Resting place for your tired eyes.

You seat in front of your computer and your eyes are getting tired. It's not a question, I am stating the fact. All those bright web pages, bright-colored links and jumping ads, that's just a migraine waiting to happen.

Try this - switch off the lights. Open a page in your word processor. Make it full screen. Look behind you. Notice how it brightens the room?

You are getting a light bulb blasting into your eyes. And you wonder why you are hit with a headache all of a sudden?

If you have to type for a long time, here's little something your eyes will thank you for - Dark Room. Dark Room is a Windows freeware program based on Mac's famous writeRoom. It's easier on the eyes, shields you from unnecessery distractions and it's very steam-punk, if you are into the kinky stuff.

There're two ways to utilize what Dark Room has to offer.

One - you use it full screen (default). That is pretty nice if you are typing in a novel, a leter, a revolutionary manifesto, something that comes from within and doesn't require you to switch between windows all the time.

Second way is more useful for bloggers, article writers, etc. If you need to consult references all the time, you can run Dark Room in a window. Even as such, it provides a welcome respite, a nice dark resting nich for your eyes on otherwise usually bright screen. You can disable launching the program in full-screen in preferences, if you wish.

You can have both full screen and access to other windows if you don't mind pressing F11 all the time. That switches between full-screen and window mode.

Here's how it looks like on default settings:


The default look is green font on a black screen. It's not to every one's taste, understandably. Good thing the appearance is adjustable.

You can change the font to any other color and you can even tweak background's opacity so that you can see through it, if that's you thing. This is what mine looks like:


Here's the Preferences window (Ctr+) where you can play with the settings:



To sum-up - it's easy to use for long time, customizable, keeps you focused without giving you a headache. It's a must-try for all the migraine people who have to toil with Windows PCs.


Requirements:

-Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista
-.NET Framework 2.0 (If you have Windows Updates on Auto, you most likely already have it. If not, run the updates and Windows should install it for you).

Pluses:
-Easy to use and configure (it's a NotePad replacement, duh).
-There're both the usual right-click menu and keyboard shortcuts built-in to make your life easier. Check author's site for a shortcut list.
-Vista compatible.
-Open text files by drag-and-drop (neat, try it).
-It's dark and easy on the eyes.

Minuses:
-No find-and-replace.
-Needs .NET Framework 2.0, it makes it a bit heavier on system resources but not considerably.
-Not really clear what those googly things on the right side of the screen do :P .

Link: Author's site

Link: Download