unnecessary screensaver interruption

[Kevin Hunter]

When interacting with the computer in an innocuous manner, the screen saver should not be interrupted.

For instance, my RF kill switch for this laptop is on the side of this computer and is not related to the keyboard. It's physical positioning indicates the state of the wireless radio, so having something mentioned to me on screen is superfluous. Thus, when I turn on or off my wireless radio, the screen saver should not be interrupted.

Similarly, when I turn up or down the volume via keyboard hot keys, the screen saver should not be interrupted. The Gnome volume bar could still show up, on top of the screen saver, but the simple action of turning up or down the volume should not affect the screen saver.

Actions that I think should not affect the screen saver:

* Turning on/off the Wifi via the keyboard or other external means. (RF Kill switch)
* Checking the status of the battery. A pop-up similar to the Gnome volume bar could be used.
* Turning up or down the screen brightness.
* Turning up or down the speaker volume.

[Nigel Babu (nigelbabu)]

Thanks for sending the bug upstream.

[Dr. Kenobi (drkenobi)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. I have sent your requirement to upstream so please be pacient and wait a response of the gnome-screensaver team, Thanks!

[Kevin Hunter (hunteke)]

Heh, I was fully prepared "to be patient" when I reported this wishlist item over a year ago. :-)

I didn't know how to report this bug to Jamie Zawinksi (xscreensaver fella), so I ended up writing him an email. I imagine he gets hundreds of emails per day, and since I didn't get a response back I didn't know if it had been lost. Then I posted it here.

I'm actually not sure if this is a screensaver issue, or a window manager issue, so I punted and just posted. In other words, does the screensaver need to even know that those events happened? I don't think so.

Some other thoughts: if screen has been turned off (not just black or running a screensaver), then there's no need to turn the screen back on. For example, from the decibel output of the speakers it will be clear if the volume has been turned up or down.

[Kevin Hunter (hunteke)]

P.S. Thanks for posting upstream. I should have done that last year, but apparently got overwhelmed at that point in time.