About this version
Finally! Native smooth scaling and HiDPI for your displays on Apple Silicon
At last, what many of you've been waiting for! There is now an option in the app to enable a smooth HiDPI resolution scaling on Apple Silicon for internal displays and natively connected external displays. This means you do not have to create a dummy and mirror it to your main screen simply to have flexible HiDPI resolutions and a resolution slider.
- This also fixes a host of issues for those who simply want flexible resolutions - high refresh rate, Apple TV/HDCP content, sleep issues.
- The smooth resolution scaling feature also works with the notch for the new MBPs and the new MBA.
- Please note that the smooth resolution scale is a Pro feature and it might still have bugs so if it does not work on your setup, please let me know (on the Discord channel or open an Issue). The feature was tested on Apple Silicon.
- While at it, I also added some other nifty features - you can now override you real display's name, native resolution, default resolution and also add your own custom scaled HiDPI resolutions on Apple Silicon. These are available for free for the benefit of all.
- When correctly set up, you should see a super flexible resolution scaling slider (if resolution slider is not disabled) for your affected displays in the app menu (just like if they were dummies - but they are not!).
- To enable the feature, simply navigate to the
Displayssection inPreferences, enable theEdit and manage the system configuration of this displayfeature first under a suitable display, and then enable theAllow smooth resolution scaleoption just below it as it appears. If you did this for all the relevant displays, click on theApply System Display Configurationbutton at the bottom of the screen, enter your admin password and then reboot: - Please note that the smooth scaling feature works on macOS Monterey 12.4 or 12.5 beta and also macOS 13 Ventura and the upper limit of the flexible resolutions is the pixel-doubled native resolution of the display (so for a 1440p display it maxes out at 1440p HiDPI). The feature works only for natively connected (USB-C/DisplayPort, HDMI) and internal displays. For Sidecar, DisplayLink or if you want higher-than-native resolutions (for extra screen real estate) you still need dummy mirroring for flexible scaling on Apple Silicon.
Say hello to BetterDisplay!
An other major news is the fact that the app is being rebranded from BetterDummy to BetterDisplay. This process is not 100% completed (see the progress here), but this build has a new app icon, menu bar icon and the labels inside the app now reflect this upcoming change.
- For those who use the built-in updater to update, the app will retain the name BetterDummy in the Application folders to avoid (or foster?) confusion. :)
Detailed change log
Changes in v1.2.5a/b/c
- rev. c - Fixed: Some text in settings is cut off - #683
- rev. c - Fixed: Display configuration is editable for DisplayLink connected displays (which don't support this feature) - #681
- rev. c - Fixed: Keyboard brightness control does not work when hardware control is disabled in the latest beta - #679
- rev. c - Fixed: With combined brightness, when the brightness is decresed to zero externally for Apple displays, external controls can't recover the brightness - #687
- rev. c - Fixed: The resolution list in simple mode should show only resolutions for the current refresh rate - #686
- rev. c - Fixed: (Suggestion) Reverse resolution list in submenu to show high resolutions first - #684
- rev. c - Fixed: Resolution slider always falls short of fully reaching the end even at 100% - #685
- rev. c - Fixed: Resolution slider changes to Low resolution when the max value was set once - #682
- rev. b - Added option Reset color table on neutral settings + explanation - #644
- rev. b - Added cool option to show hw/sw subsliders when combined brightness is enabled
- rev. b - Fixed: menu blocks cannot be collapsed and some other display or dummy related settings cannot be changed - #666
- rev. b - Fixed: resolution slider is missing issues - #665
- rev. b - Fixed: corrupt system configuration when the display is in a rotated during the procedure - #665
- rev. b - Fixed: brightness OSD is not visible on dummy screen when it is being mirrored to a real screen - #655
- App rebranding (in progress) - #641
- Added feature to manage display system configuration - #645
- Added feature to allow smooth resolution slider for displays - requires Pro - #645
- Added feature to override various display data (display name, native resolution, default resolution) - #645
- Added feature to add custom scaled resolutions to native displays - #645
- Add option to have only resolutions in the resolution slider that matches/approximates native aspect ratio - #658
- Added option to show resolution slider as percentage for smoothly-scaled displays - #660
- Added support for M2 Macbook Air - #656
- Added support for macOS 13 Ventura - #664
- Added a way to show some technical info about the displays for troubleshooting - #650
- Fixed: v1.2.4 and v1.1.24 regression in terms of handing display UUIDs - #662
Changes in v1.2.4
- Added option to show slider labels - #630
- Added an option under Preferences/General to enable/disable all brightness related display control functionality - #628
- Added option to disengage from F14/F15 keys - #629
- Create a Displays tab for various display related settings - #603
- Preferences tab should be reorganized to look consistent (scrolling type) - #621 opened 5 days ago by waydabber
- Startup in safe mode should not restore previous brightness and color adjustment settings - #620
- A proper prompt to gain Accessibility Privilege for media key control upon startup - #613
- Streaming status should be shown in app menu just like mirroring - #619
- Update combined brightness slider/keyboard control state for Apple screens when brightness is changed outside of the app - #602
- Fixed: "Make fine scale default" for brightness control is at a wrong place in Preferences - #626
- Fixed: XDR upscale should not be activated on EDR capable non-XDR Apple displays - #622
- Fixed: Brightness keyboard shortcuts should not affect dummy screens directly but only non-dummy mirror or stream target displays - #616
- Fixed: DDC Volume slider does not zero on mute + app forgets mute state after restart - #605
- Fixed: Combined brightness sub-hw-zero-dimming and XDR upscale switching points should always correspond to a full OSD chiclet - #618
- Fixed: Full screen stream can be resized by clicking on the top/bottom/left/right border of the stream target screen - #617
- Fixed: Oversaturation when changing between combined and not combined color controls for upscaled Apple XDR displays - #614
- Fixed: Night Shift should be turned back off when it was turned off by activating HDR mode from app-menu - #606
- Fixed: Custom keyboard shortcuts don't work when app Menu is open - #596
- Fixed: Resolution menu/slider is a wreck for some real displays in Monterey 12.4 - #601 opened 11 days ago by waydabber
- Fixed: Resolution issue with app-created dummies optimized for the new 14" and 16" macbook pro screens and some other displays - #581
Changes in v1.2.3
- Added various options to manage brightness control methods - #599
- Combined keyboard control of hardware (Apple, DDC) brightness, software dimming and XDR/HDR upscale - #589
- Combined hardware brightness, software dimming, XDR/HDR upscale slider - #588
- Additional options to define keyboard control target screen - #587
- Advanced options for native keyboard control for brightness and audio - #586
- Implement Apple native key support for brightness and volume - #583
- Added fine scale brightness/volume control for custom keyboard shortcuts - #585
- Brightness and color control smooth transitions - #547
- Implement DDC Mute control for external displays - #582
- Implement DDC Volume control for external displays - #580
- Implement DDC brightness control for external displays - #515
- Implement Apple brightness control - #516
- Make the contents of general Tools menu block configurable - #571
- Option to match menu icon with main display icon - #593
- Fixed: Display name suffixes might get messed up with multiple displays of same name - #594
- Fixed: Slider graphics and text colors are somewhat off with some backgrounds - #572
Changes in v1.2.2
- Added color temperature adjustment slider (especially useful for TVs that are incompatible with Night Shift) - #555
- Added contrast control - #566
- Add gain option to squeeze out some more nits or improve brightness when watching a dark movie - #561
- Added R/G/B tint (gamma) control for... I don't know - why not? - #560
- HDR/XDR brightness upscale setting is now remembered permanently, don't need to toggle it all the time - #557
- Added Night Shift controls to the menu (so you don't have to look for that deeply hidden nightshift slider anymore in System Preferences) - #548
- Added keyboard shortcut options for Night Shift and color temperature - #556
- Added option to auto-disable Night Shift when reference HDR mode is enabled on an external display in the app menu - #554
- Added option to reset all color adjustments - #564
- Restore last applied brightness/color adjustments upon reconnect/restart - #563
- Redesign the bottom part of the menu - #567
- Fixed: App keeps forgetting I have a license - update Paddle SDK to 4.3.0 - #558
- Fixed: After resetting the app in Preferences no items appear under the display in the menu - #565
- Fixed: Dimming overlay (Sidecar, Dummy, AirPlay, DisplayLink) not resized properly on resolution change - #551
- Fixed: Enabling HDR/XDR Upscale makes brightness slider disappear - #568
- Fixed: Max dummy resolution gets limited when switching to portrait mode - #559
Changes in v1.2.1
- Updated menu appearance, persistent collapsible display/dummy menu blocks - #546
- Gamma correction slider (you can enable it under Preferences/Appearance) - #525
- Overlay dimming for virtual displays, Sidecar/AirPlay and DisplayLink - #513
- System OSD shown for keyboard shortcut induced brightness changes
- Custom keyboard shortcut for brightness, gamma, HDR upscale and adjustments reset - #521
Note: Apple keyboard native keys support not added yet! - Updated Appearance and Keyboard shortcuts tab - #536
- Configurable menu location for display/dummy information, toggles and tools and new sliders - #531, #535
- Fixed: Resolution slider not updated in some circumstances - #534
- Fixed: Non-whole-numbers refresh rates not shown properly in menu - #541
- Fixed: Resolution sliders go missing - #532
- Fixed: Trial counter does not update properly - #533
- Integrated DDC control framework for Apple Silicon and Intel - #514
Note: DDC brightness and volume control not yet accessible!
Changes in v1.2.0 (compared to v1.1.12)
- HDR/XDR upscaling (extra brightness) - #499