TrayBlank screen saver utility

TrayBlank started off as a tool to help me test JPEG Saver. I needed to check the way it worked when properly run as a screen saver, and not just when manually started by double-clicking the program icon.

You can download the latest version of TrayBlank from the downloads page.

What TrayBlank does

The TrayBlank menu

When you run TrayBlank it will put a black icon in the system tray (otherwise known as the shell notification area) and sit there waiting for input. If you double-click on the icon, your screensaver will be started. Right-clicking the icon will display a popup menu, shown here.

The "Start screensaver" item at the top of the menu starts the screensaver in the same way as when the icon is double-clicked - by sending a SC_SCREENSAVE command message to the operating system.

The next item, "Configure screensaver", opens the configuration dialog for the current screensaver, if it has one. This works in the same way as the "Settings" button on the Screen Saver tab in the Display Properties control panel applet.

The third option in the menu, "Turn off monitor", sends a SC_MONITORPOWER command to the system that should send all monitors to sleep just as though power management had turned them off.

Hotkeys

TrayBlank supports the use of global hotkeys to start the screensaver and to turn the monitor off. When enabled, the current hotkeys are shown next to the relevant menu items.

The Hotkeys submenu has an option to enable or disable the hotkeys, and a "Setup..." item - this will pop up a small dialog where you can press the key combinations you want to use to trigger the "Start screensaver" and "Turn off monitor" functions.

Version history

Version 1.2.1: 13/05/2010 - Fixed saving of options when system rebooted without explicitly exiting TrayBlank.
Version 1.2: 16/02/2010 - Added global hotkey support.
Version 1.1: 2009 - Unreleased version.
Version 1.0: 14/08/2003 - Initial release.

Ah, but what about...

If you have any questions, suggestions for improvements, or discover any bugs, please contact me at the usual address: graham(at)goat1000.com.