up night vision on the Treo 650. Is there a way to turn it off (short of placing electrical tape over it)?

[paulsjmail]

My suggestion is to try one of profile programs, I know of 2 that are available. The profiles program I would really recommend is "ProfileCare" which you can find here:
http://tinyurl.com/dduph

One of the things I really like about ProfileCare is that it allows you to turn the keyboard and screen down (or off) to the lowest levels permitted by the Treo (in my case, the Treo650). You could set up a profile called "astronomy" that with a push of a button, would allow you to have the treo change to a profile with all of your preferred settings (low screen display, keyboard lights off etc). When you are finished with whatever you are doing, you can simply switch back to a profile with all of your regularly used settings. I've found this works really well for driving, movies etc. Anyway, it's just a suggestion that you might find useful.

PS. Profile Care will also allow you to keep the led off.

[string3599]

LEDoff is a good way to handle the LED light. Or, I know the new Sprint firmware has that option to turn it off under Preferences.

[whatever7]

Bulter can also turn your blinking green light off.

[westronic]

I don't know how easy this is, but with no keyboard lights and a red-and-black theme's 650 you might do okay, since red does not mess up your night vision.

Alternatively, turn off the lights all together and use a red flashlight, but that might not work out very well.

[skillllllz]

Dang, I thought this would be the easy answer but the screen is still too bright and the keyboard is way too bright on the lowest setting using the "Midnight" theme... Better but still not nearly dim enough.

As far as the screen's backlight is concerned, are you dimming it using the 5-Way pad? Or are you sliding the adjuster using your stylus? I use the stylus to finely adjust it till it's just barely lit in pitch blackness. While I do agree that a red/black theme would be ideal, the "Midnight" theme at this brightness suffices. I use KeyShades to turn the keyboard backlight off entirely. LEDoff would be my choice if I wanted to turn the status LED off. Instead, I just power off the phone radio, as I do not want to be bothered with calls at that time anyway.

Going back to the red/black idea... One app, which I use, called Palm Planetarium has a "Night Mode" which switches display within the app to a red/black theme. This really should be a feature in all astronomy software.

[wallen]

If you don't like getting the stylus out in the dark: Once you move the brightness slider down to it's lowest setting with the 5-way and hit donw, press the function button followed by the right hand shift arrow to halve it's brigtness again.

[bling300c]

I do some amateur astronomy and have used a prior Palm device which allowed you to turn the backlight so dim that you could barely see it. I would like to find a way to do this on the Treo 650. Even on the lowest backlight setting from the standard software, it would totally screw up your night vision. Obviously, I need to be able to greatly dim both the screen backlight as well as the keyboard backlights.

I have seen mention of several add-on applications like kblights, keyshades, and twilight. Rather than have to try many different apps, I thought I would toss this out to the forum to see if anybody had suggestions on applications that would accomplish this.

Regards, Steve Yarbrough (aka SLYDoggie)

Easy - Profile Care http://shop.gotreosoftware.com/product.asp?id=807

[shneor]

I do some amateur astronomy and have used a prior Palm device which allowed you to turn the backlight so dim that you could barely see it. I would like to find a way to do this on the Treo 650. Even on the lowest backlight setting from the standard software, it would totally screw up your night vision. Obviously, I need to be able to greatly dim both the screen backlight as well as the keyboard backlights.

I have seen mention of several add-on applications like kblights, keyshades, and twilight. Rather than have to try many different apps, I thought I would toss this out to the forum to see if anybody had suggestions on applications that would accomplish this.

Regards, Steve Yarbrough (aka SLYDoggie)

Mlights from toysoft.com works - I set mine to be off from midnight to 11:55 p.m. But you still need a red cover for the screen, as the off-axis light is l way too bright even if you are using "night mode" is your software.

You can also try keyshades, a freeware program which will keep your keys dark.

Both available in the downloads section at mytreo.net.

[khaytsus]

When I'm using Planetarium, if I set it to Night Mode, and adjust the backlight as previous mentioned, using the stylus (or my thumb most often instead of the 5-way, you can get it *quite* dark.. It's still a little bright, but pretty dark. As suggested, you might try something else on top of the screen to darken it more.

You might use kblightsoff to turn off the keyboard lights, and ledoff to turn off the blinky light. It should be very dark by that point.

[SLYDoggie]

If you don't like getting the stylus out in the dark: Once you move the brightness slider down to it's lowest setting with the 5-way and hit donw, press the function button followed by the right hand shift arrow to halve it's brigtness again.

Interesting... I haven't seen this documented anywhere. No matter what the brightness setting is it toggles full/half each time you do this. It gets me very close on the screen brightness. Now, I just need to focus on the keyboard brightness and I think I'm there.

[SLYDoggie]

When I'm using Planetarium, if I set it to Night Mode, and adjust the backlight as previous mentioned, using the stylus (or my thumb most often instead of the 5-way, you can get it *quite* dark.. It's still a little bright, but pretty dark. As suggested, you might try something else on top of the screen to darken it more.

You might use kblightsoff to turn off the keyboard lights, and ledoff to turn off the blinky light. It should be very dark by that point.

I have also used Planetarium in the past. I need to download the latest version and put it on the Treo to see how it works. I also used to use the night mode with Planetarium. It looks like the keyboard won't actually go low enough... even with add-on software. Might just have to turn it off and use a red flashlight to do any keyboarding.

Thanks for the help.

[SLYDoggie]

As far as the screen's backlight is concerned, are you dimming it using the 5-Way pad? Or are you sliding the adjuster using your stylus? I use the stylus to finely adjust it till it's just barely lit in pitch blackness. While I do agree that a red/black theme would be ideal, the "Midnight" theme at this brightness suffices. I use KeyShades to turn the keyboard backlight off entirely. LEDoff would be my choice if I wanted to turn the status LED off. Instead, I just power off the phone radio, as I do not want to be bothered with calls at that time anyway.

Going back to the red/black idea... One app, which I use, called Palm Planetarium has a "Night Mode" which switches display within the app to a red/black theme. This really should be a feature in all astronomy software.

I was using the 5-Way pad and didn't know you could get it even dimmer using the slider. This really helps... combined with the "Function" "Right Shift" key which toggles between full and half of the current brightness setting.

[SLYDoggie]

Thanks for all the suggestions. At this point I have "keyshades", "ledoff", and "planetarium". In combination these at least make the Treo uesable without killing your night vision. The keyboard is way too bright, even on its dimmest setting so I guess turning it off is the only solution there.

It would be great to have a "NightVision" (red on black) color scheme added to the preferences. Hopefully some resourceful programmer will come up with this.

[skillllllz]

...It would be great to have a "NightVision" (red on black) color scheme added to the preferences. Hopefully some resourceful programmer will come up with this.

Here's one way to achieve a red/black theme. Price is a bit on the high side, but it is very reliable and highly configurable. With this author you get what you pay for.

http://www.ranosoft.net/butterfly/main.html

[shneor]

Thanks for all the suggestions. At this point I have "keyshades", "ledoff", and "planetarium". In combination these at least make the Treo uesable without killing your night vision. The keyboard is way too bright, even on its dimmest setting so I guess turning it off is the only solution there.

It would be great to have a "NightVision" (red on black) color scheme added to the preferences. Hopefully some resourceful programmer will come up with this.

You can get Pleiadatlas, a free (donationware) program from Brian Tung that draws sky charts with many zoom levels and locates all NGC and IC (and some other objects), and that has a built-in night mode. You can find it here:
http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/

Astromist, an excellent all-purpose astronomy program, as available at www.astromist.com and also has a night mode built-in.

[jamespaulritter]

LEDoff is a good way to handle the LED light. Or, I know the new Sprint firmware has that option to turn it off under Preferences.

I cant find that