XScreenSaver(1)
NAME
xscreensaver-command - control a running xscreensaver pro-
cess
SYNOPSIS
xscreensaver-command [-help] [-demo] [-activate] [-deacti-
vate] [-lock] [-cycle] [-next] [-prev] [-exit] [-restart]
[-version] [-time]
DESCRIPTION
The xscreensaver-command program controls a running
xscreensaver process by sending it client-messages.
OPTIONS
xscreensaver-command accepts the following options:
-help Prints a brief summary of command-line options.
-demo Cause the screensaver to enter its interactive
demo mode, in which one can experiment with the
various graphics hacks available. See xscreen-
saver(1) for details.
-activate
Tell the screensaver to turn on immediately (that
is, pretend that the user been idle for long
enough.) It will turn off as soon as there is any
user activity, as usual.
It is useful to run this from a menu; you may wish
to run it as
sleep 5 ; xscreensaver-command -activate
to be sure that you have time to remove your hand
from the mouse before the screensaver comes on.
-deactivate
Tell the screensaver to turn off, as if there had
been user activity. If locking is enabled, then
the screensaver will prompt for a password as
usual.
-lock Like -activate, but a password will be required
before the screensaver turns off, even if the
screensaver's lock resource is false. The display
will be locked immediately even if the screen-
saver's lockTimeout resource is non-zero.
-cycle Tell the screensaver to change which graphics hack
it is running, just as if the ``cycle'' timer had
expired. A new hack will be chosen randomly.
-next This is like either -activate or -cycle, depending
on which is more appropriate, except that the
screenhack that will be run is the next one in the
list of programs, instead of a randomly-chosen
one. Repeatedly executing this will cycle through
each hack in turn (though using the -demo option
is probably an easier way to accomplish that.)
-prev This is like -next, but cycles in the other direc-
tion.
-exit Causes the screensaver process to exit gracefully.
This is a safer and easier way to kill the screen-
saver than by using kill.
Warning: never use kill -9 with xscreensaver while
the screensaver is active. If you are using a
virtual root window manager, that can leave things
in an inconsistent state, and you may need to
restart your window manager to repair the damage.
-restart
Causes the screensaver process to exit and then
restart with the same command line arguments.
This is a good way of causing the screensaver to
re-read the resource database.
If the screensaver is run from xdm(1) (that is, it
is already running before you log in) then you may
want to issue the ``restart'' command from one of
your startup scripts, so that the screensaver gets
your resource settings instead of the default
ones.
-version
Print (on stdout) the version number of the
xscreensaver program that is running on $DISPLAY.
(To see the version number of xscreensaver-command
itself, use the -help option.)
-time This option prints on stdout the time at which the
screensaver last activated (blanked the screen) or
deactivated (restored the screen.) Note that the
activation-time is not the last time at which the
user was active, but is some time later (it is the
time at which either: xscreensaver decided that
the user has been idle long enough; or, the user
explicitly activated the screensaver or locker.)
ENVIRONMENT
DISPLAY to get the host and display number of the screen
whose saver is to be manipulated.
PATH to find the executable to restart (for the
-restart command). Note that this variable is
consulted in the environment of the xscreensaver
process, not the xscreensaver-command process.
SEE ALSO
X(1) xscreensaver(1)
BUGS
Some diagnostics are reported on the stderr of the
xscreensaver process, not this process, so the caller of
xscreensaver-command may not see the error messages.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1992, 1993, 1997 by Jamie Zawinski. Permis-
sion to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this soft-
ware and its documentation for any purpose is hereby
granted without fee, provided that the above copyright
notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation. No representations are made about the
suitability of this software for any purpose. It is pro-
vided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
AUTHOR
Jamie Zawinski lt;jwz@netscape.com, 13-aug-92.