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External Display - Can I toggle macbook screen on and off?

D

Durazing

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 3, 2010
15
0
My Dell u2711 is my primary display. Sometimes I wake up the macbook out of sleep mode and forget to have the lid shut. Consequently the Macbook screen comes on as well. Everything is working as it should but I am curious is there a quick way to switch the Macbook display on and off with the setup I have described?

Thanks in advance.
 
Wow. Quick response :) Thats what I figured. Shame. Was hoping there was a hack..
 
how do you find them side by side? Do you notice much of a difference between the contrast, colours, black levels etc? I ask because I'm thinking of getting a u2410 to go with my macbook pro. Oh, and do you have a glossy or matte screen?
 
YOu can just double click ne were on the external screen n it should shut off your MacBook Pro even if its open. I have only tested it with the new MBP and mini display port
 
DeusInvictus7 said:
This is false. What you can do is put the MacBook to sleep, and then waking it while plugged into the display with a mouse, and then opening the lid so you can use the built in keyboard or trackpad.
Click to expand...

When I do this it flickers for a second, then turns the internal display on
 
With the u2711 and the macbook pro 17 i can match the displays pretty well. I have the anti glare for the 17" macbook. As I understand it the gamut range for the 17" is wider than for the other macbook pros so this might be a consideration.

I generally have the Macbook opened up as I find it cools slightly better but generally only have the external display active. I am surprised there is no way to switch the macbook display on and off when hooked up to an external display.
 
Windows offers the option and even a keyboard shortcut (WIN-P). OS X doesn't seem to offer it, but you can just turn down the brightness of the internal screen to 0.

You have to use the built in keyboard of the laptop though, some bug prevents you from using the brightness control of Apple's wireless keyboard on OS X once an external display is connected (again this works on Windows without problems).
 
Timur: I also bring the brightness down to zero on the macbook. Does the job but with Spaces being used it can be a hassle when navigating between spaces. Oh well none of these are big issues, however since migrating from Windows 7 this is about the only function I miss.
 
Turn it to Clone mode and there should be no difference with using spaces compared to a single display!?
 
dont we then have scaling issues:

u2711 at 2560
17" at 1920

I will revisit this but I recall this as being an issue in clone mode.

edit: just tried it and the u2711 then defaults to 1920 res to be a true clone of the macbook's display. Ugh.
 
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