Monitors Focus | 中文
✅ Tray-first, no main window | Pause/Resume hotkey | Background RAM usage: ~30MB.
✅ Instant wake when cursor enters secondary | Auto-dim after delay on primary
✅ Windows 10/11 | Dual/tri monitor layouts | No window rearrange
Monitors Focus is a lightweight Windows tray app that auto-dims selected secondary monitors with a pure black, click-through overlay. It wakes the screen instantly when your cursor enters and darkens it again after a delay when you return to the primary display.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| ✨ Mouse-follow dimming | Tracks cursor and auto-masks selected non-primary monitors after a configurable delay (default 180s). |
| 🛡️ Click-through overlay | Pure black, topmost, non-activating, hidden from Alt-Tab/taskbar; does not steal clicks. |
| ⚙️ Quick settings | Tray settings for delay, opacity, monitor selection, global hotkey (Ctrl+F12 default), launch on startup, bilingual UI (live switch). |
| 🎛️ Pause anytime | Global hotkey or tray menu instantly pauses/resumes automation; left-click tray opens Settings. |
| 💡 Hardware dimming (optional) | DDC/CI with WMI fallback on supported monitors; auto-falls back to overlay if unsupported. |
| 🧪 Diagnostics | Per-monitor hardware dim status, manual disable list, and rescan (applies on save). |
| 🪟 Flexible UI | Larger resizable Settings window with size memory; controls widened for clarity. |
- Build or download
MonitorsFocus.exe(see Developer Guide below for build). - Run the app: left-click the tray icon (or right-click → Settings) to choose monitors, delay, opacity, hotkey, language, and dimming mode (Auto/Overlay-only/Hardware-only).
- Work on your primary screen; the selected secondary screens will black out after the delay and wake instantly when you move the cursor onto them. Hardware dimming lowers backlight on supported monitors; overlay remains the fallback.
Requirements & Limits
- Windows 10/11 (x64); self-contained publish includes runtime.
- Designed for 2+ monitors; works with PerMonitorV2 DPI scaling.
- Hardware dimming depends on monitor support (DDC/CI external displays; WMI for many laptops); otherwise overlay is used.
Developer Guide
dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet run --project src/MonitorsFocus
# Single-file publish
dotnet publish src/MonitorsFocus -c Release -r win-x64 ^
-p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:UseAppHost=true -p:SelfContained=true ^
-p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true -p:PublishTrimmed=false ^
-o publish/win-x64Development Stack
- Packages & Frameworks: .NET 8, WinForms
- Interfaces & Services: Windows user32 APIs (
RegisterHotKey, layered windows) - Languages: C#
License
License: MIT.
FAQ / Troubleshooting
- Hotkey not working? Another app may own it—change the hotkey in Settings.
- Secondary not dimming? Check the monitor checklist in Settings and ensure delay is not 0 if you expect an immediate dim.
- Overlay steals focus? Overlays are non-activating (
WS_EX_NOACTIVATE); if you still see focus issues, try pausing/resuming via hotkey to reset.
Welcome to submit Issues and Pull Requests! Any questions or suggestions? Please contact Zheyuan (Max) Kong (Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA).
Zheyuan (Max) Kong: kongzheyuan@outlook.com | zheyuank@andrew.cmu.edu