This applet is the Linux Mint equivalent of 'Night Light' (on Windows), and 'Night Shift' (on macOS).
It acts as a blue light filter and makes your display use warmer colors, according to your likings. This applet, Blue Light Blocker, also allows you to control the brightness of your screen at will.
Some applets are time-based, meaning they only block blue light at certain times of the day. The user has no control over the blue light filtering.
With Blue Light Blocker, however, you are in total control!
Is it still day time? Is it night time? Who cares! Don't let the clock dictate when your screen has to block blue light from entering your precious little eyes! 👁️ 👄 👁️
You want to block blue light all day? You got it!
You want to block blue light only at night? It's your call, boss!
You want to block blue light only when you feel like it? No problemo!
You can enable and disable this applet anytime in merely 2 clicks! Adjusting the warmth tone of your screen or it's brightness has never been easier, thanks to simple sliders with real-time feedback!
What a time to be alive 😌 ✨
This version of Blue Light Blocker comes with everything it needs right out of the box!
You won't need to install additionnal packages (*unless you perform an automatic installation) or enter commands in your terminal!
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Download the github repository as a ZIP file
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Extract the ZIP file
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Place the
Blue-light-blocker@samuel12samfolder inside/home/[your_name]/.local/share/cinnamon/applets/If you do not see
.local, make sure you have enabled 'Show Hidden Files' by going into the 'View' tab of your File Explorer and ticking the option or by using the CTRL+H keyboard shortcut. -
Open the 'Applets' window, through the 'System Settings' or by right-clicking on any panel and clicking on 'Applets'.
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Select Blue Light Blocker by clicking on it, press the '+' sign at the bottom of the window to add Blue Light Blocker to your panel.
Click on the Blue Light Blocker Applet in the panel and use the sliders to modify the color temperature of your screen or its brightness.
Right click on the Blue Light Blocker applet in your panel and click on 'Configure...'
- Make sure to first remove the applet from your panel by pressing the '-' button.
- Then uninstall it by pressing the trashcan button from the same window
- Allow the user to use a custom icon/image for the applet in the panel
- Allow the user to display a custom format for the color temperature in brightness info in the panel
- Translations for other languages
Note
Please note that users who install Blue Light Blocker from the 'Download' tab in the 'Applet' window on Linux Mint will be prompted to install the xsct package, as opposed to users who manually install it.
That is because the installation process through Cinnamon tempers with pre-compiled code permissions and compiling the code automatically after the applet gets downloaded from the 'Download' tab
would require users to have 2 libraries/packages installed on their computer that most people don't have by default (libx11-dev and libxrandr-dev).
xsct is a public domain (open-source, but better) UNIX tool that allows you to change the color temperature of your screen. However, it only functions via terminal commands, which is a total pain in the butt to use if you
frequently change the color temperature of your screen.
Blue Light Blocker uses this UNIX tool at its core and provides a user-friendly interface to let the user block the blue light from their screen
using precise sliders while also adding a layer of security by making it impossible for the user to set the brightness of their screens to 0, which is possible with xsct via the terminal commands.
Blue Light Blocker also adds a lot of Quality of Life features that simply don't exist with the xsct package alone.
In short, Blue Light Blocker reduces the amount of tinkering necessary to change the brightness or the color temperature of your screen while also offering a simple yet very nice user experience.
For more information about xsct : https://github.com/faf0/sct