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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Screensavers
From:       Jamie Zawinski <jwz () jwz ! org>
Date:       2002-06-29 0:26:54
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Karl Robillard wrote:
> 
> What is the status of KDE screensavers?
> It seems like the same few boring savers have been part of KDE for years.
> Is there some reason that no one writes KDE screensavers?

Because instead, they all write xscreensaver modules that work on all
platforms and with all desktop frameworks?

> (why are multiple configuration tools are bad?)

Well it seems obvious to me that duplication of effort is bad.
If you don't understand why, I doubt I could explain it.

But from a more practical standpoint: I maintain xscreensaver.
Who maintains the KDE reimplementation of it?  I suspect "nobody."

> I've looked briefly at the GTK xscreensaver setup tool shipped with
> RedHat 7.3 and there doesn't seem to be any GUI configuration for the
> savers - you just type command line arguments in a string widget. 
> This doesn't seem suitable for either desktop project (GNOME/KDE).

I don't know what Red Hat shipped with 7.3, but I think something
went wrong on your system.  If you run xscreensaver 4.x on any GNOME
system, the xscreensaver-demo program (which is one and the same as
the "Screen Saver" page of the Gnome Control Center) will pop up a
per-mode configuration dialog when you press the "Settings" button.
There are sliders, checkboxes, option menus, etc for the various
parameters of the selected mode.  And custom dialogs are defined (in
XML) for every one of the 140+ modes.

If you click the "advanced" button on *that* dialog, you can type in a
command-line directly, but few people will ever do that.

> How do I get my savers into the official KDE CVS tree?

It's clear to me that instead, you should make them work with
xscreensaver proper, and send them to me.  If they're any good, I'll
include them in the next xscreensaver release.

-- 
Jamie Zawinski
jwz@jwz.org             http://www.jwz.org/
jwz@dnalounge.com       http://www.dnalounge.com/
 
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