1xscreensaver-demo(1) XScreenSaver manual xscreensaver-demo(1)
2
6 xscreensaver-demo - interactively control the background xscreensaver
7 daemon
8
10 xscreensaver-demo [-display host:display.screen] [-prefs] [--debug]
11
13 The xscreensaver-demo program is a graphical front-end for setting the
14 parameters used by the background xscreensaver(1) daemon. It is essen‐
15 tially two things: a tool for editing the ~/.xscreensaver file; and a
16 tool for demoing the various graphics hacks that the xscreensaver dae‐
17 mon will launch.
18 The main window consists of a menu bar and two tabbed pages. The first
20 page is for editing the list of demos, and the second is for editing
21 various other parameters of the screensaver.
22
24 All of these commands are on either the File or Help menus:
25 Blank Screen Now
27 Activates the background xscreensaver daemon, which will then run a
28 demo at random. This is the same as running xscreensaver-com‐
29 mand(1) with the -activate option.
30 Lock Screen Now
32 Just like Blank Screen Now, except the screen will be locked as
33 well (even if it is not configured to lock all the time.) This is
34 the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -lock option.
35 Kill Daemon
37 If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
38 This is the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -exit
39 option.
40 Restart Daemon
42 If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
43 Then launch it again. This is the same as doing ``xscreensaver-
44 command -exit'' followed by ``xscreensaver''.
45 Note that it is not the same as doing ``xscreensaver-command
47 -restart''.
48 Exit
50 Exits the xscreensaver-demo program (this program) without affect‐
51 ing the background xscreensaver daemon, if any.
52 About...
54 Displays the version number of this program, xscreensaver-demo.
55 Documentation...
57 Opens up a web browser looking at the XScreenSaver web page, where
58 you can find online copies of the xscreensaver(1), xscreen‐
59 saver-demo(1), and xscreensaver-command(1) manuals.
60
62 This page contains a list of the names of the various display modes, a
63 preview area, and some fields that let you configure screen saver
64 behavior.
65 Mode
67 This option menu controls the activation behavior of the screen
68 saver. The options are:
69 Disable Screen Saver
71 Don't ever blank the screen, and don't ever allow the monitor
72 to power down.
73 Blank Screen Only
75 When blanking the screen, just go black: don't run any graph‐
76 ics.
77 Only One Screen Saver
79 When blanking the screen, only ever use one particular display
80 mode (the one selected in the list.)
81 Random Screen Saver
83 When blanking the screen, select a random display mode from
84 among those that are enabled and applicable. If there are mul‐
85 tiple monitors connected, run a different display mode on each
86 one. This is the default.
87 Random Same Saver
89 This is just like Random Screen Saver, except that the same
90 randomly-chosen display mode will be run on all monitors,
91 instead of different ones on each.
92 Demo List
94 Double-clicking in the list on the left will let you try out the
95 indicated demo. The screen will go black, and the program will run
96 in full-screen mode, just as it would if the xscreensaver daemon
97 had launched it. Clicking the mouse again will stop the demo and
98 un-blank the screen.
99 Single-clicking in the list will run it in the small preview pane
101 on the right. (But beware: many of the display modes behave some‐
102 what differently when running in full-screen mode, so the scaled-
103 down view might not give an accurate impression.)
104 When Mode is set to Random Screen Saver, each name in the list has
106 a checkbox next to it: this controls whether this display mode is
107 enabled. If it is unchecked, then that mode will not be chosen.
108 (Though you can still run it explicitly by double-clicking on its
109 name.)
110 Arrow Buttons
112 Beneath the list are a pair of up and down arrows. Clicking on the
113 down arrow will select the next item in the list, and then run it
114 in full-screen mode, just as if you had double-clicked on it. The
115 up arrow goes the other way. This is just a shortcut for trying
116 out all of the display modes in turn.
117 Blank After
119 After the user has been idle this long, the xscreensaver daemon
120 will blank the screen.
121 Cycle After
123 After the screensaver has been running for this long, the currently
124 running graphics demo will be killed, and a new one started. If
125 this is 0, then the graphics demo will never be changed: only one
126 demo will run until the screensaver is deactivated by user activ‐
127 ity.
128 The running saver will be restarted every this-many minutes even in
130 Only One Screen Saver mode, since some savers tend to converge on a
131 steady state.
132 Lock Screen
134 When this is checked, the screen will be locked when it activates.
135 Lock Screen After
137 This controls the length of the ``grace period'' between when the
138 screensaver activates, and when the screen becomes locked. For
139 example, if this is 5 minutes, and Blank After is 10 minutes, then
140 after 10 minutes, the screen would blank. If there was user activ‐
141 ity at 12 minutes, no password would be required to un-blank the
142 screen. But, if there was user activity at 15 minutes or later
143 (that is, Lock Screen After minutes after activation) then a pass‐
144 word would be required. The default is 0, meaning that if locking
145 is enabled, then a password will be required as soon as the screen
146 blanks.
147 Preview
149 This button, below the small preview window, runs the demo in full-
150 screen mode so that you can try it out. This is the same thing
151 that happens when you double-click an element in the list. Click
152 the mouse to dismiss the full-screen preview.
153 Settings
155 This button will pop up a dialog where you can configure settings
156 specific to the display mode selected in the list.
157
159 When you click on the Settings button on the Display Modes tab, a con‐
160 figuration dialog will pop up that lets you customize settings of the
161 selected display mode. Each display mode has its own custom configura‐
162 tion controls on the left side.
163 On the right side is a paragraph or two describing the display mode.
165 Below that is a Documentation button that will display the display
166 mode's manual page, if it has one, in a new window (since each of the
167 display modes is actually a separate program, they each have their own
168 manual.)
169 The Advanced button reconfigures the dialog box so that you can edit
171 the display mode's command line directly, instead of using the graphi‐
172 cal controls.
173
175 This tab lets you change various settings used by the xscreensaver dae‐
176 mon itself, as well as some global options shared by all of the display
177 modes.
178 Image Manipulation
180 Some of the graphics hacks manipulate images. These settings control
182 where those source images come from. (All of these options work by
183 invoking the xscreensaver-getimage(1) program, which is what actually
184 does the work.)
185 Grab Desktop Images
187 If this option is selected, then they are allowed to manipulate
188 the desktop image, that is, a display mode might draw a picture
189 of your desktop melting, or being distorted in some way. The
190 security-paranoid might want to disable this option, because if
191 it is set, it means that the windows on your desktop will occa‐
192 sionally be visible while your screen is locked. Others will
193 not be able to do anything, but they may be able to see what‐
194 ever you left on your screen.
195 Grab Video Frames
197 If your system has a video capture card, selecting this option
198 will allow the image-manipulating modes to capture a frame of
199 video to operate on.
200 Choose Random Image
202 If this option is set, then the image-manipulating modes will
203 select a random image file to operate on, from the specified
204 source. That source may be a local directory, which will be
205 recursively searched for images. Or, it may be the URL of an
206 RSS or Atom feed (e.g., a Flickr gallery), in which case a ran‐
207 dom image from that feed will be selected instead. The con‐
208 tents of the feed will be cached locally and refreshed periodi‐
209 cally as needed.
210 If more than one of the above image-related options are selected,
212 then one will be chosen at random. If none of them are selected,
213 then an image of video colorbars will be used instead.
214 Text Manipulation
216 Some of the display modes display and manipulate text. The following
218 options control how that text is generated. (These parameters control
219 the behavior of the xscreensaver-text(1) program, which is what actu‐
220 ally does the work.)
221 Host Name and Time
223 If this checkbox is selected, then the text used by the screen
224 savers will be the local host name, OS version, date, time, and
225 system load.
226 Text
228 If this checkbox is selected, then the literal text typed in
229 the field to its right will be used. If it contains % escape
230 sequences, they will be expanded as per strftime(2).
231 Text File
233 If this checkbox is selected, then the contents of the corre‐
234 sponding file will be displayed.
235 Program
237 If this checkbox is selected, then the given program will be
238 run, repeatedly, and its output will be displayed.
239 URL If this checkbox is selected, then the given HTTP URL will be
241 downloaded and displayed repeatedly. If the document contains
242 HTML, RSS, or Atom, it will be converted to plain-text first.
243 Note: this re-downloads the document every time the screen
245 saver runs out of text, so it will probably be hitting that web
246 server multiple times a minute. Be careful that the owner of
247 that server doesn't consider that to be abusive.
248 Power Management Settings
250 These settings control whether, and when, your monitor powers down.
252 Power Management Enabled
254 Whether the monitor should be powered down after a period of
255 inactivity.
256 If this option is grayed out, it means your X server does not
258 support the XDPMS extension, and so control over the monitor's
259 power state is not available.
260 If you're using a laptop, don't be surprised if this has no
262 effect: many laptops have monitor power-saving behavior built
263 in at a very low level that is invisible to Unix and X. On
264 such systems, you can typically only adjust the power-saving
265 delays by changing settings in the BIOS in some hardware-spe‐
266 cific way.
267 Standby After
269 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
270 black after this much idle time. (Graphics demos will stop
271 running, also.)
272 Suspend After
274 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
275 into power-saving mode after this much idle time. This dura‐
276 tion should be greater than or equal to Standby.
277 Off After
279 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will fully
280 power down after this much idle time. This duration should be
281 greater than or equal to Suspend.
282 Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode
284 If the display mode is set to Blank Screen Only and this is
285 checked, then the monitor will be powered off immediately upon
286 blanking, regardless of the other power-management settings.
287 In this way, the power management idle-timers can be completely
288 disabled, but the screen will be powered off when black. (This
289 might be preferable on laptops.)
290 Fading and Colormaps
292 These options control how the screen fades to or from black when a
294 screen saver begins or ends.
295 Fade To Black When Blanking
297 If selected, then when the screensaver activates, the current
298 contents of the screen will fade to black instead of simply
299 winking out. (Note: this doesn't work with all X servers.) A
300 fade will also be done when switching graphics hacks (when the
301 Cycle After expires.)
302 Unfade From Black When Unblanking
304 The complement to Fade Colormap: if selected, then when the
305 screensaver deactivates, the original contents of the screen
306 will fade in from black instead of appearing immediately. This
307 is only done if Fade Colormap is also selected.
308 Fade Duration
310 When fading or unfading are selected, this controls how long
311 the fade will take.
312 Install Colormap
314 On 8-bit screens, whether to install a private colormap while
315 the screensaver is active, so that the graphics hacks can get
316 as many colors as possible. This does nothing if you are run‐
317 ning in 16-bit or better.
318 There are more settings than these available, but these are the most
320 commonly used ones; see the manual for xscreensaver(1) for other param‐
321 eters that can be set by editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, or the X
322 resource database.
323
325 xscreensaver-demo accepts the following command line options.
326 -display host:display.screen
328 The X display to use. The xscreensaver-demo program will open
329 its window on that display, and also control the xscreensaver
330 daemon that is managing that same display.
331 -prefs Start up with the Advanced tab selected by default instead of
333 the Display Modes tab.
334 -debug Causes lots of diagnostics to be printed on stderr.
336 It is important that the xscreensaver and xscreensaver-demo processes
338 be running on the same machine, or at least, on two machines that share
339 a file system. When xscreensaver-demo writes a new version of the
340 ~/.xscreensaver file, it's important that the xscreensaver see that
341 same file. If the two processes are seeing different ~/.xscreensaver
342 files, things will malfunction.
343
345 DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
346 PATH to find the sub-programs to run. However, note that the sub-
348 programs are actually launched by the xscreensaver daemon, not
349 by xscreensaver-demo itself. So, what matters is what $PATH
350 that the xscreensaver program sees.
351 HOME for the directory in which to read and write the .xscreensaver
353 file.
354 XENVIRONMENT
356 to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
357 resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
358 HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy
360 to get the default HTTP proxy host and port.
361
363 The latest version of xscreensaver, an online version of this manual,
364 and a FAQ can always be found at https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
365
367 X(1), xscreensaver(1), xscreensaver-command(1), xscreensaver-getim‐
368 age(1), xscreensaver-text(1)
369
371 Copyright © 1992-2015 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, mod‐
372 ify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any
373 purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copy‐
374 right notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice
375 and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No rep‐
376 resentations are made about the suitability of this software for any
377 purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
378
380 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 13-aug-92.
381 Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.
383X Version 11 5.45-1.fc33 (10-Dec-2020) xscreensaver-demo(1)