.. RST source for unsaver(1) man page. Convert with:
..   rst2man.py unsaver.rst > unsaver.1

.. |version| replace:: 0.3.0
.. |date| date::

=======
unsaver
=======

-------------------------------------------
deactivate screensaver on joystick activity
-------------------------------------------

:Manual section: 1
:Manual group: Urchlay
:Date: |date|
:Version: |version|

SYNOPSIS
========

unsaver [**-i interval[s|ms]**] [**-m** | **-k keycode** | **-b button** | **-c command** | **-x** ] [**-j** | **-f**] [**-d**] [**joydev [joydev ...]**]

DESCRIPTION
===========

unsaver lets you play games with your joysticks/gamepads without the screen
saver activating due to lack of keyboard/mouse input. It also prevents
the screensaver from activating when a fullscreen window is in use (e.g.
while watching a movie).

unsaver should be started from your **.xinitrc** or whatever X startup
script your window manager or desktop environment uses. By default, it
will exit when the X server does. There's no PID file: use "pkill unsaver"
if you need to kill the daemon.

Every *interval* milliseconds (250, or whatever **-i** is set to), unsaver
checks to see if there's been any activity on any of the devices it's
monitoring. If so, it sends a fake mouse movement, keystroke, or mouse
button click, which the screen saver will see as activity.

Multiple joystick devices can be monitored. By default, unsaver
monitors up to 16 devices, named /dev/input/js0 through js15.
These devices don't have to actually exist: they can come and go
as joysticks are plugged in and unplugged. See JOYSTICK DEVICES
if the defaults don't work for you.

OPTIONS
=======

General options
---------------

--help         Print usage summary and exit.

-d             Debug mode: run in foreground and print verbose messages.

Monitoring options
------------------

-i <interval>  Interval to check for activity. Can be given in seconds
               with *s* suffix (e.g. **1s**), or milliseconds with *m*
               (e.g. **200m**). If just a number is given, it's assumed
               to be in seconds if it's under 100, otherwise it's treated
               as milliseconds. Default: 250m.

-j             Only monitor joysticks; don't try to detect fullscreen windows.
               **-j** and **-f** are mutually exclusive.

-f             Only detect fullscreen windows; don't monitor joysticks.
               **-j** and **-f** are mutually exclusive. Note that
               **joydevs** are ignored with **-f**.

Deactivation mode options
-------------------------

Only one of **-k**/**-b**/**-m**/**-c**/**-x** is accepted.

-k <keycode>   Send this keycode when activity is detected. Default
               is to search the keymap for an unused code. If you set this
               manually, it should be a keycode that *doesn't* map to a keysym
               in your usual keymapping (use "xmodmap -pk" to find one).

-b <button>    Send a click of this button when activity is detected,
               rather than a keystroke. Should be a button that
               applications don't normally respond to (6 or higher),
               but in some environments, the window manager responds to
               all the 'extra' buttons as though they were button 1.

-m             Send mouse movements rather than a keystroke. This will
               move the pointer 10 pixels to the right and down, then
               10 pixels to the left and up, then warp the pointer back
               to its starting point.

-c <command>   Run a command when activity is detected, rather than
               sending a fake keystroke/click/motion. It's recommended
               to set *interval* to at least 1 second when using this
               option, to avoid excess process-spawning overhead.

-x             Same as **-c "xscreensaver-command -deactivate" -i 1s**.

A space is required between an option and its argument, as shown
above. Use e.g. **-i 300**, not **-i300**.

NOTES
=====

unsaver was tested with xlock(1), xscreensaver(1), and the built-in
Xorg screensaver (see xset(1)). All 4 modes (keycode, mouse click, mouse
motion, command execution) work with xscreensaver. xlock doesn't have a
disable command nor respond to mouse motion, so use the keycode or click
modes with it. The "xset s" screen-blanker works with keycodes, mouse
clicks, and mouse motion. I didn't test with gnome-screensaver, sorry.

unsaver can monitor up to MAX_STICKS joysticks. This is a compile time
constant, normally set to 16. See the **--help** output to find out
the compiled-in default.

If the screensaver is configured to lock the screen, and it has already
done so, unsaver can't magically type your password for you.

unsaver depends on the XTest extension being present in the X server. If
you get a "X server doesn't support XTest extension" error, see your X
server documentation to find out how to enable XTest.

The fullscreen window monitoring has only been tested on a system with
a single monitor, and may not work properly in multi-head environments.

JOYSTICK DEVICES
================

It's recommended to let unsaver find the joysticks itself. However, you
can pass one or more joystick numbers if the default doesn't do the right
thing for you. Remember that the first joystick is numbered 0, not 1.

When you manually set the list of devices, unsaver will only detect
hotplug events on the devices you gave it. If you plug in more joysticks,
they won't be monitored.

None of the joystick devices (whether autodetected or not) has to
actually exist when unsaver starts up, although their directory does
have to exist. This means unsaver can detect hotplug events, but you
have to be careful not to typo the device names.

If your system doesn't keep its joystick device nodes in /dev/input, and/or
if they're not named "js<num>", see ENVIRONMENT for a way to override
the default names.

ENVIRONMENT
===========

UNSAVER_JS_DIR   Path to joystick device nodes. If your OS keeps them
                 somewhere besides "/dev/input", set this variable.

UNSAVER_JS_NODE  Base name for joystick device nodes. "js" by default.
                 *Don't* set this to "event", unsaver doesn't speak the
                 full Linux event protocol.

EXIT STATUS
===========

Without the -d option, the exit status is 0 (success) if unsaver
successfully forked into the background.

A non-zero exit status means an error in the command line arguments,
or else fork() failed. No daemon will be running in this case.

With the -d option, unsaver never exits until it's killed.

BUGS
====

There's no way to distinguish between an invalid device name and a
device name that doesn't happen to exist yet because its device hasn't
been plugged in yet. Try to avoid typos, if you really have to use device
names (better to autodetect).

Normally once daemonized, unsaver is very robust. However, if something
does go wrong, there's no way to find out what. Probably there should
be a log file, or use syslog (or is that overkill?).

It should be (but currently isn't) possible to at least work in
mouse-motion mode even without the XTest extension, via XWarpPointer().

I *really* need to use the XKB extension rather than the old & deprecated
Xlib keyboard API. This mainly affects the default "find an unused
keycode" mode.

unsaver isn't portable. It only works on Linux, at least for now, for
three reasons:

 - It uses the Linux joystick API.

 - It uses inotify(7) to detect joystick hotplug events.

 - I haven't even looked at other OSes to see if it would be possible
   to port the code.

.. EXAMPLES
.. ========

LICENSE
=======

unsaver is released under the WTFPL: Do WTF you want with this.

AUTHOR
======

unsaver was written by B. Watson <yalhcru@gmail.com>.

SEE ALSO
========

jstest(1), jscal(1), sdl-jstest(1), sdl2-jstest(2)