Screensaver control...

Requests or suggestions for new features
Post Reply
darius
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Apr 2014, 13:15

Screensaver control...

Post by darius »

Hi,

I have a screensaver enabled on my PC (the "visual" and also the monitor power down mode). I do long V-REP simulations, where I control the robot using just a joystick. This means that the screensaver gets activated at regular intervals.

It would be great if V_REP could have an option to temporarily suspend all screen saving routines (like video players do) when the simulation is in progress (only during an active simulation).

Best regards,
Darius

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Screensaver control...

Post by coppelia »

Hello Darius,

disabling the screensaver is one thing, but there is also the screen dimming, which is another thing. It is usually considered bad practice to interfere there, since the user doesn't usually want the defaults to be overridden. In addition, this could be quite complex to implement in a cross-platform manner, and is currently not a priority.

Cheers

darius
Posts: 5
Joined: 15 Apr 2014, 13:15

Re: Screensaver control...

Post by darius »

I understand why it is not a priority.

I am a programmer so I was curious and I was digging further how this stuff works. So here are my findings, maybe they will be useful to someone somewhere.

The most ugly situation is with different Linux versions. Windows and Mac have very simple API calls to temporally prevent the system or the monitor to go into standby mode (or screensaver mode).

Windows: SetThreadExecutionState function http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... S.85).aspx
Apple:https://developer.apple.com/library/mac ... index.html
Linux: some use "xscreensaver-command -deactivate". GNOME has an API to suspend temporally the screensaver: https://people.gnome.org/~mccann/gnome- ... od-Inhibit

And the last things - one clarification. This V-Rep feature of cause should be an option (default - off) in the V-Rep settings.

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Screensaver control...

Post by coppelia »

Thanks for the info Darius,

we'll keep this in mind.

Cheers

Post Reply