disable automatic screen blackout? [SOLVED]

[mimosa]

When watching films using Parole, every few minutes the screensaver comes on - presumably because there is no keyboard or mouse activity. Jiggling the mouse brings the film back of course, but is there a way to disable this feature as needed, or alter the way it interacts with multimedia programs? It's a minor niggle, but I imagine there is a straightforward solution.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

[ray]

If you are using the Xfce Power Manager as well, enabling the power manager plugin in parole will fix that.

EDIT: Also, in the right-click menu of Xfce Power Manager is an option called 'Monitor Power Control', unticking it will disable blanking of the screen, so if you're watching something on youtube or whatever and prefer to be undisturbed, you can toggle it off while you watch and toggle it back on after you're done.

[mimosa]

Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'm using it - is it the default? I can't find it on any menu. However, Parole gives me an option to turn on the plugin, which I've done and will test next time I watch a DVD. There 's also an option under Prefrences to "disable screensaver while playing movies", which was already on, but seems not to have been working on my system.

[mimosa]

Although Parole remembered that I activated the plugin, it hasn't stopped the screensaver kicking in. I had a look in gslapt for this power manager thing, but as far as I can see it's not available.

[ray]

Its called 'xfce4-power-manager' and it's in the salix repos.
It's installed by default on the Xfce version of Salix.

Try running it from the terminal:

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xfce4-power-manager

Are you on a laptop or desktop?

[zAchAry]

@mimosa
You can also use Whaaw! Media Player which has an option to Disable Screensaver. You can install Whaaw! Media Player by typing in the terminal (as root)

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# slapt-get -i whaawmp

Anyhow, I'm highly recommending to you to follow the instructions provided by ray.

[mimosa]

It's a desktop. I typed the name of the program into the terminal (not as root) and restarted Parole, just in case - no luck.

[ray]

Okay, not sure why that isnt working for you, as it does for me.
I am on a laptop though.

Any case, i've one more card up my sleeve

Install caffeine from here: https://launchpad.net/caffeine
Unfortunately, it doesnt have a package, but is quite straightforward to install.
Extract the tarball and in the the terminal type as root:

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./setup.py install

That will install it for you.
Run the app and configure to activate for parole.
Right click the coffee-mug icon in the system tray and select preferences.
Add parole as an app to monitor.

Caffeine is an app that continuously monitors apps that you set up and makes sure the screen doesnt blank out when you are running any of those apps. It can also look for flash videos.

Hope this helps,
ray

[mimosa]

I just tried to install caffeine (using su and then su - just in case) but permission was denied. This is most likely a problem just because of my inexperience with installing things this way. First I navigated to the folder where I had unpacked the archive (~tar.gz)

[gapan]

Maybe it's xorg screen blanking. Try running xset -dpms before launching the video.