EaseView

A small Windows app that puts a coloured tint over the screen to help with reading and visual comfort.

It covers every monitor with a click-through overlay you can tweak for strength and density. Sits in the system tray, remembers its settings, copes with monitors being plugged in and unplugged, and supports custom hotkeys.

Features

• Multi-monitor overlay (recovers automatically when monitors come and go)
• DPI-aware UI (sharp at 100%, 125%, 150%, 200%)
• Preset colours and a custom colour picker, with a recent-colours row
• Opacity and density sliders with quick presets
• System tray icon (state-aware: shows the active colour, dims when off)
• Pause overlay for 10s / 30s / 1 min / 5 min via the tray
• Settings profiles - save / load / export / import
• Schedule (fixed times, including overnight, or sunset-to-sunrise via astral)
• Optional global hotkeys (admin needed on Windows; opt-in)
• Light / dark / follow-Windows theme
• Portable mode (drop a portable.ini next to the exe)
• Update banner that checks GitHub releases on startup
• Atomic settings writes; corrupt files are backed up and reset

Install

Grab the latest EaseView.exe from the Releases page.

Or run from source:

pip install -r requirements.txt
python screen_overlay.py

Optional packages and what they unlock:

Package	Why
pywin32	Better monitor info, Windows startup registry, dark mode
requests	Update checks
keyboard	Global system-wide hotkeys (needs admin)
astral	Sunset / sunrise scheduling

pystray and Pillow are required (tray icon).

Usage

python screen_overlay.py
python screen_overlay.py --minimized
python screen_overlay.py --version

Keyboard shortcuts (in-window)

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+O	Toggle overlay
Ctrl+Shift+↑ / ↓	Strength up / down
Ctrl+Shift+→ / ←	Density up / down
Esc	Hide overlay
Tab / Enter / Space	Navigate / activate

These work whenever the EaseView window is focused. Global hotkeys (active while EaseView is in the tray) are off by default - enable them in Settings → Hotkey settings…. The keyboard package needs admin on Windows.

Files

User data lives in %USERPROFILE%, or alongside the exe in portable mode:

File	What it is
.easeview_settings.json	All saved settings
.easeview.log	Rotating log
.easeview.lock	PID lock (fallback)
.easeview_profiles/	Saved profiles

If the settings file ever goes bad it's renamed to .corrupt.<timestamp>.bak and defaults are used.

Portable mode

Put a file called portable.ini (or portable.txt) next to the exe. EaseView will then keep everything in its own folder.

Build

build_windows.bat

This installs requirements, runs the tests, and runs PyInstaller via EaseView.spec.

Known issues

• Windows only.
• The keyboard package needs admin for global hotkeys.
• Some exclusive-fullscreen DirectX games render on top of the overlay.

Licence

MIT - see LICENSE.

Ross Paxton - Ross.paxton@south-ayrshire.gov.uk