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OLED panels are susceptible to burn-in. How can I make the taskbar/tray and quicklaunch icons/text (even if it makes the taskbar itself) darker? I know about the dark theme, but please understand that does not make the icons in the taskbar and quicklaunch bar darker, only the bar's background colour.

Please also note, I do NOT want to autohide the taskbar/tray, as I've heard a million people recommend that, but it's not for me.

Twinbee
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  • Not an answer but you should read this: https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/oled-screen-burn-in-how-to-prevent-it-and-why-you-shouldnt-be-worried/ – ChanganAuto Nov 28 '21 at 19:25
  • Is your taskbar *always* visible, or do you also occasionally game, watch movie, youtube, etc, where it goes full screen and the taskbar is not shown? – LPChip Nov 28 '21 at 19:34
  • @LPChip: Yes, sometimes I watch Youtube and play games which removes the task bar. But most of the time, like when I'm browsing or using Excel/Photoshop etc., it's visible. – Twinbee Nov 28 '21 at 21:07
  • To make icons in your taskbar darker, you'd need to edit them. Have you looked into modifying icons? – music2myear Nov 28 '21 at 21:24
  • @music2myear: That sounds painful - there must be a simpler way than that. – Twinbee Nov 28 '21 at 21:28
  • @DanW It sounds less painful than having to buy a new OLED VDU because the taskbar burnt into your current one... – spikey_richie Nov 28 '21 at 22:17
  • @spikey_richie: There's also the tray to consider with the icons and time/date there etc. I obviously want that darker too, as it's static along with the taskbar. – Twinbee Nov 28 '21 at 23:02
  • @DanW I assume you game and watch youtube at least once a day and your computer is not on 24/7 with the display always on either, right? If that's the case, you don't need to worry. OLED burnin will only happen if the same thing is on for like 8 hours at a time or more, always displaying the same thing at the same place. – LPChip Nov 29 '21 at 07:29
  • @LPChip: That's encouraging, but I'd like to take precautions, especially as some days, 10-12 hours usage may occur, and the bar/time could remain during that time. – Twinbee Nov 29 '21 at 09:08
  • You can also of course turn on screensaver or powersettings: auto turn off screen after 1 minute. Windows will correctly do this if the system really is not being used for 1 minute. So watching a youtube video will not turn off the screen after 1 minute. – LPChip Nov 29 '21 at 09:50
  • But otherwise you will need an icon editor to edit all icons of programs in your taskbar to make them darker. You can use a reseditor to edit icons inside explorer, but make sure you make a copy of explorer.exe first, and also make a copy of explorer.exe after you made changes because a windows update may restore it. – LPChip Nov 29 '21 at 09:58
  • @LPChip: An icon editor may not help with the tray icons and certainly won't with the time/date, start menu icon or notifications icon. Screensaver is no good because I'll be using the PC constantly and need the screen to stay active. Sometimes there is no answer, and Windows just sucks. – Twinbee Nov 29 '21 at 11:00
  • In this case there is an answer, you are just not accepting it. Time/date is not an issue, that changes. systray icons can be patched by patching explorer and hiding all systray icons or using resedit for those icons and changing them too (though they will be reset upon an update) – LPChip Nov 29 '21 at 11:04
  • @LPChip: The year figure (e.g: 2021) in the date does not change for an entire year, or depending on the font's kerning, at least a day. The day name also doesn't change throughout the entire day. I'm not sure how I'd go about changing dynamic tray icons such as the battery level, volume icon or network connection which change according to laptop state. You forgot about the start menu icon too. There's NO excuse Microsoft didn't implement something so basic, even before OLED screens became a thing. – Twinbee Nov 29 '21 at 11:12
  • The start menu orb can be changed using Classic Start. – LPChip Nov 29 '21 at 14:15
  • @LPChip: Thanks, I myself forgot to mention the notifications icon too in my previous comment. It all adds up to a lot of hassle, and may not be possible for some of the icons. – Twinbee Nov 29 '21 at 14:49

2 Answers2

1

You can use the free AutoHotkey.

The following AutoHotkey script will cover the taskbar with a semi-transparent window that is click-through, but will hide it when a window becomes full-screen:

SysGet, Monitor, Monitor                   ; Get monitor dimensions
SysGet, WorkArea, MonitorWorkArea          ; Get monitor work-area without taskbar
dimtop := % WorkAreaBottom + 1             ; taskbar is assumed to start below the work-area
Gui Color, 0,0                             ; Black color
Gui -Caption +ToolWindow +E0x20            ; No title bar, No taskbar button, Transparent for clicks
Gui Show, X0 Y%dimtop% W%MonitorRight% H63 ; Create a semi-transparent cover window
WinGet ID, ID, A                           ; Get its HWND/handle ID
Winset AlwaysOnTop,ON,ahk_id %ID%          ; Keep it always on the top
WinSet Transparent,99,ahk_id %ID%          ; Transparency 99/256
SetTimer, coverIt, 500                     ; Repeat setting it to be on top of the taskbar
return

coverIt:
    WinGet style, Style, A                 ; Get active window style and dimensions
    WinGetPos ,,,winW,winH, A
    ; 0x800000 is WS_BORDER.
    ; 0x20000000 is WS_MINIMIZE.
    ; check no border and not minimized
    isfull := ((style & 0x20800000) = 0 and winH >= A_ScreenHeight and winW >= A_ScreenWidth)
    if (isfull) {
        WinHide, ahk_id %ID%
    } else {
        WinShow, ahk_id %ID%
        Winset AlwaysOnTop,ON,ahk_id %ID%      ; Ensure it is still on the top
    }
    return

After installing AutoHotKey, put the script in a .ahk file and double-click it to test. You may stop the script by right-click on the green H icon in the traybar and choosing Exit. To have it run on login, place it in the Startup group at C:\Users\USER-NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

harrymc
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    Wow what CAN'T AutoHotkey do? This looks great so far. I'll test it out over the next couple of days and see how well it goes. There's a small glitch where I can see the bar removes the transparency for less than a second sometimes when I left/right click some icons or click Switch to desktop, but it's fairly tolerable (maybe some way to temporarily make the bar bright again if the mouse cursor hovers over it and dark again when it's not?). One small correction, the 'transparency' number looks like it's out of 256 rather than as a percentage. I tried value 240, and that's near pitch black. – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 13:36
  • Another 'bug' I found. When I view things full screen (e.g: Youtube or Irfanview), the bottom portion of the screen is still dark. Any way to automatically turn it off in those cases, and back on again when out of full screen? – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 13:40
  • I fixed the comment about Transparency. For shortening the time when the taskbar is visible, reduce the number on the SetTimer command. The script can be made to be turned off and on by shortcut keys, as a solution for not interfering with full-screen windows - let me know if needed. – harrymc Dec 07 '21 at 14:43
  • Shortening the timer repeat length can make it flicker and may eat up GPU/CPU usage if it's running every tenth of a second or whatever. I assume there's no way for AHK to detect or even intercept full screen is in use and thus turn off automatically? A shortcut to turn on/off would be the next best thing I suppose. – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 15:19
  • AHK can detect full-screen in the same timer by also checking the size of the active window. For example code see the last entry in [this post](https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/38882-detect-fullscreen-application/). – harrymc Dec 07 '21 at 16:05
  • Ah that looks promising. Maybe I'll research to find out how I can incorporate that code into the ahk text file somehow. I can code, but I'm completely new to AHK. – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 17:51
  • I can help if you want. – harrymc Dec 07 '21 at 18:11
  • That would be appreciated! Happy to increase the bounty amount if there's a way to do that. – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 18:41
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    Done. Increasing the bounty is not possible, except by setting an additional bounty. – harrymc Dec 07 '21 at 20:40
  • It works! I doubt someone can beat your solution, but maybe I should give it just a couple of days just in case before I award the bounty? (and maybe another if you like!). – Twinbee Dec 07 '21 at 21:30
0

If you do not want to set the taskbar to auto-hide, so it appears only when your cursor is upon it, which is the simplest and most effective solution, then you might try third-party software, such as free Open-Shell Menu.

Open-Shell Menu lets you set the transparency and color of the taskbar and the color of the text, though the icons themselves do not appear to be affected. To do so, you'd need to find or to create a custom icon for each item in the Start Menu, and to modify the executable to change its own icon.

Open-Shell Menu taskbar settings

If you find erratic taskbar behavior an issue in auto-hide mode, try another third-party tool, such as Taskbar Activate or an alternative.

DrMoishe Pippik
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  • Thanks. I can confirm that OpenShell does not affect the icons unfortunately. For me, Auto-hiding is not desirable even in its most ideal state because it adds latency for when I want to quickly switch between windows (especially painful if I need to switch back and forth constantly). I tend to also hate slidey menus that drop down from webpages too. – Twinbee Nov 28 '21 at 22:38
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    @DanW, For me, Alt-Tab, or better yet, Windows-, is *far* quicker for switching tasks. No need to take your eyes off the keyboard. – DrMoishe Pippik Nov 28 '21 at 23:32