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List:       kde-bugs-dist
Subject:    [Bug 86195] wish: kscreensaver should "play nicely" with
From:       Chris Howells <howells () kde ! org>
Date:       2004-07-30 20:14:24
Message-ID: 20040730201424.31116.qmail () ktown ! kde ! org
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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=86195      




------- Additional Comments From howells kde org  2004-07-30 22:14 -------
On 29 Jul 2004, at 18:38, Richard Neill wrote:
> If xscreensaver is installed, it's probably there because the user 
> explicitly installed it. (It's not a default, at least under 
> Mandrake).

Well, it is installed by default on many systems. And because 
kscreensaver depends on it it also gets installed as a dependency very 
often.

>  It would be, I think, simpler because then the user would be spared 
> from having to know that "if you want xscreensaver, you must *disable* 
> the kde screensaver in the kde control panel"

I think it would be much more complicated for the 9/10 people that 
don't know what xscreensaver (but have it installed because 
kscreensaver can call the xscreensaver hacks) is and simply don't care 
because the want a working screen saver.

> In order to get xscreensaver working, I have to:
> 1) put an entry in ~/.kde/Autostart for
>       kstart xscreensaver -nosplash 2>/dev/null &
> 2) Disable the KDE screensaver in the KDE control panel.
> 3) Run the xscreensaver-demo command to configure xscreensaver
> 4) remember that if I want to lock the desktop, I need to used
>      xscreensaver-command -activate
>   rather than just clicking the lock button.

Fair enough. But to me most of the issues you've listed with 
kscreensaver are simply bugs which should be fixed (e.g. xinerama).

> Have you actually played with xscreensaver-demo? It does far more than 
> the kde-screensaver-control panel. It also has some useful features 
> allowing me to:
>     * have a random demo every X minutes
>     * control which subset of screensavers should be included in the 
> list from
>         which random demos are selected
>     * determine (globally) the source of images used
>     * given that I have 2 monitors, it will draw 2 different demos, 
> one on
>        each, rather than stretching a single one across the middle!
>     * It's scriptable using xscreensaver-command (although granted, 
> you can
>        probably do this with dcop)

That's just to show a screensaver demo? does it make dinner and do the 
washing up as well? :-)

Unfortunately I think most of those features are rather an over kill.

> I'm not really suggesting that you should rip out what is there 
> already. What I'm suggesting is that, if xscreensaver is installed on 
> the system (and even more so, if it is actually *running*), then 
> kcontrolcentre should detect it, and  try to do "the right thing". At 
> the moment, I think the behaviour is wrong, because if the user has 
> made a choice to use xscreensaver itself, the KDE gui is configuring 
> (and starting) the wrong program!
>
> Lastly, I think that my suggestion would be an easy one to implement 
> (sorry I can't send you a patch, but I'm not a C++ programmer); it 
> would fix the "broken" behaviour for those who use Xscreensaver; and 
> it wouldn't get in the way of those who do not.

I have no intention of implementing it myself unfortunately, and I'm 
not sure if I would be prepared to accept a patch which implements it 
since it sounds rather messy and complicated from my point of view.

Thanks.
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