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<br><br><div>> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:07:03 -0400<br>> From: mtdean@thirdcontact.com<br>> To: mythtv-users@mythtv.org<br>> Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] Mythfrontend doesn't restore screensaver if it crashes during playback<br>> <br>> On 07/23/2011 09:08 AM, Yianni Vidalis wrote:<br>> > Maybe it's not a bug per se, but it is annoying. Mythfrontend <br>> > disables, as expected, the screensaver and dpms settings before <br>> > entering playback. If, for whatever reason, mythfrontend crashes <br>> > during playback, when I re-run it it doesn't remember that it disabled <br>> > those settings and the screensaver never kicks in.<br>> ><br>> > It would be very convenient to have a flag like "I disabled the <br>> > screensaver" which could be checked upon startup so that it would <br>> > re-enable it at initialisation.<br>> ><br>> <br>> mythfrontend never disables screen savers for /exactly/ this reason. <br>> Instead, mythfrontend "pokes" the (supported) screensaver every 50s <br>> during playback to keep it from activating.<br>> <br>> Your screen saver (which I would assume is KDE screensaver, since we <br>> directly support xscreensaver and GNOME screensaver and don't directly <br>> support KDE screensaver***) is disabling itself because we changed the <br>> DPMS value (because we didn't find a "supported" screensaver running.<br><br></div><div>Yes, it is a KDE(4) screensaver. Actually, it's just a blank screen with DPMS activating afterwards.</div><div><br></div><div>> <br>> The best "fix" for the issue you noticed is for mythfrontend to use a <br>> standard desktop utility that manages screensaver state--xdg-screenaver <br>> ( http://portland.freedesktop.org/xdg-utils-1.0/xdg-screensaver.html ) <br>> of the xdg-utils package ( http://portland.freedesktop.org/wiki/ )--so <br>> that if mythfrontend crashes, the external utility will properly <br>> re-enable the screensaver.<br>> <br>> Johnny Walker actually wrote a patch that added xdg-screensaver support <br>> to MythTV, and I put it in (before 0.24), but once people started using <br>> it, we found out that xdg-screensaver failed on several systems <br>> (including both KDE and GNOME screensaver based systems). So, I ripped <br>> out the xdg-screensaver support (also before 0.24), debugged <br>> xdg-screensaver, and submitted 3 patches to fix it. 1 patch of the 3, <br>> the one that fixes GNOME screensaver support to work using a better <br>> design than the one that was in xdg-screensaver, has been incorporated <br>> into the master/development branch (and is not in the 1.1.0-rc1 <br>> "release"). The 2 that are required to fix KDE screensaver (the one <br>> screensaver we don't directly support in mythfrontend--that instead <br>> takes its own cues off our flipping the DPMS state of the display) <br>> haven't yet been applied.<br><br></div><div>I was one of the people affected negatively by the patch By Johnny Walker (15 minutes of watching and then... darkness!) Thanks for reverting it. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>> <br>> Until freedesktop fixes xdg-screensaver, we can't use xdg-screensaver in <br>> MythTV. As soon as a version of xdg-screensaver is released with the <br>> fixes, I will restore the xdg-screensaver support, but with a version <br>> test to make sure the version installed is current enough to use.<br>><br></div><div>I'll be glad to test it, I'm using master, anyway, so things are supposed to break ;)</div><div><br></div><div>> Unfortunately, though, GNOME and KDE developers seem to be vehemently <br>> opposed to the idea of a single desktop utility that controls any <br>> screensaver the user might choose to run (and does the right thing when <br>> complex apps like mythfrontend crash)--even to the point of designing <br>> the API for their screensavers to be less-than-friendly to the idea. <br>> Developers in both camps have said that any application that wants to <br>> interface with the screensaver should have its own code specifically for <br>> disabling their particular screensaver--so they want us to add code for <br>> xscreensaver and KDE screensaver and GNOME screensaver and <br>> no-screensaver-but-DPMS-only (and xlockmore and ...), and to update all <br>> that code (and somehow push the updates out to the users who get the <br>> updated versions of the screensavers) as the screensaver changes or the <br>> API is extended or ... (As an outsider looking in, it seems like these <br>> guys have never heard of Unix-style design. Then again, I may just be <br>> misinterpreting the statements I've seen from them.)<br>> <br>> Sorry for the rant, but I'm still very upset with the DE developers idea <br>> of how things should work.<br>> <br>> Mike<br>> <br>> *** Note, also, that just switching your system to use the GNOME <br>> screensaver may not work, either, because some versions of GNOME <br>> screensaver were shipped with broken gnome-screensaver-command--which <br>> means that our poke is not working on those systems. Switching to <br>> xscreensaver, however, should make everything work properly--even in the <br>> event of a crash of mythfrontend.</div><div><br></div><div>Oh, no, no, no, I've been using KDE ever since I started using Linux seriously. That and SuSE, and I don't want to change distro or desktop. I've tried GNOME but it just doesn't feel 'right' to me. And NO, I am not trying to start a flame war or something. I guess it's just a matter of opinion.</div><div><br></div><div>Mike, thank you for taking the time to answer me. Your posts are always educational (I hope I'm not using too strong a word). Everytime I read something of yours I know a little more about this program.</div><div><br></div><div>Yianni.</div><div>> _______________________________________________<br>> mythtv-users mailing list<br>> mythtv-users@mythtv.org<br>> http://www.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users<br></div> </div></body>
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