i've recently started using f.lux [1], which adjusts the color temperature of the screen based on the time. after a night of coding, i've noticed i've been able to fall asleep more quickly, probably since my eyes adjust to the ambient warm light in the room while coding.

[1] http://stereopsis.com/flux/

I used it for awhile, but found the transition to be really jarring - it happened over a period of ten seconds.

You can set it to transition over an hour, so it's a lot more subtle.

f.lux is great when it works, but if you plug into an external monitor at all, it seems to stop working automatically. I'd go three days and suddenly realise that I'm staring at a very blue screen at 11pm. This is on a Mac, it might be fine on other platforms.

As another anecdotal data point, I have had f.lux working fine for months with 3 monitors on my Mac Pro (running the latest version of Mac OS X).

Good to know. I only have problems when switching between internal and external on an MBP.

I've have similar issues when switching back and forth to an external monitor. After switching though I just quit and restart f.lux and it looks fine again.

What about Nocturne (from the Quicksilver guys: http://www.blacktree.com/ )?

Or even simpler, ctrl-alt-cmd-8?

You just blew my mind. Thanks for that second tip.

Compiz has a similar feature on Linux, though I think it's not bound to any key combo by default.

If I recall correctly, it's Super-M for inverting the screen and Super-N for inverting an individual window.

It would be neat if you could use the MacBook light sensor that turns on the keyboard lights to trigger switching terminal themes

There's a processing library for getting information from it[1], so there's certainly the possibility of using the sensor to automatically adjust the theme. I would try to write something to do that myself, but I don't have a Mac.

[1] http://projects.formatlos.de/ambientlightsensor/

How would that work? Surely the brightness of the screen (which I believe the sensor can see as it is at the top of the keyboard) is more than the sunlight. Maybe using the gyroscope/anti-drop, someone made a app-switcher that worked that way.

I don't think that would be a problem, if that was the case, the sensor would not work for it's original purpose either.

1. Needs to be automated (look up sunset time like Instapaper) 2. Needs to be part of every browser (for the blank page).

This is interesting. I've come to love Solarized, and switch between the two depending on day and night.

http://ethanschoonover.com/solarized

In iTerm2 I mapped the lighter theme to CTRL-CMD-L and the dark theme to CTRL-CMD-D. I am sure there is a quick way to change the default theme as well, though I haven't really tried too hard.