Get rid of Kindle Paperwhite's backlight

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

@twobob or @duckietigger

I'm diving into KUAL today (so very COOL!) and noticed that the FLtoggle extension has yet to be added to the KUAL extensions list ....is this due to ongoing testing / stability checking or accidental oversight?...basically, is it okay to use on a PW as it stands now? Thanks!

No, there is 2 threads. One is for extensions that are doing something useful like starting a custom application, the other thread is simply for things that do something useful that can be done in a one-liner shell script.

(ok, technically, the FLtoggle cannot be written in a one liner without it beeing too complicated to read)

It is finished, unless I hear any complaints.


It is listed in this thread: [KUAL] Button Def. Packages post #3 and #4

[twobob]

Yeah. In essence a little future proofing.

If stuff is a single button toggle for a single device it lives in the buttons thread.

Stuff that calls external larger apps generally lives in the other thread.

but they are ALL listed under the main threads
: )

[DuckieTigger]

New version for LightToggle for KUAL available now. Allows turning on and off when waking up from sleep (either by opening the cover, or pushing the button). See here for more information and download.

[freedumb2000]

Originally Posted by joblack

Reboot the device. That's it.

I just wanted to mention that instead of rebooting you can just restart the cron cron service at the shell.

restart cron

[twobob]

Hi just noticed an error in the menu.json mate that will make this invalid for the next KUAL release (which is more strict about invalid files)

{
	"items": [
		{"name": "Toggle ON/OFF", "priority": 0, "action": "bin/FLtoggle.sh"},
		{"name": "Toggle OFF on Wakeup", "priority":0, "action": "bin/FLtoggleWake.sh"},
	]
}

Should read

{
	"items": [
		{"name": "Toggle ON/OFF", "priority": 0, "action": "bin/FLtoggle.sh"},
		{"name": "Toggle OFF on Wakeup", "priority":0, "action": "bin/FLtoggleWake.sh"}
	]
}

no comma

I can repack at some point if you are not about.

Cheers.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by twobob

Hi just noticed an error in the menu.json mate that will make this invalid for the next KUAL release (which is more strict about invalid files)

{
	"items": [
		{"name": "Toggle ON/OFF", "priority": 0, "action": "bin/FLtoggle.sh"},
		{"name": "Toggle OFF on Wakeup", "priority":0, "action": "bin/FLtoggleWake.sh"},
	]
}

Should read

{
	"items": [
		{"name": "Toggle ON/OFF", "priority": 0, "action": "bin/FLtoggle.sh"},
		{"name": "Toggle OFF on Wakeup", "priority":0, "action": "bin/FLtoggleWake.sh"}
	]
}

no comma

I can repack at some point if you are not about.

Cheers.

Oh thanks, I will fix that.

Edit: fixed, download new version here

[twobob]

Nice work.
One question... I thought you rejiggled this to not make rootfs changes?
Did that ever happen? Because I was code diving and didn't see any evidence of that.

Thanks mate.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by twobob

Nice work.
One question... I thought you rejiggled this to not make rootfs changes?
Did that ever happen? Because I was code diving and didn't see any evidence of that.

Thanks mate.

That was the plan. And it would work just fine to mount-bind it. Having to remember to activate it each time you restart might be a hassle. Making 2 versions - one that sticks and can be undone, and one that works until restart and can be undone (before restart) - that sounded like more work than I planned to put into it. I am personally not even using turning off the light. I did go out of my way to have the light turn off automatically on other level than just 0. Default is 10 and under. And that is trivially changeable in the script - even without knowledge in shell-scripting. It is pretty much as simple as it gets with enough safeguards in place so it won't break or malfunction.

[twobob]

okay mate. Thanks for the update.

Appreciated.

[Eltanin]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

There is a slight delay and you can notice that the light turns on and then off. This is unfortunately necessary as otherwise the light will not turn off - it has to be turned off after the Kindle had a chance to turn it on.

How long takes delay?

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

After turning the light off, it will stay off until PW wakes up from sleep or the light setting is changed.

Is there any possibility to turn off light until I manually turn it again on ?

[joblack]

Investigating on a Kindle Paperwhite 2.

The file

/sys/devices/system/fl_tps6116x/fl_tps6116x0/fl_intensity

doesn't exist on the PW2. The script will disable the light the first time but after you enabled it again with the light slider it's not possible to disable it again.

I suspect something has changed in the structure of the PW2.

[Aeris]

You could try to make a file search using "find" command in a terminal, to see if a file with the same name has been moved to somewhere alse or doesn't exist at all

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Aeris

You could try to make a file search using "find" command in a terminal, to see if a file with the same name has been moved to somewhere alse or doesn't exist at all

It will be under /sys/devices and/or /sys/platform

Watch out for using find in /sys sub-tree - - lots of recursive links there.

Start just by eyeballing the directories and contents from the above starting places - it will be named something similar.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by knc1

It will be under /sys/devices and/or /sys/platform

Watch out for using find in /sys sub-tree - - lots of recursive links there.

Start just by eyeballing the directories and contents from the above starting places - it will be named something similar.

Got it. I changed the FL variable in all two scripts to

/sys/class/backlight/max77696-bl/brightness

then it seems to work.

I don't have the time right now to adjust the script so it will work on both Paperwhite versions but shouldn't be a big deal (e.g. check if the first file exist (then it's a Paperwhite 1) if not check for the brightness file (then it's a Paperwhite 2) - in all other cases it's not a Paperwhite at all)

[nypaulie]

There is no "fl_tps6116x" (front light) directory in /sys/devices/system/ on the PW2.

But there is This:
/sys/class/backlight/max77696-bl/max_brightness.
And "cat" gave me "4095".

I haven't tried it yet, but what about changing this (via command-line) to zero to completely turn off the frontlight?

My wish list includes control of the sleep-mode timer. It seems to be around 10 minutes now. I'd like to be able to adjust that but haven't found anything in the directories that looks tweakable yet. Anyone know where to look?