Possible to black out/dim second screen while using multiple displays in VLC 2.1.3 fullscreen mode?

Question

Pardon if this is a duplicate, but I searched and could only find the reverse of my question.

I remember VLC used to have an option to "not" black out the second screen when playing a video in fullscreen mode. In older versions of VLC, I believe the default was to have this enabled.

Is there a way to re-enable this feature in the latest version (2.1.3)? I could just turn off the monitor when watching something, but the power button of the monitor is situated awkwardly and the old way worked so well. Maybe I was the only person who actually liked it's default behavior.

I cannot find any settings in the advanced mode that would work the way I described.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

You were most likely using a Mac (I can't comment to ask, will do that once I can) when this worked for you, since the described behaviour (going fullscreen blacks out other screens) is default for Mac. Even for other apps. In VLC for Mac you can turn this option on or off in preferences.

However if you're using VLC on another system, there's almost no way for VLC to communicate the "screen black out" to the system so there is no such option in preferences. You can make a hacky script that turns the other screen off while VLC (or any app) is in fullscreen, to imitate the Mac's feature, but natively there is no way of doing that as of now.