Tribblix: manual page: xscreensaver-settings.1

XScreenSaver(1) User Commands XScreenSaver(1)

NAME

xscreensaver-settings - configure and control the xscreensaver daemon

SYNOPSIS

xscreensaver-settings [--display host:display.screen] [--debug]

DESCRIPTION

The xscreensaver-settings program is a graphical front-end for
setting the parameters used by the xscreensaver(1) daemon. It is a
tool for editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, and for demoing the
various display modes.

The main window consists of a menu bar and two tabbed pages. The
first page is for editing the list of demos, and the second is for
editing various other parameters of the screensaver.

MENU COMMANDS

All of these commands are on either the File or Help menus:

Blank Screen Now
Activates the background xscreensaver daemon, which will then run
a demo at random. This is the same as running
xscreensaver-command(1) with the --activate option.

Lock Screen Now
Just like Blank Screen Now, except the screen will be locked as
well (even if it is not configured to lock all the time.) This
is the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the --lock
option.

Kill Daemon
If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
This is the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the
--exit option.

Restart Daemon
If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
Then launch it again. This is the same as doing "xscreensaver-
command --exit" followed by "xscreensaver".

Note that it is not the same as doing "xscreensaver-command
--restart".

Exit
Exits the xscreensaver-settings program (this program) without
affecting the background xscreensaver daemon, if any.

About...
Displays the version number of this program, xscreensaver-
settings.

Documentation...
Opens up a web browser looking at the XScreenSaver web page,
where you can find online copies of the xscreensaver(1),
xscreensaver-settings(1), and xscreensaver-command(1) manuals.

DISPLAY MODES TAB

This page contains a list of the names of the various display modes,
a preview area, and some fields that let you configure screen saver
behavior.

Mode

This option menu controls the activation behavior of the screen
saver. The options are:

Disable Screen Saver
Don't ever blank the screen, and don't ever allow the monitor
to power down.

Blank Screen Only
When blanking the screen, just go black: don't run any
graphics.

Only One Screen Saver
When blanking the screen, only ever use one particular
display mode (the one selected in the list.)

Random Screen Saver
When blanking the screen, select a random display mode from
among those that are enabled and applicable. If there are
multiple monitors connected, run a different display mode on
each one. This is the default.

Random Same Saver
This is just like Random Screen Saver, except that the same
randomly-chosen display mode will be run on all monitors,
instead of different ones on each.

Demo List

Double-clicking in the list on the left will let you try out the
indicated demo. The screen will go black, and the program will run
in full-screen mode, just as it would if the xscreensaver daemon had
launched it. Clicking the mouse again will stop the demo and un-
blank the screen.

Single-clicking in the list will run it in the small preview pane on
the right. (But beware: many of the display modes behave somewhat
differently when running in full-screen mode, so the scaled-down view
might not give an accurate impression.)

When Mode is set to Random Screen Saver, each name in the list has a
checkbox next to it: this controls whether this display mode is
enabled. If it is unchecked, then that mode will not be chosen.
(Though you can still run it explicitly by double-clicking on its
name.)

If the list has focus, you can type any character to search within
it.

Arrow Buttons

Beneath the list are a pair of up and down arrows. Clicking on the
down arrow will select the next item in the list, and then run it in
full-screen mode, just as if you had double-clicked on it. The up
arrow goes the other way. This is just a shortcut for trying out all
of the display modes in turn.

Blank After

After the user has been idle this long, the xscreensaver daemon will
blank the screen.

Cycle After

After the screensaver has been running for this long, the currently
running graphics demo will be killed, and a new one started. If this
is 0, then the graphics demo will never be changed: only one demo
will run until the screensaver is deactivated by user activity.

If there are multiple screens, the savers are staggered slightly so
that while they all change every cycle minutes, they don't all change
at the same time.

Lock Screen

When this is checked, the screen will be locked when it activates.

Lock Screen After

This controls the length of the "grace period" between when the
screensaver activates, and when the screen becomes locked. For
example, if this is 5 minutes, and Blank After is 10 minutes, then
after 10 minutes, the screen would blank. If there was user activity
at 12 minutes, no password would be required to un-blank the screen.
But, if there was user activity at 15 minutes or later (that is, Lock
Screen After minutes after activation) then a password would be
required. The default is 0, meaning that if locking is enabled, then
a password will be required as soon as the screen blanks.

Preview

This button, below the small preview window, runs the demo in full-
screen mode so that you can try it out. This is the same thing that
happens when you double-click an element in the list. Click the
mouse to dismiss the full-screen preview.

Settings

This button will pop up a dialog where you can configure settings
specific to the display mode selected in the list.

SETTINGS DIALOG

When you click on the Settings button on the Display Modes tab, a
configuration dialog will pop up that lets you customize settings of
the selected display mode. Each display mode has its own custom set
of configuration controls.

ADVANCED TAB

This tab lets you change various settings used by the xscreensaver
daemon itself, as well as some global options shared by all of the
display modes.

Image Manipulation

Some of the graphics hacks manipulate images. These settings control
where those source images come from. The savers load images by
running the xscreensaver-getimage(6) and
xscreensaver-getimage-file(6) programs.

Grab Desktop Images
If this option is selected, then savers are allowed to
manipulate the desktop image, that is, a display mode might
draw a picture of your desktop melting, or being distorted in
some way. The security-paranoid might want to disable this
option, because if it is set, it means that the windows on
your desktop will occasionally be visible while your screen
is locked. Others will not be able to do anything, but they
may be able to see whatever you left on your screen.

Grab Video Frames
If your system has a camera or other video input, selecting
this option may allow the image-manipulating modes to grab a
still-frame of video to operate on.

Choose Random Image
If this option is set, then the image-manipulating modes will
select a random image file to operate on, from the specified
source. That source may be a local directory, which will be
recursively searched for images. Or, it may be the URL of an
RSS or Atom feed (e.g., a Flickr gallery), in which case a
random image from that feed will be selected instead. The
contents of the feed will be cached locally and refreshed
periodically as needed.

If more than one of the above image-related options are selected,
then one will be chosen at random. If none of them are selected,
then an image of video colorbars will be used instead.

Text Manipulation

Some of the display modes display and manipulate text. The following
options control how that text is generated. The savers load text by
running the xscreensaver-text(6) program.

Host Name and Time
If this checkbox is selected, then the text used by the
screen savers will be the local host name, OS version, date,
time, and system load.

Text
If this checkbox is selected, then the literal text typed in
the field to its right will be used. If it contains % escape
sequences, they will be expanded as per strftime(2).

Text File
If this checkbox is selected, then the contents of the
corresponding file will be displayed.

Program
If this checkbox is selected, then the given program will be
run, repeatedly, and its output will be displayed.

URL If this checkbox is selected, then the given web page will be
downloaded and displayed repeatedly. If the document
contains HTML, RSS, or Atom, it will be converted to plain-
text first.

Note: this re-downloads the document every time the screen
saver runs out of text, so it will probably be hitting that
web server multiple times a minute.

Power Management Settings

These settings control whether, and when, your monitor powers down.

Power Management Enabled
Whether the monitor should be powered down after a period of
inactivity.

If this option is grayed out, it means your X server does not
support the XDPMS extension, and so control over the
monitor's power state is not available.

Standby After
If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
black after this much idle time. (Graphics demos will stop
running, also.)

Suspend After
If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
into power-saving mode after this much idle time. This
duration should be greater than or equal to Standby.

Off After
If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will
fully power down after this much idle time. This duration
should be greater than or equal to Suspend.

Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode
If the display mode is set to Blank Screen Only and this is
checked, then the monitor will be powered off immediately
upon blanking, regardless of the other power-management
settings. In this way, the power management idle-timers can
be completely disabled, but the screen will be powered off
when black.

Blanking

These options control how the screen fades to or from black when a
screen saver begins or ends.

Fade To Black When Blanking
If selected, then when the screensaver activates, the current
contents of the screen will fade to black instead of simply
winking out.

Unfade From Black When Unblanking
The opposite: if selected, then when the screensaver
deactivates, the original contents of the screen will fade in
from black instead of appearing immediately. This is only
done if Fade To Black is also selected.

Fade Duration
When fading or unfading are selected, this controls how long
the fade will take.

Theme

This option menu lists the color schemes available for use on the
unlock dialog.

There are more settings than these available, but these are the most
commonly used ones; see the manual for xscreensaver(1) for other
parameters that can be set by editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, or
the X resource database.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
xscreensaver-settings accepts the following command line options.

--display host:display.screen
The X display to use. The xscreensaver-settings program will
open its window on that display, and also control the
xscreensaver daemon that is managing that same display.

--debug Causes lots of diagnostics to be printed on stderr.

The xscreensaver and xscreensaver-settings processes must run on the
same machine, or at least, on two machines that share a file system.
When xscreensaver-settings writes a new version of the
~/.xscreensaver file, xscreensaver needs to see that same file, or it
won't work.

ENVIRONMENT

DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.

PATH to find the sub-programs to run. However, note that the sub-
programs actually launched by xscreensaver-settings for
display in the inline preview pane, but are launched by the
xscreensaver daemon when run full screen, so the $PATH
setting in both processes matters.

HOME for the directory in which to read and write the
.xscreensaver file.

XENVIRONMENT
to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, or https_proxy
to get the default proxy host and port.

UPGRADES

The latest version of xscreensaver, an online version of this manual,
and a FAQ can always be found at https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 1992-2022 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy,
modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for
any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above
copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.
No representations are made about the suitability of this software
for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied
warranty.

AUTHOR

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>.

Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.

X Version 11 6.09 (07-Jun-2024) XScreenSaver(1)