xscreensaver-demo(1)          XScreenSaver manual         xscreensaver-demo(1)



NAME
       xscreensaver-demo  -  interactively control the background xscreensaver
       daemon

SYNOPSIS
       xscreensaver-demo [-display host:display.screen] [-prefs] [--debug]

DESCRIPTION
       The xscreensaver-demo program is a graphical front-end for setting  the
       parameters used by the background xscreensaver(1) daemon.  It is essen-
       tially two things: a tool for editing the ~/.xscreensaver file;  and  a
       tool  for demoing the various graphics hacks that the xscreensaver dae-
       mon will launch.

       The main window consists of a menu bar and two tabbed pages.  The first
       page  is  for  editing the list of demos, and the second is for editing
       various other parameters of the screensaver.

MENU COMMANDS
       All of these commands are on either the File or Help menus:

       Blank Screen Now
           Activates the background xscreensaver daemon, which will then run a
           demo  at  random.   This  is  the same as running xscreensaver-com-
           mand(1) with the -activate option.

       Lock Screen Now
           Just like Blank Screen Now, except the screen  will  be  locked  as
           well  (even if it is not configured to lock all the time.)  This is
           the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -lock option.

       Kill Daemon
           If the xscreensaver daemon is running  on  this  screen,  kill  it.
           This  is the same as running xscreensaver-command(1) with the -exit
           option.

       Restart Daemon
           If the xscreensaver daemon is running  on  this  screen,  kill  it.
           Then  launch  it  again.  This is the same as doing ``xscreensaver-
           command -exit'' followed by ``xscreensaver''.

           Note that it  is  not  the  same  as  doing  ``xscreensaver-command
           -restart''.

       Exit
           Exits  the xscreensaver-demo program (this program) without affect-
           ing the background xscreensaver daemon, if any.

       About...
           Displays the version number of this program, xscreensaver-demo.

       Documentation...
           Opens up a web browser looking at the XScreenSaver web page,  where
           you  can  find  online  copies  of  the  xscreensaver(1),  xscreen-
           saver-demo(1), and xscreensaver-command(1) manuals.

DISPLAY MODES TAB
       This page contains a list of the names of the various display modes,  a
       preview  area,  and  some  fields  that  let you configure screen saver
       behavior.

       Mode
           This option menu controls the activation  behavior  of  the  screen
           saver.  The options are:

           Disable Screen Saver
               Don't  ever  blank the screen, and don't ever allow the monitor
               to power down.

           Blank Screen Only
               When blanking the screen, just go black: don't run  any  graph-
               ics.

           Only One Screen Saver
               When  blanking the screen, only ever use one particular display
               mode (the one selected in the list.)

           Random Screen Saver
               When blanking the screen, select a  random  display  mode  from
               among those that are enabled and applicable.  If there are mul-
               tiple monitors connected, run a different display mode on  each
               one.  This is the default.

           Random Same Saver
               This  is  just  like  Random Screen Saver, except that the same
               randomly-chosen display mode  will  be  run  on  all  monitors,
               instead of different ones on each.

       Demo List
           Double-clicking  in  the  list on the left will let you try out the
           indicated demo.  The screen will go black, and the program will run
           in  full-screen  mode,  just as it would if the xscreensaver daemon
           had launched it.  Clicking the mouse again will stop the  demo  and
           un-blank the screen.

           Single-clicking  in  the list will run it in the small preview pane
           on the right.  (But beware: many of the display modes behave  some-
           what  differently  when running in full-screen mode, so the scaled-
           down view might not give an accurate impression.)

           When Mode is set to Random Screen Saver, each name in the list  has
           a  checkbox  next to it: this controls whether this display mode is
           enabled.  If it is unchecked, then that mode will  not  be  chosen.
           (Though  you  can still run it explicitly by double-clicking on its
           name.)

       Arrow Buttons
           Beneath the list are a pair of up and down arrows. Clicking on  the
           down  arrow  will select the next item in the list, and then run it
           in full-screen mode, just as if you had double-clicked on it.   The
           up  arrow  goes  the other way.  This is just a shortcut for trying
           out all of the display modes in turn.

       Blank After
           After the user has been idle this  long,  the  xscreensaver  daemon
           will blank the screen.

       Cycle After
           After the screensaver has been running for this long, the currently
           running graphics demo will be killed, and a new  one  started.   If
           this  is  0, then the graphics demo will never be changed: only one
           demo will run until the screensaver is deactivated by  user  activ-
           ity.

       Lock Screen
           When this is checked, the screen will be locked when it activates.

       Lock Screen After
           This  controls  the length of the ``grace period'' between when the
           screensaver activates, and when the  screen  becomes  locked.   For
           example,  if this is 5 minutes, and Blank After is 10 minutes, then
           after 10 minutes, the screen would blank.  If there was user activ-
           ity  at  12  minutes, no password would be required to un-blank the
           screen.  But, if there was user activity at  15  minutes  or  later
           (that  is, Lock Screen After minutes after activation) then a pass-
           word would be required.  The default is 0, meaning that if  locking
           is  enabled, then a password will be required as soon as the screen
           blanks.

       Preview
           This button, below the small preview window, runs the demo in full-
           screen  mode  so  that  you can try it out.  This is the same thing
           that happens when you double-click an element in the  list.   Click
           the mouse to dismiss the full-screen preview.

       Settings
           This  button  will pop up a dialog where you can configure settings
           specific to the display mode selected in the list.

SETTINGS DIALOG
       When you click on the Settings button on the Display Modes tab, a  con-
       figuration  dialog  will pop up that lets you customize settings of the
       selected display mode.  Each display mode has its own custom configura-
       tion controls on the left side.

       On  the  right  side is a paragraph or two describing the display mode.
       Below that is a Documentation button  that  will  display  the  display
       mode's  manual  page, if it has one, in a new window (since each of the
       display modes is actually a separate program, they each have their  own
       manual.)

       The  Advanced  button  reconfigures the dialog box so that you can edit
       the display mode's command line directly, instead of using the  graphi-
       cal controls.

ADVANCED TAB
       This tab lets you change various settings used by the xscreensaver dae-
       mon itself, as well as some global options shared by all of the display
       modes.

       Image Manipulation

       Some  of  the graphics hacks manipulate images.  These settings control
       where those source images come from.  (All of  these  options  work  by
       invoking  the  xscreensaver-getimage(1) program, which is what actually
       does the work.)

           Grab Desktop Images
               If this option is selected, then they are allowed to manipulate
               the desktop image, that is, a display mode might draw a picture
               of your desktop melting, or being distorted in some  way.   The
               security-paranoid might want to disable this option, because if
               it is set, it means that the windows on your desktop will occa-
               sionally  be  visible while your screen is locked.  Others will
               not be able to do anything, but they may be able to  see  what-
               ever you left on your screen.

           Grab Video Frames
               If  your system has a video capture card, selecting this option
               will allow the image-manipulating modes to capture a  frame  of
               video to operate on.

           Choose Random Image
               If  this  option is set, then the image-manipulating modes will
               select a random image file to operate on,  from  the  specified
               source.   That  source  may be a local directory, which will be
               recursively searched for images.  Or, it may be the URL  of  an
               RSS or Atom feed (e.g., a Flickr gallery), in which case a ran-
               dom image from that feed will be selected  instead.   The  con-
               tents of the feed will be cached locally and refreshed periodi-
               cally as needed.

           If more than one of the above image-related options  are  selected,
           then  one  will be chosen at random.  If none of them are selected,
           then an image of video colorbars will be used instead.

       Text Manipulation

       Some of the display modes display and manipulate text.   The  following
       options  control how that text is generated.  (These parameters control
       the behavior of the xscreensaver-text(1) program, which is  what  actu-
       ally does the work.)

           Host Name and Time
               If  this checkbox is selected, then the text used by the screen
               savers will be the local host name, OS version, date, time, and
               system load.

           Text
               If  this  checkbox  is selected, then the literal text typed in
               the field to its right will be used.  If it contains  %  escape
               sequences, they will be expanded as per strftime(2).

           Text File
               If  this  checkbox is selected, then the contents of the corre-
               sponding file will be displayed.

           Program
               If this checkbox is selected, then the given  program  will  be
               run, repeatedly, and its output will be displayed.

           URL If  this  checkbox is selected, then the given HTTP URL will be
               downloaded and displayed repeatedly.  If the document  contains
               HTML, RSS, or Atom, it will be converted to plain-text first.

               Note:  this  re-downloads  the  document  every time the screen
               saver runs out of text, so it will probably be hitting that web
               server  multiple  times a minute.  Be careful that the owner of
               that server doesn't consider that to be abusive.

       Power Management Settings

       These settings control whether, and when, your monitor powers down.

           Power Management Enabled
               Whether the monitor should be powered down after  a  period  of
               inactivity.

               If  this  option is grayed out, it means your X server does not
               support the XDPMS extension, and so control over the  monitor's
               power state is not available.

               If  you're  using  a  laptop, don't be surprised if this has no
               effect: many laptops have monitor power-saving  behavior  built
               in  at  a  very  low level that is invisible to Unix and X.  On
               such systems, you can typically only  adjust  the  power-saving
               delays  by  changing settings in the BIOS in some hardware-spe-
               cific way.

           Standby After
               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the  monitor  will  go
               black  after  this  much  idle time.  (Graphics demos will stop
               running, also.)

           Suspend After
               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the  monitor  will  go
               into  power-saving  mode after this much idle time.  This dura-
               tion should be greater than or equal to Standby.

           Off After
               If Power Management Enabled is selected, the monitor will fully
               power  down after this much idle time.  This duration should be
               greater than or equal to Suspend.

           Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode
               If the display mode is set to Blank Screen  Only  and  this  is
               checked,  then the monitor will be powered off immediately upon
               blanking, regardless of the  other  power-management  settings.
               In this way, the power management idle-timers can be completely
               disabled, but the screen will be powered off when black.  (This
               might be preferable on laptops.)

       Fading and Colormaps

       These  options  control  how  the  screen fades to or from black when a
       screen saver begins or ends.

           Fade To Black When Blanking
               If selected, then when the screensaver activates,  the  current
               contents  of  the  screen  will fade to black instead of simply
               winking out.  (Note: this doesn't work with all X servers.)   A
               fade  will also be done when switching graphics hacks (when the
               Cycle After expires.)

           Unfade From Black When Unblanking
               The complement to Fade Colormap: if  selected,  then  when  the
               screensaver  deactivates,  the  original contents of the screen
               will fade in from black instead of appearing immediately.  This
               is only done if Fade Colormap is also selected.

           Fade Duration
               When  fading  or  unfading are selected, this controls how long
               the fade will take.

           Install Colormap
               On 8-bit screens, whether to install a private  colormap  while
               the  screensaver  is active, so that the graphics hacks can get
               as many colors as possible.  This does nothing if you are  run-
               ning in 16-bit or better.

       There  are  more  settings than these available, but these are the most
       commonly used ones; see the manual for xscreensaver(1) for other param-
       eters  that  can  be  set by editing the ~/.xscreensaver file, or the X
       resource database.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
       xscreensaver-demo accepts the following command line options.

       -display host:display.screen
               The X display to use.  The xscreensaver-demo program will  open
               its  window  on that display, and also control the xscreensaver
               daemon that is managing that same display.

       -prefs  Start up with the Advanced tab selected by default  instead  of
               the Display Modes tab.

       -debug  Causes lots of diagnostics to be printed on stderr.

       It  is  important that the xscreensaver and xscreensaver-demo processes
       be running on the same machine, or at least, on two machines that share
       a  file  system.   When  xscreensaver-demo  writes a new version of the
       ~/.xscreensaver file, it's important that  the  xscreensaver  see  that
       same  file.   If the two processes are seeing different ~/.xscreensaver
       files, things will malfunction.

ENVIRONMENT
       DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.

       PATH    to find the sub-programs to run.  However, note that  the  sub-
               programs  are actually launched by the xscreensaver daemon, not
               by xscreensaver-demo itself.  So, what matters  is  what  $PATH
               that the xscreensaver program sees.

       HOME    for  the directory in which to read and write the .xscreensaver
               file.

       XENVIRONMENT
               to get the name of a resource file that  overrides  the  global
               resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property.

       HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy
               to get the default HTTP proxy host and port.

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

SEE ALSO
       X(1),  xscreensaver(1),  xscreensaver-command(1),   xscreensaver-getim-
       age(1), xscreensaver-text(1)

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C)  1992-2013  by Jamie Zawinski.  Permission to use, copy,
       modify, distribute, and sell this software 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 provided "as is" without express or implied war-
       ranty.

AUTHOR
       Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 13-aug-92.

       Please let me know if you find any bugs or make any improvements.



X Version 11                  5.30 (11-Sep-2014)          xscreensaver-demo(1)
