1XScreenSaver(1) General Commands Manual XScreenSaver(1)
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6 xscreensaver-settings - configure and control the xscreensaver daemon
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9 xscreensaver-settings [-display host:display.screen] [-prefs] [-debug]
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12 The xscreensaver-settings program is a graphical front-end for setting
13 the parameters used by the xscreensaver(1) daemon. It is a tool for
14 editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, and for demoing the various display
15 modes.
16 The main window consists of a menu bar and two tabbed pages. The first
18 page is for editing the list of demos, and the second is for editing
19 various other parameters of the screensaver.
20
22 All of these commands are on either the File or Help menus:
23 Blank Screen Now
25 Activates the background xscreensaver daemon, which will then run a
26 demo at random. This is the same as running xscreensaver-com‐
27 mand(1) with the -activate option.
28 Lock Screen Now
30 Just like Blank Screen Now, except the screen will be locked as
31 well (even if it is not configured to lock all the time.) This is
32 the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -lock option.
33 Kill Daemon
35 If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
36 This is the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -exit
37 option.
38 Restart Daemon
40 If the xscreensaver daemon is running on this screen, kill it.
41 Then launch it again. This is the same as doing "xscreensaver-com‐
42 mand --exit" followed by "xscreensaver".
43 Note that it is not the same as doing "xscreensaver-command
45 --restart".
46 Exit
48 Exits the xscreensaver-settings program (this program) without af‐
49 fecting the background xscreensaver daemon, if any.
50 About...
52 Displays the version number of this program, xscreensaver-settings.
53 Documentation...
55 Opens up a web browser looking at the XScreenSaver web page, where
56 you can find online copies of the xscreensaver(1), xscreen‐
57 saver-settings(1), and xscreensaver-command(1) manuals.
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60 This page contains a list of the names of the various display modes, a
61 preview area, and some fields that let you configure screen saver be‐
62 havior.
63 Mode
65 This option menu controls the activation behavior of the screen saver.
66 The options are:
67 Disable Screen Saver
69 Don't ever blank the screen, and don't ever allow the monitor
70 to power down.
71 Blank Screen Only
73 When blanking the screen, just go black: don't run any graph‐
74 ics.
75 Only One Screen Saver
77 When blanking the screen, only ever use one particular display
78 mode (the one selected in the list.)
79 Random Screen Saver
81 When blanking the screen, select a random display mode from
82 among those that are enabled and applicable. If there are mul‐
83 tiple monitors connected, run a different display mode on each
84 one. This is the default.
85 Random Same Saver
87 This is just like Random Screen Saver, except that the same
88 randomly-chosen display mode will be run on all monitors, in‐
89 stead of different ones on each.
90 Demo List
92 Double-clicking in the list on the left will let you try out the indi‐
93 cated demo. The screen will go black, and the program will run in
94 full-screen mode, just as it would if the xscreensaver daemon had
95 launched it. Clicking the mouse again will stop the demo and un-blank
96 the screen.
97 Single-clicking in the list will run it in the small preview pane on
99 the right. (But beware: many of the display modes behave somewhat dif‐
100 ferently when running in full-screen mode, so the scaled-down view
101 might not give an accurate impression.)
102 When Mode is set to Random Screen Saver, each name in the list has a
104 checkbox next to it: this controls whether this display mode is en‐
105 abled. If it is unchecked, then that mode will not be chosen. (Though
106 you can still run it explicitly by double-clicking on its name.)
107 Arrow Buttons
109 Beneath the list are a pair of up and down arrows. Clicking on the down
110 arrow will select the next item in the list, and then run it in full-
111 screen mode, just as if you had double-clicked on it. The up arrow
112 goes the other way. This is just a shortcut for trying out all of the
113 display modes in turn.
114 Blank After
116 After the user has been idle this long, the xscreensaver daemon will
117 blank the screen.
118 Cycle After
120 After the screensaver has been running for this long, the currently
121 running graphics demo will be killed, and a new one started. If this
122 is 0, then the graphics demo will never be changed: only one demo will
123 run until the screensaver is deactivated by user activity.
124 If there are multiple screens, the savers are staggered slightly so
126 that while they all change every cycle minutes, they don't all change
127 at the same time.
128 Lock Screen
130 When this is checked, the screen will be locked when it activates.
131 Lock Screen After
133 This controls the length of the "grace period" between when the screen‐
134 saver activates, and when the screen becomes locked. For example, if
135 this is 5 minutes, and Blank After is 10 minutes, then after 10 min‐
136 utes, the screen would blank. If there was user activity at 12 min‐
137 utes, no password would be required to un-blank the screen. But, if
138 there was user activity at 15 minutes or later (that is, Lock Screen
139 After minutes after activation) then a password would be required. The
140 default is 0, meaning that if locking is enabled, then a password will
141 be required as soon as the screen blanks.
142 Preview
144 This button, below the small preview window, runs the demo in full-
145 screen mode so that you can try it out. This is the same thing that
146 happens when you double-click an element in the list. Click the mouse
147 to dismiss the full-screen preview.
148 Settings
150 This button will pop up a dialog where you can configure settings spe‐
151 cific to the display mode selected in the list.
152
154 When you click on the Settings button on the Display Modes tab, a con‐
155 figuration dialog will pop up that lets you customize settings of the
156 selected display mode. Each display mode has its own custom configura‐
157 tion controls on the left side.
158 On the right side is a paragraph or two describing the display mode.
160 Below that is a Documentation button that will display the display
161 mode's manual page in a new window.
162 The Advanced button reconfigures the dialog box so that you can edit
164 the display mode's command line directly, instead of using the graphi‐
165 cal controls.
166
168 This tab lets you change various settings used by the xscreensaver dae‐
169 mon itself, as well as some global options shared by all of the display
170 modes.
171 Image Manipulation
173 Some of the graphics hacks manipulate images. These settings control
174 where those source images come from. The savers load images by running
175 the xscreensaver-getimage(6) and xscreensaver-getimage-file(6) pro‐
176 grams.
177 Grab Desktop Images
179 If this option is selected, then savers are allowed to manipu‐
180 late the desktop image, that is, a display mode might draw a
181 picture of your desktop melting, or being distorted in some
182 way. The security-paranoid might want to disable this option,
183 because if it is set, it means that the windows on your desktop
184 will occasionally be visible while your screen is locked. Oth‐
185 ers will not be able to do anything, but they may be able to
186 see whatever you left on your screen.
187 Grab Video Frames
189 If your system has a video capture device, selecting this op‐
190 tion may allow the image-manipulating modes to grab a still-
191 frame of video to operate on.
192 Choose Random Image
194 If this option is set, then the image-manipulating modes will
195 select a random image file to operate on, from the specified
196 source. That source may be a local directory, which will be
197 recursively searched for images. Or, it may be the URL of an
198 RSS or Atom feed (e.g., a Flickr gallery), in which case a ran‐
199 dom image from that feed will be selected instead. The con‐
200 tents of the feed will be cached locally and refreshed periodi‐
201 cally as needed.
202 If more than one of the above image-related options are selected,
204 then one will be chosen at random. If none of them are selected,
205 then an image of video colorbars will be used instead.
206 Text Manipulation
208 Some of the display modes display and manipulate text. The following
209 options control how that text is generated. The savers load text by
210 running the xscreensaver-text(6) program.
211 Host Name and Time
213 If this checkbox is selected, then the text used by the screen
214 savers will be the local host name, OS version, date, time, and
215 system load.
216 Text
218 If this checkbox is selected, then the literal text typed in
219 the field to its right will be used. If it contains % escape
220 sequences, they will be expanded as per strftime(2).
221 Text File
223 If this checkbox is selected, then the contents of the corre‐
224 sponding file will be displayed.
225 Program
227 If this checkbox is selected, then the given program will be
228 run, repeatedly, and its output will be displayed.
229 URL If this checkbox is selected, then the given web page will be
231 downloaded and displayed repeatedly. If the document contains
232 HTML, RSS, or Atom, it will be converted to plain-text first.
233 Note: this re-downloads the document every time the screen
235 saver runs out of text, so it will probably be hitting that web
236 server multiple times a minute.
237 Power Management Settings
239 These settings control whether, and when, your monitor powers down.
240 Power Management Enabled
242 Whether the monitor should be powered down after a period of
243 inactivity.
244 If this option is grayed out, it means your X server does not
246 support the XDPMS extension, and so control over the monitor's
247 power state is not available.
248 Standby After
250 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
251 black after this much idle time. (Graphics demos will stop
252 running, also.)
253 Suspend After
255 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will go
256 into power-saving mode after this much idle time. This dura‐
257 tion should be greater than or equal to Standby.
258 Off After
260 If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will fully
261 power down after this much idle time. This duration should be
262 greater than or equal to Suspend.
263 Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode
265 If the display mode is set to Blank Screen Only and this is
266 checked, then the monitor will be powered off immediately upon
267 blanking, regardless of the other power-management settings.
268 In this way, the power management idle-timers can be completely
269 disabled, but the screen will be powered off when black.
270 Blanking
272 These options control how the screen fades to or from black when a
273 screen saver begins or ends.
274 Fade To Black When Blanking
276 If selected, then when the screensaver activates, the current
277 contents of the screen will fade to black instead of simply
278 winking out.
279 Unfade From Black When Unblanking
281 The opposite: if selected, then when the screensaver deacti‐
282 vates, the original contents of the screen will fade in from
283 black instead of appearing immediately. This is only done if
284 Fade To Black is also selected.
285 Fade Duration
287 When fading or unfading are selected, this controls how long
288 the fade will take.
289 Theme
291 This option menu lists the color schemes available for use on the un‐
292 lock dialog.
293 There are more settings than these available, but these are the most
295 commonly used ones; see the manual for xscreensaver(1) for other param‐
296 eters that can be set by editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, or the X re‐
297 source database.
298
300 xscreensaver-settings accepts the following command line options.
301 -display host:display.screen
303 The X display to use. The xscreensaver-settings program will
304 open its window on that display, and also control the xscreen‐
305 saver daemon that is managing that same display.
306 -prefs Start up with the Advanced tab selected by default instead of
308 the Display Modes tab.
309 -debug Causes lots of diagnostics to be printed on stderr.
311 The xscreensaver and xscreensaver-settings processes must run on the
313 same machine, or at least, on two machines that share a file system.
314 When xscreensaver-settings writes a new version of the ~/.xscreensaver
315 file, xscreensaver needs to see that same file, or it won't work.
316
318 DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
319 PATH to find the sub-programs to run. However, note that the sub-
321 programs are actually launched by the xscreensaver daemon, not
322 by xscreensaver-settings itself. So, what matters is what
323 $PATH that the xscreensaver program sees.
324 HOME for the directory in which to read and write the .xscreensaver
326 file.
327 XENVIRONMENT
329 to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global
330 resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
331 HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, or https_proxy
333 to get the default proxy host and port.
334
336 The latest version of xscreensaver, an online version of this manual,
337 and a FAQ can always be found at https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
338
340 X(1), xscreensaver(1), xscreensaver-command(1), xscreensaver-getim‐
341 age(6), xscreensaver-getimage-file(6), xscreensaver-getimage-video(6),
342 xscreensaver-text(6)
343
345 Copyright © 1992-2021 by Jamie Zawinski. Permission to use, copy, mod‐
346 ify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any
347 purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copy‐
348 right notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice
349 and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No rep‐
350 resentations are made about the suitability of this software for any
351 purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
352
354 Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 13-aug-1992.
355 Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.
357X Version 11 6.04-1.fc36 (06-Jun-2022) XScreenSaver(1)