Screensaver settings GUI is confusing

[Jonathan Davies]

The settings GUI for screensaver settings is confusing.

Right now, I see:

- Turn off the screen after:
- Lock the screen after:

Lock the screen has an option for "Screen turns off", and time internals.

It never states that it'll start the countdown for the lock AFTER the screen's been turned off and if appropriate the time interval has past.

The lock part's string should be changed to:

"Lock the screen after screen turns off and idle for": "Immediate", "30 seconds", etc.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Will Chester (william-chester)]

Thanks for the explanation Jonathan! I was confused by this as well. Something along the lines of your suggested changes would definitely help.

[Will Chester (william-chester)]

After today's update to gnome-screensaver I am now having an issue with the screensaver lock. I can use the ctrl+alt+L combo to lock the screen, but it doesn't automatically lock after the screen turns off. I've restarted my computer and tried a number of combinations, but nothing works.

[Tony Whelan (tony-whelan)]

Tested this on Ubuntu 13.04, 13.10 beta2, Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon. Elementary OS Luna. All the same.

Irrespective of whether a machine is running gnome-screensaver or cinnamon-screensaver, the timed screen lock does not operate in the way one would expect.

1. If you don't set the screen to turn off, then the timed locking function will NEVER work.

2. If you do set the screen to turn off, and set the lock delay to a specific time, that time starts AFTER the screen turns off. So for example if you set screen off after 1 minute of inactivity and lock on after 1 minute, the lock will happen after a total of TWO minutes of inactivity.

This is presumably an issue with gnome-screensaver (and I guess cinnamon-screensaver uses much of the same code).

This interface needs to be redesigned so that one can have a timed automatic lock independent of whether or not the screen is set to turn off.

[Tony Whelan (tony-whelan)]

And I'd call this a major security flaw.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

The text should indeed be reworked, "after a further:" would be a step.