[colord] ddcutil - a utility to control monitor settings

[Sanford Rockowitz]

For those who haven't yet stumbled upon it, I'd like to make you aware
of ddcutil, a utility for controlling monitor settings (basically
anything that can be done by pressing the buttons on a monitor, and then
some).

ddcutil grew out of my interest in photography and color management. A
color calibration/profile is meaningful only in respect to the physical
color settings on monitor at the time of calibration. Change the red
level on the monitor, for example, and it's meaningless to apply the
calibration. ddcutil allows you to save the color related monitor
settings at the time a profile/calibration is created, then restore the
monitor to those settings when applying a profile. Another use that has
proven popular is to switch monitor inputs. The utility has been
publicly available for about a year, and it's time to make it more
visible.  Its web site is www.ddcutil.com <http://www.ddcutil.com> and
the code is on GitHub <https://github.com/rockowitz/ddcutil>.  The core
features of ddcutil are surfaced in a C API.  Upcoming is a Python API
on which a GUI can be built.

I've recently submitted ddcutil for inclusion in Debian and Fedora and
am looking for sponsors.  I plan to submit it to openSuSE as well. 

ddcutil can be seen as a replacement for ddccontrol, which has not been
maintained for some time and has been dropped from distributions. It's
design differs from that of ddccontrol in two ways that should make
ddcutil more robust as video drivers change and new monitors appear. 
First, it relies on the i2c-dev userspace interface instead of directly
programming to the gpio registers.   Second, it has a detailed
understanding of the Monitor Control Command Spec (MCCS), so doesn't
need a library of monitor definition files for interpreting Virtual
Control Panel (VCP) features. ddcutil can also communicate with
monitors, such as Eizo ColorEdge displays, that implement MCCS over USB,
if the monitor adheres to the USB Monitor Control Class spec for Human
Interface Devices. 

Sanford Rockowitz




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