v2.6.0 Road Warrior - Support Laptop Panels

• Added laptop-panel support, see Setting option laptop-panel-enabled. Requires the commonly available brightnessctr command to be installed .
• Udev is used to detect laptop brightness events, such as up/down-brightness function-keys and inactivity-dimming (requires python3-pyudev).
• The control-panel icons/titles are now shortcuts to the relevant Settings tabs.
• Fixed Settings text-input line-height on small screens.
• Slightly improvements to the spacing/layout of the main-panel.

Full Changelog: v2.5.0...v2.6.0

v2.5.0 Modernity

Version 2.5.0 delivers some cosmetic UI updates to better blend in with modern UI trends - in particular Plasma-6.

• Visual refresh of the Main-panel. Inspired by a recent fork by @ViktorSharga.
• Added option "toolbar-at-top" to configure the top/bottom placement of the toolbar in the main-window. Top placement is more Plasma-6-like and may also be useful when combined with top-located system-trays
• Added option "separate-status-bar" to allow the main-window's status-bar to be separated from its toolbar. This may be useful when combined with "toolbar-at-top".
• Replaced QProgressBar with a more modern circular busy-spinner.
• Added a tooltip to the status-bar that shows the last 10 status messages.
• The context-menu now includes a Control-Panel menu-item on all desktops - previously it was Gnome-only (for tray extensions), but Xfce's tray also needs it.
• Light-Metering window - corrected the horizontal tick mark placement on the sun-plot.
• Light-Metering window - added enlarged tick-marks to the sun-plot at 3,6,9,15,18,21 hours.
• Added option "tray-follows-theme" (default enabled) to invert the tray icon’s light/dark state when the desktop theme changes. It can be set for trays that flip-with the desktop or flip-opposite to the desktop, or unset for trays don’t change at all (there isn't a common way to detect tray-themes, so this cannot be automated).
• Internal code simplifications and cleanups.

Full Changelog: v2.4.3...v2.5.0

What's Changed

• Standardize setup.cfg by @doronbehar in #120

New Contributors

• @doronbehar made their first contribution in #120

Full Changelog: v2.4.3...v2.5.0

v2.4.3 metering bug fix

A minor release to fix one bug:

• Fix a rare TypeError when light metering (probably only affects those using hardware light metering).
• Some code cleanups for the splash screen.

v2.4.2 Small Potatoes

Version 2.4.2 contains some minor fixes.

• Fix the Lux-Dialog's display of the Daylight-Factor for non semi-automatic metering.
• Make sure the tray-icon always shows the correct lux-level icon.
• Correct the lux-zone boundaries on the ambient slider.

Full Changelog: v2.4.1...v2.4.2

v2.4.1 Qt6 or bust

Version 2.4.1 contains numerous small changes to achieve compatibility with Qt6/PyQt6.

If PyQt6 is available, it will be used by default. if you prefer to stick with Qt5, unset the prefer-qt6 option in the Settings-Dialog.

• Conversion to PyQt6 (while maintaining PyQt5 compatibility).
• PyQt6 is used by default, with a fallback to PyQt5 should it not be available.
• New option, prefer-qt6, disable this option to prefer PyQt5 over PyQt6.
• Various changes to UI layouts to accommodate both Qt5 and Qt6 (including Qt6 High-DPI scaling).
• Various tweaks to the main window to make the spacious Qt6 styling more compact.
• Renamed the smart-uses-xcb option to smart-uses-xwayland to better reflect what the option does.
• Fixed smart-window preservation when the app was closed from the tray without ever showing the main window.
• Fixed weather selection, on selection, restore any missing weather definition files.
• Fixed initialization-preset error handling (fix undefined variable).
• Only persist lux_daylight_factor if in semi-auto mode (stop hardware light metering overwriting the user's choice).
• The DBus-events default setting has been corrected to true/enabled.
• Dragging the Preset-Dialog elevation to below the horizon now works properly (previously it was jerky).

What's Changed

• PyQt6 - support both PyQt5 and PyQt6 by @digitaltrails in #112

Full Changelog: v2.4.0...v2.4.1

v2.4.0 Here Comes the Sun

Semi-Automatic Brightness Adjustment by Geolocation

In versions 2.4, the ambient-light-level slider has been combined with an estimate of local solar-illumination to achieve semi-automatic brightness control throughout the day. Adjusting the slider sets the ratio between indoor-illumination and outdoor solar-illumination. Should circumstances change, adjusting the slider updates the ratio. (Solar-illumination is estimated for a location by using the local date-time to determine sun-angle, and from that, estimates for illumination, and air-mass.)

Each display's brightness is periodically updated by matching the estimated indoor-illumination against each display's custom lux-brightness-response profile.

How to enable it

1. Settings Dialog: set your geographic location ➀.
   
2. Light Metering Dialog: check that the light-meter ➁ is set to Semi-automatic geolocated (it's normally the default). If you haven't already done so, setup Lux Brightness Response Profiles for each display ➂. Older displays, with weak back lights, can be given relatively flat profiles, perhaps varying from 80% to 100% ④. Newer displays, with HDR capable back lights, can be given stepper profiles, possibly varying from 10% to 100% ⑤.
   

How to use it:

1. Set the prevailing indoor light level using the ambient-light-level slider ➀.
2. If not already enabled, click the sun icon to enable automatic adjustments ➁.
3. Starting from your chosen level; the application will periodically updates ambient-light-level ➀ in proportion to the expected outdoor sunlight (the adjustment period is set in the Light Metering Dialog).
4. If conditions change, adjust the ambient-light-level slider ➀ to establish a new ratio of indoor to outdoor illumination.

The indoor and outdoor illumination-curves and current-estimates are shown in the Light Metering Dialog ➂, along with the estimate of outdoor lux (Eo) and the Daylight-Factor (DF), the ratio of indoor to outdoor lux.

The daylight-factor, the ratio of indoor/outdoor light, can optionally be saved as part of a Preset. For example, a "rainy-day" Preset might pre-can might restore a low daylight-factor, where as, a "sunny-day" preset might restore a high one.

Release summary

• Added the ability to estimate the solar-illumination for a given geolocation and time (#107).
• Added semi-automatic brightness adjustment proportional to geolocated solar-illumination.
• Ambient-light-level slider: when the slider is manually adjusted, it has the side-effect of determining the ratio of indoor-illumination/solar-illumination (the the daylight-factor, DF).
• Light-Metering dialog: semi-automatic metering replaces manual metering.
• Light-Metering dialog: added a display of estimated outdoor-lux (Eo) and the current daylight-factor (DF).
• Light-Metering dialog: added a plot of the current day's estimated solar and indoor illumination.
• Light-Metering dialog: replaced the profile-selector combo-box with a list for easier accessibility.
• Light-Metering dialog: added the ability to dynamically adjust for display DPI.
• Preset dialog: added an option to save/restore the daylight-factor. This can be used to save daylight factors for various conditions, or to activate them at a solar-elevation.
• Settings dialog: disabling protect-nvam now works properly for adjustments due to light-metering.
• Duplicate Lux-profile points are filtered out to prevent confusing the UI and lux evaluation process.
• DBus ddcutil-service: altered the detection parameters to request only valid displays (prevents errors) (#103).
• Ambient-light brightness adjustment: prevent an infinite-loop if no brightness controls are enabled.
• Preset-restoration and ambient-light brightness-adjustment now share the same code for background operations.
• Model-only config files are no longer created, they're confusing and likely not used (they can still be created manually with a text editor).

Full Changelog: v2.3.0...v2.4.0

v2.3.0 DIY DDC

Version 2.3.0:

• Fix the doze function, this improves the responsiveness of all slider controls.
• Fix an infinite loop if menu->quit is used when the Failed to obtain capabilities dialog is showing.
• The Settings-Dialog has been reorganized to make it scrollable.
• When lux options are enabled, the tray will show the icon for current light-level (if no preset is active).
• Renamed two light-light levels more appropriately (room becomes subdued, rise-set becomes twilight).
• Support a user-defined ddcutil-emulator executable for controlling laptop-panels or other non-DDC-capable displays. A template sample emulator written in bash is included as a DIY starter (sample-scripts/laptop-ddcutil-emulator.bash).
• Add smart-uses-xcb option to control the use of XWayland for the smart positioning of windows (defaults to yes).
• Fix title-bars on sub-windows in COSMIC.
• The About Dialog now includes some desktop and platform information.

Full Changelog: v2.2.0...v2.3.0

v2.2.0 What's in a name

• Version 2.2.0, a new-feature release.
  • Add a vdu-name option for assigning meaningful/user-friendly names to each VDU (enhancement request: #100).
  • Implement an order-by-name option that orders lists and tabs by VDU name.
  • Hovering over a settings-dialog tab-name or save-button reveals the settings-filename as a tooltip.
  • If smart-window is enabled in a Wayland desktop, automatically use XWayland. (Wayland
    doesn't allow an application to precisely place it's own windows!)
  • Altering the smart-window option now requires a restart (due to the Wayland/XWayland changes).
  • The smart-window option save/restore of main-window has been made more consistent.
  • The COSMIC desktop is treated as GNOME-like (the system-tray right-mouse menu includes a control-panel menu-item).

v2.1.4 - dbus events optional

Version 2.1,4

• Provide a setting for enabling dbus-events - ddcutil-service DPMS and hotplug detection.
• Default the dbus-event setting to off, which is less troublesome for some VDUs/GPUs/drivers.

v2.1.3 - ddcutil 2.2 compatablity

• Fix the error-dialog option "ignore-VDU" when ddcutil cannot communicate with a VDU.
• Avoid abrupt u-turns in automatic brightness, don't reassess the lux level while making an adjustment.
• Update the EDID-parser to accept the command line output from ddcutil 2.2 (for those not using ddcutil-service).