(23)
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Shades is a utility for controlling the brightness of your screen. It runs in the background providing easy control over the brightness of your display via a slick Mac-like interface, with greater dynamic range and finer granularity than the built-in controls.
What's New
Version 1.2b3:
- [fix] Updated Shades to work correctly on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
- [chg] Shades no longer supports Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Users running Tiger should stick with version 1.2b2.
- [fix] It is now possible to click and drag the menu bar slider again.
- [imp] The Shades System Preferences panel can now run in 64bit mode, so it's not neccesary to relaunch System Preferences in 32bit mode to use it.
Version 1.2b3:
- [fix] Updated Shades to work correctly on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
- [chg] Shades no longer supports Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Users running Tiger should stick with version 1.2b2.
- [fix] It is now possible to click and drag the menu bar slider again.
- [imp] The Shades System Preferences panel can now run in 64bit mode, so it's not neccesary to more...
Requirements
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
Shades User Discussion (Write a Review)
Overall:
(23)
(23)
Displaying 1-10 of 37
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Shades is a utility for controlling the brightness of your screen. It runs in the background providing easy control over the brightness of your display via a slick Mac-like interface, with greater dynamic range and finer granularity than the built-in controls.
Copyright © 2012 MacUpdate LLC
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+22
Jeff H. reviewed on 06 Jan 2012
For working it takes the harsh light and tones it down just enough to where its not burning your eyes.
I only wish there was a "whitelist" to add certain applications to that are not effected. I watch all of my video/TV on the same computer and for that I have to wither disable or crank up the brightness, but other than that great app!
+22
+22
For some reason when this second display was attached the brightness seems very harsh...I've made adjustments, and use another app (for now), to calm this harsh brightness down, but I prefer Shades.
Has anyone had similar experiences?
+22
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+22
It was so spotty (Shades), that I stopped using it.
It may have been due to the two larger monitors running on a mini, but I don't know.
I started using an app called Shady...runs great.
Ryan-Eisworth reviewed on 18 Dec 2011
Surprisingly the displays look very good with the software dimming. I expected the black level to be wonky but it's not too much worse than dimming it through hardware.
+79
+54
Cattus Thraex reviewed on 12 Oct 2011
Pscm reviewed on 27 Sep 2011
+5
+17
Brilormac reviewed on 24 Jul 2010
For an app with no UI, it uses 28 to 29 MB of real memory ( as shown in Activity Monitor ). I have several apps with multiple window UIs with real memory usage at 8 to 10 MB. Moreover, the memory usage grows the longer Shades runs. This is a memory managements issues. See leaks below.
Also, the code is leaking memory. A quick analysis with the "leaks" command line tool ( via Terminal ) on the running Shades ( had been running for approximately an hour ) shows 37 leaks for 2432 bytes. This keeps accumulating the longer the Shades app runs. A similar analysis with Instruments confirms.
This doesn't make Shades a bad app, just one that needs improving ( the Finder in OS X 10.6.4 leaks too ). This would be a 5 star rating except for the leaks and bloated memory usage.
+1
Phloem reviewed on 07 Nov 2009
Shades give you simple customizable settings separately for each display (menu icon or not, floating bezel or not, optional hot keys. All for free.
The only feature I would add is the ability to put the display to sleep (and sleep only one display).
Grizzly19 reviewed on 26 Sep 2009
Really useful…
+3
-28
Shk747 reviewed on 26 Sep 2009
-8
-8
bernard soffer reviewed on 03 Sep 2009
1 Star now 'till its done, then back to 5 Stars no doubt.
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+28
Grizzly19 rated on 15 Dec 2010