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🎄 The Essential new things you can experience since 2018

Blink blink… and the year is almost on his end. It was an ultimate year with amazing updates for Turn Off the Lights. In the year 2018, you saw tremendous improvements in design and user experience. And we can’t wait for the 2019 updates that will blow you away. Here is a short overview from the Turn Off the Lights software update in the year 2018:

The Essential new things for Browser users

In April 2018 we created The Biggest Ultimate update for our web users. The Turn Off the Lights Options page has a completely different user interface, that is simple and responsive in all screen sizes (desktop, tablet, and mobile). That you experience the YouTube experience even better.
And with the support of the Dark Mode options page, so you see your settings on a not-bright page. But a darker theme that makes it more comfortable for your eyes.

In May 2018, we remember Global Accessibility Awareness Day, that disability users need a helpful tool, so they can experience the web in a less fearful way.

In September 2018, is Google’s birthday month but also to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Google Chrome web browser.

In October 2018, the Apple Safari extension received the same engine update, with the Double Click menu to easily change the dark layer opacity. And to enable quickly the Night Mode feature (custom panel to choose your own background, text, and hyperlink color).

In November 2018, the American Education week, use this tool for special needs students. Here we highlighted a teacher review about the use of our Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension. And recommended you to use it too.

The Essential new things for Desktop users

In June 2018, we did the Big Ultimate update for the desktop users. The screen dimmer preference page has an Acrylic material theme. So it feels more together with the latest Windows 10 coherent and fluent design. The Turn Off the Lights for Desktop app is the only unique and best screen dimmer for Windows 10 users.

It has a Responsive Layout, so the preference page matches your current open screen size. And easy to find your setting with the search box in the navigation bar.

And you Turn Off the Lights for Desktop settings are saved in the cloud, so whenever you login into your Microsoft Surface or other Windows devices. You get the same experience on each device. The best and most powerful app to dim your screen on Windows 10.

Thank You

We would like to thank all our users, for their feedback, contributions, and support. It is always a pleasure to improve our work, and we are always here to make this small and free nifty browser extension better with each update. That is on your user request. Thank you and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2019!

About The Author

Stefan Van Damme

👩🏼‍🏫 Teachers recommend that you use this tool for Special Needs Students

It is American Education Week (November 12-16, 2018). And we want to share you a review from a teacher, that from Carmella Hughes (Technology Integration Specialist K-5). She recommended you to use the Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension. Because it brings success in minimizing distractions for special needs students.

Special needs students

The tool I chose to try was, Turn Off the Lights, a free Chrome Extension. It works with all Flash videos, HTML5 videos, Silverlight, Quicktime, and Windows Media Player. You can use this tool on YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, Yahoo, Facebook, and many other social network sites. Once installed, you simply click on the lamp icon in the toolbar to turn this feature on and off. The purpose of this tool is to dim or obscure the background of any video. This process masks ads and suggested videos on the page. The extension can be customized.

On the options page, you can choose the screen color and opacity of the masked area. You have the option of a linear gradient background or you may add a static or animated image for the background. There is a speech recognition feature that enables commands such as, “Hey browser, turn off lights.” When I tried this extension, I used a solid gray full opaque background that I hoped would limit the brightness of the projection and provide a greater comfortable level with less visual distraction to the viewer. I found Turn Off the Lights Extension to be quite successful in meeting my needs to support my learners.

Benefit from this extension

Here are some of the children that could benefit from this extension. Special education students need multi-sensory strategies to encourage and support their learning. Movies are great motivational and stimulating tools to teach or reinforce content using visuals and sound.

However, many videos are embedded on a page with other text and images. It is often a busy page. Special needs students require learning environments and situations that minimize distractions. Limiting clutter on a page is beneficial for students with autism and ADHD. Students with sensory processing disorders evidence more success with learning when visual distractions are kept to a minimum. Less information on a page by concealing non-vital parts of the page will help to keep the child focused on what is important. Dim lighting and less distracting stimuli are key accommodations for these learners.

Also students with visual processing or perceptual disorders have difficulty making sense of what they see when taking in information visually. Turn Off the Lights, blocks out all but the video on the page. This tool certainly would help these challenged learners to focus on the one important visual that is the content of the lesson.

Conclusion

I would highly recommend this extension, Turn Off the Lights, for its ease of use, optional customizable features, and success in minimizing distractions for special needs students.

Haven’t tried the new Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension? You can download the Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension on the Chrome Web Store. And if you like Turn Off the Lights, don’t forget to support our work by donating a small amount. This to keep our browser extension online for everyone.

About The Author

Stefan Van Damme

🎨 It’s here! The powerful double click menu for Safari

You can get today the most ultimate tool in your Safari web browser. Because the Turn Off the Lights extension can do much more then you think.

What is new in this Turn Off the Lights for Safari extension version? There are many amazing improvements available for you. You get all the innovative features from the Turn Off the Lights Chrome extension version 4 engine. Here below a brief overview of what you can do in the new Safari extension version.

The Double Click Menu

When you open a web page, you can click double on gray lamp button. This will open the popup menu on top of the website content. In this popup window, you can change the opacity and color of the dark layer.Turn Off the Lights for Safari Double Click menu

Also, you can enable here the Night Mode, Atmosphere Lighting feature with a single click on the checkbox.

Discover your favorite website in the dark

In this new version, you can know how much energy you saved when you dim the web page for a certain time. And you can know what is your favorite website where you engage the most with the Turn Off the Lights extension. This analytics information is only available on your Mac computer.

Better Night Mode

This version includes also an update for the Night Mode feature. With a click on the switch, you can convert the website day theme to a night theme. And with the new double click menu, you can customize live the background color, text and hyperlink color.

Improvement Options page

The Options page layout is more simple and easy to use. And yes, there is Dark Mode available when you click on the three-dot icon. That is great for dark macOS Mojave users.

Turn Off the Lights for Safari Options page

The Turn Off the Lights for Safari extension is 100% free. And we don’t charge you to get this extension in your Safari web browser. As we believe this tool must be available for everyone, from students to teachers, and users who want to protect his eyes against this bright white light.

But for the developer as us, the macOS platform to publish this Safari extension is not free, Apple charges us each year 99$. If you like our work, please make a small donation to keep this free and open Source Turn Off the Lights available each year.

About The Author

Stefan Van Damme