HOWTO disable screensaver and powermanager while mplayer or other apps are running

[crazy___cow]

I have written a small python daemon to disable gnome-screensaver and gnome-powermanager while certain specified apps are running.
It works quite well on Ubuntu Edgy. It requires dbus (>= 0.93), python-dbus, and obviously gnome-screensaver and gnome-powermanager (on gnome 2.16).
The idea is simple: I have seen how Totem is working, and I emulate its behavior with a small python daemon.
To install it just copy "disablegss.py" in /usr/local/bin, fix its execute permissions and create a simple config file in your homedir "~/.disablegss". In this config file add every application name that could stop gnome-screensaver, one for each line. Example:

mplayer
gmplayer
vlc
wxvlc
xine
gxine

Please notice you must insert the name of the app how you can see it on 'ps aux': for example if you want to add firefox, you must write a line with "/usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin".
Now just launch disablegss.py on a terminal or simply add it on your session!
You can change the config file on fly (I check if someone modify it), adding or removing apps without restarting it.


HOW IT WORKS
Unfortunately the dbus and gnome development documentation are a bit outdated, so I have read totem sources to view which methods are called to stop gnome-screensaver and gnome-powermanager. The idea is if you call the Inhibit method of gnome-screensaver, you disable the screensaver AND the powermanager. To enable them again you must call the UnInhibit method. There is a small terminal app, dbus-send, to comunicate with dbus but it doesn't work well with these methods, so I decide to use the python dbus interface. This is my first program in python so please tell me if something is wrong or not well coded!
Every 60 secs the daemon check if there are apps running that are also present in the config file. If it's true, the screensaver is disabled. If someone change the config file, the daemon read it again.
I don't think that this small daemon could run on Dapper: the dbus and gnome API change on every release. But you can modify it to fix things. There are only two lines that could be problematic:

Line 38: cookie = dev.Inhibit(myprogram, 'Disabled by DisableGSS Daemon')
Line 49: dev.UnInhibit(cookie)

These two methos are different on gnome 2.14 on Dapper. Also dbus has radically changed. If you want to use disablegss.py on Dapper, find the right methods (try to see dapper totem sources) and feel free to change what you want!
To do debug, I suggest you to launch disablegss.py on a terminal and dbus-monitor on another one (you can see all messages from and to dbus daemon). Also change the sleep time value in seconds (line 121) to debug it faster.
Happy coding!

[wolf202]

great, will try it after I update, this problem has plagued me under windows and the vlc devs have ignored the bugs I have submitted.

-wolf

[nyarla33]

Thank you very much. Works fine for me.

[iggee85]

Wow, thanks a lot for this. Solves a really annoying problem with mplayer.

[phoqueyoo]

Good job.

[23meg]

Thanks for the effort, appreciated.

[hikaricore]

Wow, thanks a lot for this. Solves a really annoying problem with mplayer.

Yay now mplayer + screensaver can't break my damn monitor again (for the third time). Screensaver faded, I attempted to stop it... now that monitor looks like it got coated with 4 coats of clear black no matter what I do, and gamma adjust looks like hell. Broke a monitor at work a similar way, really weird. But enough ranting. Thanks.

[neymac]

Now, in Feisty Fawn Beta we have in the version MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu8, the option to Stop XScreenSaver, in Preferences=>Misc of the gmplayer.
It works, but when you press the stop button (of mplayer) appears a error message(of mplayer) in a small window that says: "gnome_screensaver_control" .
Does anyone knows if is possible avoid this message (only occurs when I press the Stop Button of MPlayer, if I close it by pressing the "q" there is no error message)?

[gtr225]

Thanks a lot for this. This problem was frustrating me for ages and for some time I was forced to use totem. Now I can use VLC all the time and not have to worry about the screen saver popping up. I hope the gnome-screensaver developers will integrate this into the next version of gnome-screensaver or perhaps let users choose what programs need to run in order to halt gss. I would have thought the gss developers would have thought of this already but I guess they want everyone using totem

[Snapper187]

Now, in Feisty Fawn Beta we have in the version MPlayer 2:1.0~rc1-0ubuntu8, the option to Stop XScreenSaver, in Preferences=>Misc of the gmplayer.

Does Ubuntu use XScreenSaver by default?

I'm still on Edgy and not sure if I changed things, but right now I don't think I use XSS: If I start mplayer with that option (it's already available in Edgy's mplayer package), I get:

xscreensaver_disable: Could not find XScreenSaver window.