garnett@cs.utexas.edu (John William Garnett) (02/25/91)
This note is in reference to the one I posted yesterday on the same
subject (unfortunately, I had already read my previous note and so
couldn't reply to it -- but that would have been bad form anyway,
right :-)?
Anyway, I've received more requests for the screen dimmer, black window
program than I expected. I have ftp'd it to the /pub/next/submissions
directory under the name "dimBlack.tar.Z". I also sent it to the
sonata archive-server via email. Does anyone know how to put something
in the sonata pub/next/submissions directory? I keep getting permissions
denied. I will also try to put a 2.0 binary version up for those that
don't have the extended release.
[suggestion for NeXT Computer, Inc. at the bottom]
One more thing... I should make clear here (since I apparently didn't before)
that this program (dimBlack) in its current form is really only useful
for those people who have cubes in offices, at home, or in other places
where they commonly stay logged in all the time. It wouldn't be much
use on public cubes, since it doesn't dim the screen when no one is logged
in. However, it probably wouldn't be too difficult to modify the program to
make it runnable from cron. The way this would work is that cron would run a
check every 30 minutes or so to see if anyone is logged into the console
(using grep on ps output or some more sophisticated method). Actually,
Jeff Kight once posted a program using this technique. However, his
program dimmed the screen but didn't put up a black window... this
allowed the user to recover by hitting the screen brightening key
(which is nice). Unfortunately, if one also puts up a black window in
addition to dimming the screen, the recovery method isn't a function of
the user alone. The program run from cron would have to stay alive and
periodically check to see if someone was wanting to use the machine
(every few seconds or so) - hence my question on how to detect the current
location of the mouse. This whole technique would really be a hack...
[suggestion to NeXT]
What would be really nice is if NeXT would add some type of screendimmerOn
hook to the Windowserver program analagous to the LoginHook and LogoutHook
on the loginwindow. This hook would allow the user to install his own
screendimmer to be run by the Windowserver whenever it would normally
autodim the screen (to the 1/4 brightness level). The screendimmerOff
hook would be for the user program that restored the screen to its original
state.
--
John Garnett
University of Texas at Austin
garnett@cs.utexas.edu Department of Computer Science
Austin, Texasgarnett@cs.utexas.edu (John William Garnett) (02/25/91)
In article <1130@nada.cs.utexas.edu> garnett@cs.utexas.edu (I) write >Anyway, I've received more requests for the screen dimmer, black window >program than I expected. I have ftp'd it to the /pub/next/submissions >directory under the name "dimBlack.tar.Z". Oops. Forgot to say which server I ftp'd it to... it's cs.orst.edu. -- John Garnett University of Texas at Austin garnett@cs.utexas.edu Department of Computer Science Austin, Texas
jtn@potomac.ads.com (Dark Hacker) (03/05/91)
Clearly the NeXT screen dimmer needs to start shuffling the dock'd icons around while the screen is dimmed and then when the user hits a key or moves the mouse.... all the icons pop back into their correct postions. Now if I just had a NeXT to write the code. -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ORGANIZATION: Advanced Decision Systems GEOGRAPHIC: Arlington, VA UUCP: kzin!speaker@mimsy.umd.edu INTERNET: jtn@potomac.ads.com