XScreenSaver(1)

NAME
xscreensaver-command - control a running xscreensaver process

SYNOPSIS
xscreensaver-command [-activate] [-deactivate] [-cycle] [-next] [-prev] [-exit] [-restart] [-demo] [-lock]

DESCRIPTION
The xscreensaver-command program controls a running xscreensaver process by sending it client-messages.

OPTIONS
xscreensaver-command accepts the following options:

-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.

-cycle
    Tell the screensaver to change which graphics hack it is running, just as if the ``cycle'' timer had expired.

-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. This option is good for looking at a demo of each of the screensavers currently available. You might want to put this on a menu.

-prev
    This is like -next, but cycles in the other direction.

-demo
    Cause the screensaver to enter its interactive demo mode, if it has been compiled with support for it.

-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 screensaver's lockTimeout resource is non-zero.

-exit
    Causes the screensaver process to exit gracefully. This is a slightly safer way to kill the screensaver than by using kill. 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.

ENVIRONMENT

DISPLAY
    to get the default host and display number.

PATH
    to find the executable to restart.

SEE ALSO
X(1), xscreensaver(1)

BUGS
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 © 1992, 1993 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 warranty.

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