Caffeine Disables Or Enables The ScreenSaver Easily

@FrancesTheMute: Do you feel happy having come up with this amazing, innovative approach all by yourself? Have you tried to get a patent on this "bump the mouse" trick? WOW!

Oh, I found a few small problems: what if this is a media PC and you don't have a mouse nearby? What if you're leaning back in your seat watching a movie and the screensaver comes on? What if you're giving a presentation at work and the guy running the machine has stepped out?

What if you just don't wanna have to bump the mouse every 5 minutes during a 3-hour LotR film? Come on!

Using a combo of NirCmd and Dash (or keyboard launcher of choice), I setup shortcuts in Dash that allows me to disable/enable screen saver simply by typing Enable (enable) or Disable (disable).

NirCmd replaces tons of utilities.

jarhead

I didn't know people still used screen savers. It's called Power Management, people.

JuniorAndTorrie

@poo706: That was my thought, too. Why have something running in the background when you could have a tiny program that just toggles it on/off?

/AutoIt FTW.

Xander

I have been using this on OS X for over a year. It is a must have for watching movies or extended clips.

GrapeofWrathNYC

What a great tool for watching movies on the PC. I had grown accustomed to bring my wireless mouse with me to bed or the couch. I'll have to fool around with the command line options as well to see if it can turn OFF my monitor after a certain amount of time rather than re-activate the screensaver.

If your a Vista user, you can just use "Presentation Mode". Just use win + x to launch the mobility center, and click the stat presenting button! I use it all the time when i'm watching videos on hulu.

[www.technipages.com]

Keith Hobin

I was looking for something like this some time ago and couldn't find anything. I ended up writing a script with AutoIt. It checks the value of HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\ScreenSaveActive and changes it from 1 to 0 or vice versa. Simple as that.

poo706

Phone Agents at my work have a 5 minute timer that causes the PC top lock, causing agent to reenter password (which IT believes is generous) and the monitor shuts off in 7 minutes (to save energy or some rot).

However supervisors, support staff, and management have a 15 minute screen saver timer, and it doesn't lock the machine at all.

Majandra

Thank you LH! This is a great little app :-p

sickstick

This sounds tragically familiar....

[xkcd.com]

Very nice.

My work has a screensaver policy because we work with semi-confidential information... but I hate that the time limit is set so low, every time I turn around I have to enter my password again.

LouisCameron

There's also a Mac OS X version, which is awesome.

Funny. I tough you were talking about Cafee1ne. It looks and seems to work exactly the same, but this has not been update since 2005. Still works great.

[www.loonies.narod.ru]

arekkusu82

...or you could just bump the mouse to turn the screen saver off when it turns on. that's worked for me for 10+ years

FrancesTheMute

Great when watching movies in a PC where you can't disable the screensaver, like in the computers in my office. Totally recommended.

arekkusu82

I love the OS X version. So simple, so useful.

I've actually been looking for something like this for a long time. thank science.

Roman P Aguila

How do I quickly change the power plans and monitor brightness in Vista/Dell? I'd like a shortcut or tray icon. So when I'm watching a movie, the display will not turn off. Or when I'm on battery power, I can go to 100% brightness, and back.

Screen savers are old news.

dongadoy

This app is a source of frustration for me. I really like its intended function -- prevent screen-saver. Its implementation leaves something to be desired.

It sends a shift-key up keystroke every minute. This means that every once in a while, i'm [sic] holding down the shift key, and the letter comes out lower-case.

I wonder if it could be patched to send the context-menu key up? I tap that key, but I never hold it down.

kleinfelter

@kleinfelter: hmmm that's no so good.

I use a program called HotSpot, which disables the screensaver while the mouse cursor is in the (configurable) upper right corner of the screen. No clicking, no mystery key presses, no screensaver until the mouse cursor moves out of that corner.

@FrancesTheMute: I was at a friend's place watching a movie on her laptop. She had to keep getting up to trigger the mouse when the screensaver kicked in. It was so annoying. Although it would have been nice if she had caved and disabled her screensaver, Caffeine is something she can make good use of in the future.

Thank you very much! I like using the screensaver to display a folder of photos on my computer but there are definitely times when it gets in the way. It can be a hassle to right click and go through the steps in Properties to take care of it. Looks like Caffeine simplifies the situation quite nicely.

On the mac, I prefer to use the built in option that has been around in some for or another since I think OS 9.

On Leopard, you go to system prefs-->expose & spaces-->expose tab. There, you can set one of corners to disable the screen saver. I've had my computers set to have the top right disable screensaver for the last 15 years or so.

mnerd

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Caffeine's technique of sending a shift-key-up has a side-effect that I don't like. This story was enough to finally motivate me to write a clone that doesn't suddenly decide to make a letter lower-case:
; *** An AutoHotkey script to prevent screen-saver.
#Persistent
SetTimer, TickTock, 9000
return
TickTock:
GetKeyState, state, Shift
if state = D
{
Send, {Shift down}
}
else
{
Send, {Shift up}
}
return

kleinfelter

@FrancesTheMute: What if your computer locks when it goes to screensaver?

Not so simple anymore, is it?

@mnerd: Caffeine for Mac is just a handier tool. While hot corners does the same essential thing, with caffeine you can set a predefined time limit of 5 minutes and up to a few hours. Useful for people like me who use their computer to watch movies when going to sleep, and eventually want the energy saver/screen saver settings to kick on at some point in the night

madog

@kleinfelter: I must say that is pretty damn ghetto if that's how this app functions.

madog

@JuniorAndTorrie: -1

madog

There is also saverstarter... tiny portable app that sits in the system tray. Drag to one corner to activate the screensaver, or to the other to keep it from starting. I have the timer set to a high value, so I can start the screensaver on demand and lock my workspace. Of course... you can customize the corners to work the way you want.

re.member

i dont understand the point of a modern screensaver. lcd screens cannot get "stuck" screens due to being on a solid color. if anything the constant motion of colors would cause problems faster. instead make it turn the screen off to save power.

sniper001

It is good, but I have not set any kind of screensaver on my computer.
I prefer turn the monitor off rather than running a screensaver.

smith134

@undefined: This is the kind of post I'd like that banhammer used on.

Spakkenkhrist

You could also try Screen Saver Killer which will run from the command line (useful when your network policy re-applies the screen saver settings).

[mattcollinge.wordpress.com]

Oh VERY cool that there's a PC version of this utility now. I use it all the time on the Mac. :)

@JuniorAndTorrie: yeah power management kicking in is just as annoying as the screen saver, maybe more so.

I've been using Saver Starter (http://www.brianapps.net/saverstarter/) setting up hotspots and coldspots in the corner of my screen, just move the mouse to the corner to disable the screen saver, otherwise it is active. I don't have to remember to reenable the screensaver, just move the mouse out of the corner. I also couple it with a custom screensaver that sets my monitor to stand-by rather than wasting power displaying something pointless.

GladysKnunder

Why go to so much trouble downloading > Installing > Configuring > turning off & on? Just Right click > Hit "Properties" Tab > Hit "Screen Saver" Tab > adjust timer. If you want to lock window just hit you "WINDOWS" Key and L at the same time.

LloydXuthus

@poo706: I wrote the same script--only in C#! Usage: ToggleScreenSaver [on|off]

To compile: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe ToggleScreenSaver.cs

I believe all Vista computers come with the .Net stack installed by default, and most XP/2003 computers probably have it by now as well. So if anyone wants to just roll their own without having to download anything extra....

// ToggleScreenSaver.cs
using System;
using Microsoft.Win32;

public class ToggleScreenSaver {
static void Main(string[] args) {
RegistryKey rk = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Control Panel\\Desktop", true);
if (args[0] == "on") {
rk.SetValue("ScreenSaveActive", "1");
} else {
rk.SetValue("ScreenSaveActive", "0");
}
rk.Close();
}
}

It's not windows only! I'm using caffeine on my mac (not sure if it's the same program but there is definitely caffeine for mac)

EmmaEsphodel