Distraction Dimmer - Haze Over / dim all but

[yousinix]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

A tool like HazeOver to dim inactive windows, to help reduce distraction and increase focus.

Scenario when this would be used?

• Workflow with a lot of context-switching, like switching back and forth between terminal and code editor.
• Big screens, where you have multiple windows opened at the same time.
• Presentations and screen casts.

Supporting information

I found a windows alternative called LeDimmer, but it's abandoned and not open-source. It also lacks a lot of options.

[crutchcorn]

I'm interested in contributing this tool to the project and would be happy to champion development on it. I'm currently doing some exploratory looks into what APIs we'd use for this

[franky920920]

I'm interested in contributing this tool to the project and would be happy to champion development on it. I'm currently doing some exploratory looks into what APIs we'd use for this

If you would like to contribute to PowerToys, we can discuss it here and you can start working on this :)

cc: @crutkas

[crutchcorn]

Some initial thoughts, as I'm unfamiliar with what hooks Windows might have to achieve this:

1. Do we simply get the window borders and draw around them to create a dimming effect? Will this be performant enough on low-powered devices to create a good experience?
2. Alternatively, how does Windows handle drawing in terms of layering. Like, is there a z-index equivalent on Windows that would let me draw n-1 overlay to create the effect?
3. It seems like this repo has split C# and CPP code - Does the PowerToys folks have preference one way or the other? I was leaning CPP, simply because FancyZones seems to be using it, and I suspect some codesharing might be able to occur there EDIT: Apologies, it seems to be pretty clearly in favor of CPP per the style guide

Something I wanna test: I want to make sure multi-monitor support is handled OOTB - since this is a big part of the feature for me

[noraa-junker]

Some initial thoughts, as I'm unfamiliar with what hooks Windows might have to achieve this:

1. Do we simply get the window borders and draw around them to create a dimming effect? Will this be performant enough on low-powered devices to create a good experience?
2. Alternatively, how does Windows handle drawing in terms of layering. Like, is there a z-index equivalent on Windows that would let me draw n-1 overlay to create the effect?
3. It seems like this repo has split C# and CPP code - Does the PowerToys folks have preference one way or the other? I was leaning CPP, simply because FancyZones seems to be using it, and I suspect some codesharing might be able to occur there EDIT: Apologies, it seems to be pretty clearly in favor of CPP per the style guide

Something I wanna test: I want to make sure multi-monitor support is handled OOTB - since this is a big part of the feature for me

@crutchcorn I saw you started working on this. I will add the in progress label for you, if this is ok.

[crutkas]

This is actually #9496

[crutkas]

but lets move that here as this has more info.

[crutkas]

I would suggest creating a POC that is outside powertoys itself so we can test that directly. From there we can talk about implementation back in. Trust me on so many levels this will be easier :)

Pick either C++ or C#

[noraa-junker]

So there are some questions which need clarification:

1. Do we need a specifiaction for this?
2. This doesn't seem to fit really in the existing utilities. But I think it's also to small dor a own utility. Any ideas on this?
3. Personally I think this would be a good feature for the focus sessions in the new Windows 11 clock app. Should we still integrate it?

cc: @dedavis6797 @crutkas