kvm-switch VS Lunar

With my COVID obsession of live streaming while writing code, I ended up building something a little more elaborate. https://github.com/timgws/kvm-switch

It doesn't use DDC commands direct to the monitor(s), instead swapping it for a HDMI matrix combined with a traditional KVM for swapping around inputs smoothly when you roll your mouse over the edge of different operating systems.

The switching client runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux (if you use X).

I had the same issue with this device. I ended up writing some code that you could run on a machine to operate the switching via the RS232 port: https://github.com/timgws/kvm-switch/

Bonus for adding 'glide and switch' functionality, so you can move the mouse to the edge of the screen and it would jump the input to the next display in your layout. It's like a hardware version of Synergy.

Very finicky device, but if you don't touch it - and you don't use any of the shortcuts - it works.

The proverb 'necessity is the mother of invention' made me build a solution for sharing a keyboard and mouse between multiple devices.

Synergy/Barrier is not horrible, but I find the latency a little painful.

Ended up getting an industrial HDMI switch, with a KVM. Built a server in Go that connects to the serial port of all the devices.

A companion client that runs on all the machines tells the server when the mouse moves to the edge of the screen, so the USB inputs can be switched to the correct computer. Basically, it allows you to have multiple computers connected, to multiple displays, sharing one keyboard and mouse. (You can define layouts on the server, so the displays can move around on the matrix HDMI switcher).

https://github.com/timgws/kvm-switch

It’s done in a similar way on macOS: a dylib is added to the bundle and an LC_LOAD command is added to the app binary. The dylib is the first thing that runs because of using the constructor attribute, like this: https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Injecting%20a%20DYLIB%20into%...

The nice thing is that a signed app will refuse to load a dylib that does not have the same signature. So crackers will be forced to change the whole app signature which can be easily detected in app code.

I have that kind of protection in Lunar (https://lunar.fyi/) and Clop (https://lowtechguys.com/clop) and it seems to be good enough as they have no recent cracks.

Pretty sure Lunar [0] can do this for you, and you can buy a lifetime license.

[0]: https://lunar.fyi/

I've had good luck with the Lunar app - it manages my Dell and LG monitors on an M2. (No affiliation) https://lunar.fyi

Wild! I am working on exactly the same thing now for Lunar (https://lunar.fyi), and I'm also calling it Night Mode ^_^ what a coincidence

I've been trying to make "white regions in dark backgrounds" less painful for months, but doing that at the system level on macOS is incredibly hard. I see you're doing it with CSS filters, which make sense in the limited scope of an article. But applying something like that on the whole macOS UI would cause confusion.

I already use something similar on the iPhone: I read on the Kindle app which has white text on black background, then I have a full red Color Tint filter on the Triple Back Tap shortcut which I use before reading. Very similar effect to your solution, although I don't have images in my books.

I was comparing anti-piracy measures with DRM, I don't have actual DRM in my app. I can't block users that really bought the app from using it (which is what DRM is notorious for).

But I do have a license verification for the Pro features (https://lunar.fyi/#pro), and that is what people are cracking in the app. I only added more protection around this verification.

Lunar

There's no Reduce White Point on Mac as far as I am aware. However, you can use the fantastic Lunar [0] app to achieve this, as it supports "Sub-Zero Dimming".

To use it, I think you just need to start Lunar, and then press the Reduce Brightness button on your keyboard until it goes below the minimum Mac allows.

[0] https://lunar.fyi

As the dev of a macOS app that breaks all the time because of external hardware, the tone of the article hits close to home. (I’m talking about https://lunar.fyi/ whose brightness control commands can be blocked by USB-C hubs, “smart” monitors, too long cables etc.)

I had to disable public GitHub issues on the app repo [1] because people seemed to fuel each other with spiteful comments and “why can’t you just!!” sentences.

The contact form still attracts many such “entitled” people and it hurts to wake up to such messages, but at least I can choose to ignore those if I can’t bring anything to the discussion. There’s no peer pressure.

These people are expecting too much from a handful of developers who are sharing a lot of free work and time that could have been spent better than hunting new IDs in URLs and updating regular expressions.

[1] https://github.com/alin23/Lunar

Last year I bought a second computer for my music studio. I wanted to use the same set of 2 monitors and wired keyboard + trackpad on both machines.

I wrote simple scripts to switch my monitor inputs with keyboard shortcuts (even simpler with Lunar, amazing new Mac app — https://lunar.fyi), which saved me from having to press annoying input-source buttons.

But I couldn't for the life of me find a simple, suitable software controllable KVM switch. That still requires the hardware button to be controlled, so frustrating.

Some people like the process of writing code, more than the end result. I had a few months of that feeling, but nowadays it’s rarely about writing for me.

Just the other day I used Copilot to explain the disassembly of macOS KeyboardBacklight code, so that I can turn off the keyboard lights when using Lunar’s Blackout (https://lunar.fyi/#blackout)

It even helped me generate the ObjC function signatures from assembly and use the right calling convention in Swift afterwards. It really feels like magic.

I would have no joy in writing that code, it’s mostly bridging and translation anyway. I just need it to do this thing so that people can take advantage of it.