Mono E Ink Monitor Setup

A lot of what follows regards configuring a computer to use a monochrome monitor for software development.

Table of Contents

1. Onyx Boox Mira monitor settings
2. Visual Studio
3. Misc. Utilities
4. Onyx Boox Mira and UV light

Onyx Boox Mira monitor settings

Resolution

On Windows 11 using the native resolution of the panel and setting display scaling to 175% seems to work best. (Onyx recommend using 1400 x 1050 resolution with Microsoft Windows; I can't see any reason to use that "low" resolution though.)

The bezel of my display covers some of the edges of the E Ink panel. (The diagonal of the inside of the bezel excluding the rounded corners is 13.18" across while the panel is 13.3" along the diagonal.) I have set things up so that the edges of the panel that are covered by the bezel won't be used by running 2184 x 1626 pixels with the image centered and not scaled. I have used Intel Graphics Command Center to set up the custom resolution.

Display Mode

Each display mode can be useful at times.

Normal (▣) works well most of the time.

Text mode uses only black and white - no greys, no dithering.

The Video mode has less ghosting than Normal mode but has more dithering than the other modes.

The Reading (or Slideshow) mode displays shades of grey without noticeable dithering; it looks great but screen updates are way too slow for most interactive use.

Foot pedal to request screen refresh

Refreshing the screen clears ghosting. Pressing a foot pedal is easier than having to reach for the button on the bottom right of the display.

Onyx's Mira Windows app allows a keyboard shortcut to be specified for refreshing the display. A foot pedal can be programmed to generate that shortcut. (miractl could be used instead of the app by Onyx; miractl.py --clear refreshes the display.)

(Multiple foot pedals can be connected; One or more could be set up to change the display mode.)

Visual Studio

• Disable some syntax highlighting.
  From Tools / Options / Environment / Fonts and Colors set Item foreground to Automatic (which will be black when using either the "Blue" or "Light" color themes) for each of the following in the Display items list:
  • C++ Keyword - Control
  • C++ new/delete Operator Functions
  • Keyword
  • Keyword - Control
  • Preprocessor Keyword

Misc. utilities

• Vim Mono E Ink Color Scheme.
  The color scheme includes support for displaying diffs. (Many common color schemes use red for deleted lines and green for added lines which doesn't help on a monochrome display.)

• ls command setup.

Onyx Boox Mira and UV light

My display developed a yellow tinge around the edge of the display after about half a year. I suspect it is due to UV light exposure. (Here is a report of a yellow tinge developing with an Onyx Boox tablet.) The yellow tinge around the edges of my display is usually hidden by turning on the warm frontlight.

I have used the display near a window where it'd receive light from the sun. Most glass filters out UVB but not UVA. UVA can damage skin and eyes (and may have led to discoloring of the edge of my display). The claim that "you can't get sunburnt when behind glass" might be true (UVB causes reddening of the skin), but it doesn't make it safe if UVA is not filtered out - UVA penetrates further into the skin than UVB and it can cause skin cancer. Best is probably to keep the display and yourself away from UV light.