[TriLUG] Disable Some Screensavers

[William Sutton]

On Wed, 27 Jul 2005, Tanner Lovelace wrote:

-- snip --

> 
> > Even then the Random screensaver wasn't obvious, it just is one of a
> > long list of screen savers. xscreensaver-demo  on the other hand gives
> > four screen saver mode choices, disabled, blank screen only, only one
> > screen saver, and random screen saver. If you select random screen
> > saver you can then select which screensavers are selectable using
> > checkboxes.
> 
> That's because the KDE random screensaver is just another screensaver.
> In XScreensaver, it appears to be an external function of XScreensaver
> itself.  Both approaches are valid and neither one is better or worse 
> than another.

both approaches are valid until you want to selectively disable certain 
screensavers in the KDE screensaver program.  Then you realize that the 
KDE approach is rather lacking in capabilities.

> 
> > So even though the KDE screen saver is fully integrated into the KDE
> > desktop, much of the control has been sucked down into the bowels of
> > the KDE mechanisms.

and this is a good thing when you want to do something like selectively 
disable screensavers in random mode?

> 
> And this is a problem, how?  The first thing you (should) learn
> when using KDE is that if you want to change something, you go
> to the Control Panel.  It's clearly there and not difficult to find at all.
> That hardly comes across as "the bowels of [...] KDE".
> 
> > So it's the user's choice of which form of hackery he want's to use to
> > control which random screensavers he wants.
> 
> Sure.  But, if you'll remember what I originally said, it was that 
> why would you want to use something that wasn't integrated
> with your desktop setup, something that you had to hack onto
> it to work correctly and didn't integrate with the desktop system.
> The point of the KDE desktop (and the Gnome desktop for that
> matter) is to make things integrate.  XScreensaver predates all
> that stuff and as such "doesn't play well with others".  KDE has
> figured out a way to make the xscreensaver hacks run with the
> standard kde screensaver, something that is *NOT* just a hack 
> on top of it, and that's ok, because there are lots of nice xscreensaver
> hacks that people like to use.  But, that doesn't mean that 
> xscreensaver is in control.

no, xscreensaver isn't in control--it's been subjugated to KDE.  But what 
have you given up in the process?  Is it really necessary to reinvent the 
wheel (screensaver manager)?

> 
> Cheers,
> Tanner
>