Why is xscreensaver removed in favor of gnome-screensaver

[n0dalus]

On 2/18/06, Miles Lane <miles.lane at gmail.com> wrote:
> One more issue is that the gnome-screensaver "fade out" when it starts
> to display a screensaver takes way too long.  I think the fade should last,
> at most, about four seconds.  Right now, it seems to take about ten
> seconds to fade out before starting to display the screensaver.
>

I think this is to give a grace period so you can notice the
screensaver activating and do something before the screen gets locked.
I don't think the current way of doing it is very good. Instead, the
screensaver should start normally, without a long fade in, but extend
the grace period into the running of the screensaver a bit.

IMO, the biggest problem with gnome-screensaver is that fullscreen
apps are used to xscreensaver and this means that games and movie
players won't be able to stop the screensaver from starting. The
gnome-screensaver FAQ mentions that there is a way to stop the
screensaver using dbus (which totem is using), but it may be some time
before that makes it into other applications (if ever). It would be
great if gnome-screensaver could detect what would normally be a 'stop
screensaver' request for xscreensaver and act on it appropriately.

n0dalus.