How to get SWF Screensavers?

sloik2000 · 01-02-2007, 12:33 AM

How would I go about getting an SWF to a screensaver on KDE in Fedora Core 6? I've tried the media screensaver... but it just shows an "unsupported" message. I could try converting it to some sort of movie file... would this work?

Thanks.

Simon Bridge · 01-02-2007, 05:23 AM

swf is flash movie format(?) ... a proprietary format not supported under gpl licenced desktops. (I note that swf files are not normally used as screensavers even under windows without first being converted to an appropriate windows (.exe) executable. To use a movie as a screensaver, you need a cli player which can write to the root window. Have fun.

sloik2000 · 01-02-2007, 12:52 PM

I don't quite know how to do that. :-/

Is there a way to just get the screensaver thing to just launch a program and end it when the screensaver ends?

anupamsr · 01-02-2007, 06:02 PM

If your flash screensaver is exe, it cannot be run in linux. Unless you use wine.

If it is just a swf file, you can download gflashplayer (version 9 is also available, in beta), and play with it a little bit to see if it can start a swf file in fullscreen mode from command prompt. If it can, you can write a 4-5 line script to just kick start the thing

sloik2000 · 01-02-2007, 07:02 PM

It's just an SWF... thing is, how would I get it to start when the screensaver activates?
This is the SWF I want as my screensaver, by the way:
http://sloik.ezwebtogo.com/downloads...aver%201.2.swf

anupamsr · 01-02-2007, 07:08 PM

Yeah, well, first you need to figure out how to run it full screen. Then there is a program called xscreensaver which can be used to run a specific command everytime as an screensaver. So the only thing you need to do is, to know how to get this command.

Cheers.

sloik2000 · 01-02-2007, 08:28 PM

Quote:

[hayden@hayden ~]$ xscreensaver
bash: xscreensaver: command not found

I also tried a few other commands that I found here, but found nothing... I tried searching for some kind of configuration file in my home directory, but still found nothing.

Quote:

[hayden@hayden ~]$ xscreensaver-command
bash: xscreensaver-command: command not found
[hayden@hayden ~]$ xscreensaver-demo
bash: xscreensaver-demo: command not found

Thanks for the help so far, I appreciate it.

Also, I'm using KDE... this may use a different screensaver system... I'm led to believe that from reading this.

Simon Bridge · 01-03-2007, 02:55 AM

Do yourself a favor - get a gui for yum, and search through the available packages that way. You'll learn more. Also try:
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xc...545567221efb92
... kde-look is a great resource for eyecandy, and a hunt around will be informative too.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=435012
... yes: LQ has a thread about how to make a kde screensaver of your very own.

I think the kde screensaver program is called "kscreensaver"(? or something)... on a command line, try "apropos screensaver". i.e. for me:

Code:

$ apropos screensaver
endgame (6x)         - endgame chess screensaver
gears (6x)           - draw interlocking gears, for xscreensaver.
queens (6x)          - n queens screensaver
XActivateScreenSaver (3) - manipulate the screen saver
XForceScreenSaver (3) - manipulate the screen saver
XGetScreenSaver (3)  - manipulate the screen saver
XResetScreenSaver (3) - manipulate the screen saver
xscreensaver-getimage (1) - put some randomly-selected image on the root window
xscreensaver-getimage-file (1) - put a randomly-selected image on the root window
xscreensaver-getimage-video (1) - put a video frame on the root window
xscreensaver-gl-helper (6x) - figure out which X visual to use for GL programs
xscreensaver-text (1) - prints some text to stdout, for use by screen savers.
XSetScreenSaver (3)  - manipulate the screen saver

... so I guess I'm using the x-screensaver...

You can also install the xscreensaver (yum install xscreensaver ... I think, remember to remove the kscreensaver or there will be conflicts)

OT:
"Dave. I'm losing my mind Dave. I'm losing my mind. I can feel it..." -- BinaryBob0001 quoting Hal2000 from "2001: A Space Odessey" ---
"They're all dead Dave. Dave, they're all dead. Oh Gordon Bennett! Dead Dave, all they're!" -- Holly from "Red Dwarf" (Episode 1: The End)

anupamsr · 01-03-2007, 01:15 PM

No you don't need to remove kscreensaver. The problem occurs when you want to run kscreensaver and xscreensaver both at the same time. The easy solution is not run kscreensaver (de-select it in the options) and run xscreensaver using ~/.kde/Autostart.

AFAIK, xscreensaver options dialog does not look very good, but it is more functional than kscreensaver. Also, kscreensaver is in itself just a Qt wrapper around xscreensaver.

sloik2000 · 01-04-2007, 12:07 AM

Well, I got it pretty much working by switching to Xscreensaver and reading this. But now, since I have dual-monitors, flash launches twice, and overlaps itself. Any way I can put together some kind of script to end one of the processes of "gflashplayer" if it detects more than one running?

Thanks for all the help.

anupamsr · 01-04-2007, 12:17 PM

Well, there are many ways to do what you want:
1. You can write a shell script to launch gflashplayer, and replace gflashplayer in .xscreensaver with this script. In this script, you can test if gflashplayer is already running or not. Something like this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -z "$(pidof gflashplayer)" ]; then
    # the command to run the flashplayer
fi

2. To kill one of the gflashplayer, you can do similar scripting:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$(pidof gflashplayer | wc | awk '{print $2}')" -gt 1 ]; then
    pidof gflashplayer | cut -d ' ' -f 2- | xargs kill
fi

sloik2000 · 01-04-2007, 01:45 PM

When I try that first script, I get an error:

Quote:

screensaver.sh: line 3: pidof: command not found

Thanks for the help so far!

anupamsr · 01-04-2007, 02:03 PM

Yep, you need to install it

It should be part of some package named busybox.

You can use ps command to do similar stuff, though:

Code:

ps -C gflashplayer -o pid= | xargs

Here is the second script version:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$(ps -C gflashplayer -o pid= | xargs | wc | awk '{print $2}')" -gt 1 ]; then
    ps -C gflashplayer -o pid= | xargs | cut -d ' ' -f 2- | xargs kill
fi

fakie_flip · 03-10-2007, 03:14 PM

Where can I get gflashplayer, and how can I install it?

Simon Bridge · 03-12-2007, 02:41 AM

did you try google: "gflashplayer"... 1st link up is as follows:

http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/r...9_linux_sa.htm

... so it would appear you got it from adobe...
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

click "get flash player now" and it will give you a choice of rpm or tar.gz