1XScreenSaver(1)             General Commands Manual            XScreenSaver(1)
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NAME

6       xscreensaver-settings - configure and control the xscreensaver daemon
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SYNOPSIS

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

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
17       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
24       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.
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29       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.
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34       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.
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39       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".
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44           Note that  it  is  not  the  same  as  doing  "xscreensaver-command
45           --restart".
46
47       Exit
48           Exits  the xscreensaver-settings program (this program) without af‐
49           fecting the background xscreensaver daemon, if any.
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51       About...
52           Displays the version number of this program, xscreensaver-settings.
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54       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.
58

DISPLAY MODES TAB

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
64   Mode
65       This option menu controls the activation behavior of the screen  saver.
66       The options are:
67
68           Disable Screen Saver
69               Don't  ever  blank the screen, and don't ever allow the monitor
70               to power down.
71
72           Blank Screen Only
73               When blanking the screen, just go black: don't run  any  graph‐
74               ics.
75
76           Only One Screen Saver
77               When  blanking the screen, only ever use one particular display
78               mode (the one selected in the list.)
79
80           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
86           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
91   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
98       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
103       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
108       If the list has focus, you can type any character to search within it.
109
110   Arrow Buttons
111       Beneath the list are a pair of up and down arrows. Clicking on the down
112       arrow will select the next item in the list, and then run it  in  full-
113       screen  mode,  just  as  if you had double-clicked on it.  The up arrow
114       goes the other way.  This is just a shortcut for trying out all of  the
115       display modes in turn.
116
117   Blank After
118       After  the  user  has been idle this long, the xscreensaver daemon will
119       blank the screen.
120
121   Cycle After
122       After the screensaver has been running for  this  long,  the  currently
123       running  graphics  demo will be killed, and a new one started.  If this
124       is 0, then the graphics demo will never be changed: only one demo  will
125       run until the screensaver is deactivated by user activity.
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127       If  there  are  multiple  screens, the savers are staggered slightly so
128       that while they all change every cycle minutes, they don't  all  change
129       at the same time.
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131   Lock Screen
132       When this is checked, the screen will be locked when it activates.
133
134   Lock Screen After
135       This controls the length of the "grace period" between when the screen‐
136       saver activates, and when the screen becomes locked.  For  example,  if
137       this  is  5  minutes, and Blank After is 10 minutes, then after 10 min‐
138       utes, the screen would blank.  If there was user activity  at  12  min‐
139       utes,  no  password  would be required to un-blank the screen.  But, if
140       there was user activity at 15 minutes or later (that  is,  Lock  Screen
141       After minutes after activation) then a password would be required.  The
142       default is 0, meaning that if locking is enabled, then a password  will
143       be required as soon as the screen blanks.
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145   Preview
146       This  button,  below  the  small preview window, runs the demo in full-
147       screen mode so that you can try it out.  This is the  same  thing  that
148       happens  when you double-click an element in the list.  Click the mouse
149       to dismiss the full-screen preview.
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151   Settings
152       This button will pop up a dialog where you can configure settings  spe‐
153       cific to the display mode selected in the list.
154

SETTINGS DIALOG

156       When  you click on the Settings button on the Display Modes tab, a con‐
157       figuration dialog will pop up that lets you customize settings  of  the
158       selected  display  mode.   Each  display mode has its own custom set of
159       configuration controls.
160

ADVANCED TAB

162       This tab lets you change various settings used by the xscreensaver dae‐
163       mon itself, as well as some global options shared by all of the display
164       modes.
165
166   Image Manipulation
167       Some of the graphics hacks manipulate images.  These  settings  control
168       where those source images come from.  The savers load images by running
169       the  xscreensaver-getimage(6)  and  xscreensaver-getimage-file(6)  pro‐
170       grams.
171
172           Grab Desktop Images
173               If  this option is selected, then savers are allowed to manipu‐
174               late the desktop image, that is, a display mode  might  draw  a
175               picture  of  your  desktop  melting, or being distorted in some
176               way.  The security-paranoid might want to disable this  option,
177               because if it is set, it means that the windows on your desktop
178               will occasionally be visible while your screen is locked.  Oth‐
179               ers  will  not  be able to do anything, but they may be able to
180               see whatever you left on your screen.
181
182           Grab Video Frames
183               If your system has a camera or  other  video  input,  selecting
184               this  option  may  allow the image-manipulating modes to grab a
185               still-frame of video to operate on.
186
187           Choose Random Image
188               If this option is set, then the image-manipulating  modes  will
189               select  a  random  image file to operate on, from the specified
190               source.  That source may be a local directory,  which  will  be
191               recursively  searched  for images.  Or, it may be the URL of an
192               RSS or Atom feed (e.g., a Flickr gallery), in which case a ran‐
193               dom  image  from  that feed will be selected instead.  The con‐
194               tents of the feed will be cached locally and refreshed periodi‐
195               cally as needed.
196
197           If  more  than one of the above image-related options are selected,
198           then one will be chosen at random.  If none of them  are  selected,
199           then an image of video colorbars will be used instead.
200
201   Text Manipulation
202       Some  of  the display modes display and manipulate text.  The following
203       options control how that text is generated.  The savers  load  text  by
204       running the xscreensaver-text(6) program.
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206           Host Name and Time
207               If  this checkbox is selected, then the text used by the screen
208               savers will be the local host name, OS version, date, time, and
209               system load.
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211           Text
212               If  this  checkbox  is selected, then the literal text typed in
213               the field to its right will be used.  If it contains  %  escape
214               sequences, they will be expanded as per strftime(2).
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216           Text File
217               If  this  checkbox is selected, then the contents of the corre‐
218               sponding file will be displayed.
219
220           Program
221               If this checkbox is selected, then the given  program  will  be
222               run, repeatedly, and its output will be displayed.
223
224           URL If  this  checkbox is selected, then the given web page will be
225               downloaded and displayed repeatedly.  If the document  contains
226               HTML, RSS, or Atom, it will be converted to plain-text first.
227
228               Note:  this  re-downloads  the  document  every time the screen
229               saver runs out of text, so it will probably be hitting that web
230               server multiple times a minute.
231
232   Power Management Settings
233       These settings control whether, and when, your monitor powers down.
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235           Power Management Enabled
236               Whether  the  monitor  should be powered down after a period of
237               inactivity.
238
239               If this option is grayed out, it means your X server  does  not
240               support  the XDPMS extension, and so control over the monitor's
241               power state is not available.
242
243           Standby After
244               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the  monitor  will  go
245               black  after  this  much  idle time.  (Graphics demos will stop
246               running, also.)
247
248           Suspend After
249               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the  monitor  will  go
250               into  power-saving  mode after this much idle time.  This dura‐
251               tion should be greater than or equal to Standby.
252
253           Off After
254               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will fully
255               power  down after this much idle time.  This duration should be
256               greater than or equal to Suspend.
257
258           Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode
259               If the display mode is set to Blank Screen  Only  and  this  is
260               checked,  then the monitor will be powered off immediately upon
261               blanking, regardless of the  other  power-management  settings.
262               In this way, the power management idle-timers can be completely
263               disabled, but the screen will be powered off when black.
264
265   Blanking
266       These options control how the screen fades to  or  from  black  when  a
267       screen saver begins or ends.
268
269           Fade To Black When Blanking
270               If  selected,  then when the screensaver activates, the current
271               contents of the screen will fade to  black  instead  of  simply
272               winking out.
273
274           Unfade From Black When Unblanking
275               The  opposite:  if  selected, then when the screensaver deacti‐
276               vates, the original contents of the screen will  fade  in  from
277               black  instead  of appearing immediately.  This is only done if
278               Fade To Black is also selected.
279
280           Fade Duration
281               When fading or unfading are selected, this  controls  how  long
282               the fade will take.
283
284   Theme
285       This  option  menu lists the color schemes available for use on the un‐
286       lock dialog.
287
288       There are more settings than these available, but these  are  the  most
289       commonly used ones; see the manual for xscreensaver(1) for other param‐
290       eters that can be set by editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, or the X re‐
291       source database.
292

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

294       xscreensaver-settings accepts the following command line options.
295
296       --display host:display.screen
297               The  X  display to use.  The xscreensaver-settings program will
298               open its window on that display, and also control the  xscreen‐
299               saver daemon that is managing that same display.
300
301       --debug Causes lots of diagnostics to be printed on stderr.
302
303       The  xscreensaver  and  xscreensaver-settings processes must run on the
304       same machine, or at least, on two machines that share  a  file  system.
305       When  xscreensaver-settings writes a new version of the ~/.xscreensaver
306       file, xscreensaver needs to see that same file, or it won't work.
307

ENVIRONMENT

309       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
310
311       PATH    to find the sub-programs to run.  However, note that  the  sub-
312               programs actually launched by xscreensaver-settings for display
313               in the inline preview pane, but are launched  by  the  xscreen‐
314               saver daemon when run full screen, so the $PATH setting in both
315               processes matters.
316
317       HOME    for the directory in which to read and write the  .xscreensaver
318               file.
319
320       XENVIRONMENT
321               to  get  the  name of a resource file that overrides the global
322               resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.
323
324       HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, http_proxy, or https_proxy
325               to get the default proxy host and port.
326

UPGRADES

328       The latest version of xscreensaver, an online version of  this  manual,
329       and a FAQ can always be found at https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
330

SEE ALSO

332       X(1),   xscreensaver(1),  xscreensaver-command(1),  xscreensaver-getim‐
333       age(6), xscreensaver-getimage-file(6),  xscreensaver-getimage-video(6),
334       xscreensaver-text(6)
335
337       Copyright © 1992-2022 by Jamie Zawinski.  Permission to use, copy, mod‐
338       ify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation  for  any
339       purpose  is  hereby  granted without fee, provided that the above copy‐
340       right notice appear in all copies and that both that  copyright  notice
341       and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation.  No rep‐
342       resentations are made about the suitability of this  software  for  any
343       purpose.  It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
344

AUTHOR

346       Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>.
347
348       Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.
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352X Version 11               6.08-1.fc39 (17-Oct-2023)           XScreenSaver(1)
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