#3 Add -xscreensaver command line flag

[Flow]

Please consider adding a -xscreensaver command line flag. This flag then ensures that xsnow does the right thing™ when run as xscreensaver hack. This currently includes

• Setting -nomenu
• Setting -root

In the future this also should include

• Do not print anything to stderr. in order to avoid this to be shown by xscreensaver. (The same should probably be true for stdout, although I am not sure about this)
• Do whatever is necessary so that xsnow spans multiple screens when run as xscreensaver graphic hack

[Willem Vermin]

Running xsnow as:

 xsnow -root

gives the desired result, the menu is invisible. So xsnow than behaves like other apps in ~/.xscreensaver.
No need for an -xscreensaver flag :-)

The -nomenu flag, however is necessary if xsnow fails to show the menu due to, for example, an too old gtk library.
But then, that flag is necessary any way if you want to run xsnow.

Two monitors:

xsnow runs fine on two monitors (at least with a compositing manager, didn't try without), but as screensaver I see two xsnow's running on the primary display, and no xsnow on the other.
I have no idea how to solve this, but I can have a look.

Stderr: xsnow only writes on stdout. So the documentation of xscreensaver is somewhat misleading.
I think that the man page of xsnow gives enough clues for the few people who want xsnow as screensaver app how to get rid of the messages.
You could also use a wrapper around xsnow and redirect stdout and stderr to /dev/null.
Take care: I noticed that xscreensaver only kills the wrapper, xsnow keeps running, so
you have to do something about that.

According to the website of xscreensaver: xsnow is not eligible to be considered as a 'good' app: it uses a little bit of C++, depends on gtk3, and I have no plans to include a settings window for usage with xscreensaver-demo.

Anyway,

thanks for your comments,

Willem

On 02/12/2020 09.28, Flow wrote:

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** [tickets:#3] Add -xscreensaver command line flag**

Status: open
Milestone: 1.0
Created: Wed Dec 02, 2020 08:28 AM UTC by Flow
Last Updated: Wed Dec 02, 2020 08:28 AM UTC
Owner: nobody

Please consider adding a -xscreensaver command line flag. This flag then ensures that xsnow does the right thing™ when run as xscreensaver hack. This currently includes
- Setting -nomenu
- Setting -root

In the future this also should include
- Do not print anything to stderr. in order to avoid this to be shown by xscreensaver. (The same should probably be true for stdout, although I am not sure about this)
- Do whatever is necessary so that xsnow spans multiple screens when run as xscreensaver graphic hack

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[Flow]

gives the desired result, the menu is invisible. So xsnow than behaves like other apps in ~/.xscreensaver.
No need for an -xscreensaver flag :-)

That may be true for now, but may not be true in the future. For example if there would be another option required for multi-head xsnow under xscreensaver. Having a -xscreensaver flag would prevent the accumliation of multiple options that need to be specified when xsnow is run under xscreensaver.

You could also use a wrapper around xsnow and redirect stdout and stderr to /dev/null.
Take care: I noticed that xscreensaver only kills the wrapper, xsnow keeps running, so
you have to do something about that.

That sounds rather hackish and more like an argument in favor of adding a -quiet flag (which is also enabled if the hypothetical -xscreensaver flag is given).