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Fix for Meeting Notes in OneNote vs. PowerManagement & Auto-Lock

HvT

Member
Situation:
For battery's sake, standby is configured if on battery and idle for some minutes.
For security's sake, auto-lock is configured if coming back from standby and after some minutes.

Problem:
During meetings, it can take some minutes between inking in OneNote. Then, the device is locked. Or - even worse - in standby. Logging back in without a keyboard takes too long, it's just annoying. I used to have my keyboard detached or wrapped to the back for meeting notes.
Moreover, there is no FN-Key for screen brightness.

Solution:
Dim screen and simulate activity if idle and if OneNote is the active window (topmost window) - preventing standby and auto-lock, but save battery time as good as possible. Immediately on user activity, previous brightness gets restored.
Dim screen and do not simulate activity in other cases - allowing regular windows power management and auto-lock. But screen dimming could still be useful to save battery.
Get back to previous brightness on any activity, such as keyboard, mouse/trackpad, touch.
Manually control brightness with CTRL-WIN and cursor keys.

I wrote a small tool to do this. It seems to work for me, but it is a quick hack. It might work for you, too. I do not have much time to maintain it, but suggestions are welcome.

Installation:
Copy ZIP contents to some place in your filesystem. Have the EXE started during login, eg. by creating a link to it in your user's startup folder.

Shortfalls:
Done for and tested only with OneNote for Desktop. No plan to do it for Modern UI OneNote.
Timers are not exact, but good enough for this purpose. You shall be safe staying 5 seconds under your power management profile. Windows default on my SP3 was 4 minutes. PowerTweak's default is 3,5 min. Or so, check INI file...
Manual INI editing via Notepad. But works without INI file with some defaults, too.
Yet no checks if on power supply or on battery. Would be possible to do, but perhaps not necessary...

Enjoy
 

Attachments

  • PowerTweak.zip
    211 KB · Views: 382
OP
H

HvT

Member
Updated:

Installation:
After copying the files and starting PowerTweak.exe, its tray icon has a context menu to create a link in your startup folder.

OneNote Modern UI:
Modified regex in default configuration file. At least for MUI-OneNote sharing the screen with Windows Desktop side by side, it seems to work - if MUI OneNote is the active app.

Bugfixes...
 

Attachments

  • PowerTweak.zip
    211.5 KB · Views: 432
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