how2 put primary monitor to sleep

zahadum · 12-26-2008, 01:09 AM

I want to avoid the huge (?) cost of replacing the florescent bulb in my PowerBook by using an external monitor in order to conserve the duty cycle of the internal display as much as possible.

how can the sleep command be controlled separately for each monitor?

appleman_design · 12-26-2008, 07:35 AM

closing the lid will put the laptop mon. to sleep

zahadum · 12-26-2008, 11:46 AM

d'oh!

yes, of course, the obvious answer :-)

my question should have been more precise - my bad.

closing lid is kinda of a brute force solution ... at least for my problem

obviously closing the lid is perfect for the laptop-as-dock situation where one is also using external devices for input; but I want to continue to use all the internal hardware (camera, mic, trackpad, keyboard etc) while the primary display is asleep so closing the lid is not a good option.

(and there is even the strange chance that I might want to temporailly put the external monitor to sleep without dis/re-connecting video cables or switching off the power).

in short, I am looking for an egant way to control the machine - which means a software command, not brute-forcing the hardware.

anyone else know the magic words?

ps: it is so frustrating that apple hides most of the functionality of the mac - there should always be an the option for advanced configuration - in the sysprefs GUI itself not buried in some (undocumented) CLI setting for an obscure plist (that may require heavy-duty sleuthing in Xcode to figure out).

yes, there are a couple of pref editors that do re-package many of these phantoms into a manageable console, but these kind of post-facto hacks are just another example of the mac community having to clean up apple's mess ... it should not even be necessary in the first place!

tw · 12-26-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zahadum


	d'oh! yes, of course, the obvious answer :-) my question should have been more precise - my bad. closing lid is kinda of a brute force solution ... at least for my problem obviously closing the lid is perfect for the laptop-as-dock situation where one is also using external devices for input; but I want to continue to use all the internal hardware (camera, mic, trackpad, keyboard etc) while the primary display is asleep so closing the lid is not a good option. (and there is even the strange chance that I might want to temporailly put the external monitor to sleep without dis/re-connecting video cables or switching off the power). in short, I am looking for an egant way to control the machine - which means a software comand not brute-forcing the hardware. anyone else know the magic words?

there's no direct software way to turn off the display of a mac laptop. you can, however, open the lid of the computer once the laptop monitor is asleep and use the keyboard and other devices without waking the monitor.

styrafome · 12-26-2008, 02:00 PM

The closest you can get is to turn down the internal monitor brightness to zero. That will turn off the backlight. You might be able to AppleScript it if you wanted a solution you could tie to a keystroke or double-clickable file.

zahadum · 12-26-2008, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tw


	open the lid of the computer once the laptop monitor is asleep and use the keyboard and other devices without waking the monitor.

** spectacular FAIL **

NO! closing the lid does NOT only put the primary monitor to sleep: it puts the whole machine to sleep! ... re-opening the lid merely inistes a standard machine-level wake event.

the side-effect of this misinformayion means that my inet connection is also broken, so I lose the file downloads in progress! ... they cant resume automatically (tge connection relies upon passwords/session/IP etc) because I was not using my default wifi network at this accidental/forced sleep - sadly osx has very wobbly state mabagement when waking up, so it automatically joins the default network instead of attempting to resuming the previous network first :-(

- running 10.5.6 (ppc)

tw · 12-26-2008, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zahadum


	spectacular FAIL NO! closing the lid does NOT only put the primary monitor to sleep: it puts the whole machine to sleep! ... re-opening the lid merely inistes a standard machine-level wake event.

sorry, I should have been more specific. close the lid (which puts the machine to sleep). plug in an external display and wiggle the mouse (or play with some other usb device); this wakes the machine up, with the external display active. you can then open up the powerbook lid without waking the lid display.

styrafome · 12-26-2008, 05:11 PM

Closing the lid will only work if you start your downloads after the mode change. Otherwise you don't want to use the lid closed mode. Try the brightness approach instead.

12-26-2008, 01:09 AM	#1
zahadum Prospect Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 20	how2 put primary monitor to sleep I want to avoid the huge (?) cost of replacing the florescent bulb in my PowerBook by using an external monitor in order to conserve the duty cycle of the internal display as much as possible. how can the sleep command be controlled separately for each monitor? Last edited by zahadum; 12-26-2008 at 01:17 AM. Reason: typos

12-26-2008, 11:46 AM	#3
zahadum Prospect Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 20	d'oh! yes, of course, the obvious answer :-) my question should have been more precise - my bad. closing lid is kinda of a brute force solution ... at least for my problem obviously closing the lid is perfect for the laptop-as-dock situation where one is also using external devices for input; but I want to continue to use all the internal hardware (camera, mic, trackpad, keyboard etc) while the primary display is asleep so closing the lid is not a good option. (and there is even the strange chance that I might want to temporailly put the external monitor to sleep without dis/re-connecting video cables or switching off the power). in short, I am looking for an egant way to control the machine - which means a software command, not brute-forcing the hardware. anyone else know the magic words? ps: it is so frustrating that apple hides most of the functionality of the mac - there should always be an the option for advanced configuration - in the sysprefs GUI itself not buried in some (undocumented) CLI setting for an obscure plist (that may require heavy-duty sleuthing in Xcode to figure out). yes, there are a couple of pref editors that do re-package many of these phantoms into a manageable console, but these kind of post-facto hacks are just another example of the mac community having to clean up apple's mess ... it should not even be necessary in the first place! Last edited by zahadum; 12-26-2008 at 12:03 PM. Reason: typos in the body \| added the PS about apple's responsibility

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12-26-2008, 07:35 AM	#2
appleman_design Hall of Famer Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 2,550	closing the lid will put the laptop mon. to sleep

12-26-2008, 02:00 PM	#5
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	The closest you can get is to turn down the internal monitor brightness to zero. That will turn off the backlight. You might be able to AppleScript it if you wanted a solution you could tie to a keystroke or double-clickable file.

12-26-2008, 05:11 PM	#8
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	Closing the lid will only work if you start your downloads after the mode change. Otherwise you don't want to use the lid closed mode. Try the brightness approach instead.