Night mode tip for Streets & Trips

I find the default night mode of S&T leaves the backround of the panes and toolbars in light grey. This leaves too much glare to drive safely at night for my liking. This can be changed by personnalising the windows display settings. I created a new user (named Night mode) in my laptop and selected my preferred colours in the display properties of windows. At night I simply login as "Night mode" to toggle from my regular settings to night settings in just a few seconds.

NEW!!! Toggle between night mode theme and your regular theme in display properties. It's even faster than having two user accounts
download the night mode theme zip file by clicking here
Thanks taoyue for this useful tip

My S&T 2006
went from:---------to: (much safer, almost no glare)

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I like your idea of using a different user account for this purpose. It's quick and easy to just switch to a different account. A different acct can also be used for a variety of other similar purposes.

A couple of years ago a Streets & Trips user brought to my attention another very good solution for Night Mode. Free software called “DarkAdapted” lets us change gamma settings of our screen just by a quick keyboard shortcut. Thus, we may in effect very conveniently change the brightness of our computer monitor from full to say 15%. Use the hotkey again to switch back to full brightness. See the attached demonstration picture bellow. Free download and more info here: DarkAdapted

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You could also just switch to full screen view instead of creating a spearate user account (see attached picture).

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FS Night View.bmp (182.3 KB, 144 views)

toyfountain,

Any chance you could share with us your settings for user 'Night mode'? I like how you configured the settings and would very much like to try this.

New to the forum and have found many interesting items about Streets & Trips. You folks keep up the good work...

Thanks and regards...

Are you using Win XP? This is what I used plus on a french version, so my terms might not be accurate. I'll try and figure out the english terms.

The red arrow is about where you should click or it points the selection you should click.

In display properties select modified theme.



Then select advanced setting in the appearance tab.


Then select text and modify the settings in the red rectangle.


Then select window and again modify the settings in the red rectangle.


Then select active window


Then lastly select inactive window

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suite

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Yes, I'm using XP Pro. I figured you were making changes to the Active Window...tomorrow at work I'll hit a translator site and figure out which one. So, the colors you're using are Black and Green?

Thanks for your help...it's greatly appreciated...

Yes, black, green and burgundy in the inactive bar to black. You get the gist of it. Select the colours you like for your personal taste. I can say you can drive in total darkness with these settings an the glare will blend in with the car's controls.

That's great...exactly what I was looking for! I'll be making a 1500 mile trip to Viginia in a week or two and I'll be driving a lot at night, so this will be perfect!

Thanks again...you guys are great!

You can also adjust the brightness of your laptop screen. Dell makes it very easy with quick hotkeys. Just press on the Fn + Up or Fn + down key if you own a Dell.

You can actually upload your theme file so that people can import it directly, and don't have to recreate the settings manually from screenshots. See http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...7-6124495.html. You should see a "Thème modifié.theme" file on your hard drive.

"Don't make a human do a computer's work."

Thanks taoyue

Would a french XP file work on the english XP?

I included it in a zip file below in case someone wants to try it.

Attached Files

night_mode_theme.zip (1.7 KB, 248 views)

I'll try this when I get home this evening and let you know how it goes. If this works, no need to create a new user, just change themes when it's night and change back to normal during daylight hours.

Lots of good information here, glad I found this site and signed up...

tr

Windows XP is a multilingual operating system. There is no difference between the different language versions, except for UI elements. (Exception: the EU forced a version of Windows to be released in Europe without Windows Media Player. Hardly anyone uses this because it costs the same as Windows XP with Windows Media Player.)

The theme file works just fine in Windows Vista too. There's been no format change. Just double-click, "Save As" to get your own copy, and click OK. Good thing to have. Thanks, toyfountain.

I just tried it by toggling between themes. You're right. It even works faster than changing sessions.