KWin scripted effect for KDE Plasma 6 (Wayland and X11) that dims Plasma panels on selected monitors to reduce OLED burn-in, and restores full brightness while the pointer is over a panel - the same behaviour as Samsung Display Manager's "Taskbar Brightness", but done in the compositor.
Only windows of type dock (Plasma panels) are affected. Games, fullscreen video and everything else are untouched.
kpackagetool6 -t KWin/Effect -i kwin-effects-oled-paneldim/
qdbus org.kde.KWin /Effects loadEffect paneldim # or enable it in
# System Settings > Desktop Effects
Upgrade an existing install with -u, remove with -r paneldim.
System Settings > Window Management > Desktop Effects > search "OLED Panel Dim" > configure icon on the right of the entry. Tick the checkbox to enable it persistently across sessions.
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Dimmed brightness | 0.35 | Multiplier applied to the panel (1.0 = off) |
| Fade duration | 150 ms | Transition time for dim / un-dim |
| Restore on hover | on | Full brightness while the pointer is over the panel |
| Monitors to dim | * |
Include list, comma-separated |
Each monitor entry matches, case-insensitively, the connector name (DP-2),
the EDID model (Odyssey G8), the serial number, or Manufacturer Model.
Prefer model or serial over connector name: connectors are re-enumerated on
GPU or driver changes, EDID identity is not. * matches every monitor.
To see what your monitors report, load the effect and run:
journalctl --user -b -g paneldim
Settings live in ~/.config/kwinrc under [Effect-paneldim] and are applied
live when you press Apply.
KWin lets scripted effects attach a persistent Effect.Brightness animation to
a window. Brightness is a per-window uniform in the compositor's fragment
shader, so the panel's pixels are scaled at composition time - black stays
black, nothing is overlaid, nothing is rendered twice. Pointer position comes
from effects.mouseChanged; entering a panel's frame rectangle retargets the
animation to 1.0, leaving it retargets back to the configured level.
No compiled code, so nothing to rebuild when KWin updates.
MIT, see LICENSE.