This may be too simple for this forum, but I am new to KDE (more of a Gnome guy).

I know kscreenlocker handles the functions related to user inactivity.
I am mainly interested in the screen saver portion.

In the Systems Settings -> Screen Locker,
I have selected a folder of pictures that I want to use, the length of inactivity (5 min) before the screen saver kicks in, and the delay between slides (5 sec).
When I preview the the settings, the first two or three slides show up (full screen) fine, then it stops. The last slide will stay up indefinitely.
When I wiggle the mouse, the screen saver clears and I am back to the desktop as normal.
Meanwhile, the Systems Settings / Screen Locker mini-preview screen is running at 5 second intervals with all the pictures in the folder being displayed.

There are a couple of problems here:
* Most of the time, after 5 min, the screen goes black - not the slide show of pictures in the folder.
* Or, the slide show will start, and the transition effect from slide to slide will take forever - it slowly (pixel by pixel it seems) will transition from one slide to the next.
* The full screen preview stops after 1 or 2 slides.

The questions are:
How do I change the transition effect from slide to slide
Is there a size limit on the pictures I can use?

Most of the time, after 5 min, the screen goes black - not the slide show of pictures in the folder.

That's dpms, the power (and screen) saving.

No idea about screensavers.

luebking wrote:

Most of the time, after 5 min, the screen goes black - not the slide show of pictures in the folder.

That's dpms, the power (and screen) saving.

No idea about screensavers.

Thanks,
But the screen isn't powering off or going into power saving mode.
I can change the screenlocker setting to 1 min, and it has the same behavior.
I am not adjusting any power saver settings or profiles. This is my desktop system, and I set everything to stay on forever.

The screen saver's ability to show slides seems to be intermittent.
After the time period (1min or 5min), sometimes the screen saver shows a blank screen, sometimes a slide.
If it shows a blank screen, that is how it stays until I wiggle the mouse or hit a key.

But, I would still really like to know if there is a way to change the slide transition effects.

Is the screen simply displaying nothing (blank) or has the monitor actually being turned off?
If it is being turned off - then that is DPMS, which is usually configured through System Settings > Power Management. If it is simply going blank/black, then it sounds like the screen locker configuration is not being honoured correctly...

he ruled out dpms (was my guess as well) - rather sounds with an issue with the particular "scrensaver".

@ticedoff8
do other "screensavers" (like xmatrix etc.) work as expected?
have you tried the slideshow with a different set of images (eg. baseline jpeg, VGA size)?

Thanks for the replies.

I have not tried any other screen saver - so I cannot say.

The power management is set to 60 min on the screen - so I don't think it is that.

I think I have narrowed it down.
There are about 6 "slide transition" effects in screenlocker as the screen changes from one slide to the next.
There are 3 of them take 1 second to transition from slide to slide (a "pinwheel", a "fade" and a "wipe").

But, there are 3 slide transitions that can take almost 5 min to complete.
The time is not related to the next image being transitioned to. It is just the transition.
* There is a "pixel by pixel" that changes random dots on the screen - about 5 or 10 at a time - until the new image is up.
* There is a "checker board" that starts at the L & R edges of the screen and does a column of alternating squares
* There is a "sawtooth" that starts at the top of the screen and works its way down.
Each takes at least 5 min to complete.

Once complete, the screen pauses for 5 seconds (the delay) and starts the next transition.
If the next transition is a long one - then the process of waiting repeats.
If it is a fast transition, then 1 second wait followed by a 5 second delay.

If the first transition from the desktop to a slide is one of the long ones, it looks like the screen is blank - because it is taking so long to get that 1st slide on the screen.

So, back to the original question: Can I change the transitions in screenlocker?

Or, how can I change to a different screen saver program (like xmatrix?) ?

you should be able to configure the screensaver in "kcmshell4 screensaver" and also select another one from the list on the left.
other than that, i can't help - i'm not really fond of "screensavers", i like my systems to save bettery when i'm not using them

@luebking : Very, very helpful - thanks!

This is a desktop system running 24x7. Saving power wasn't on the agenda.

From the "kcmshell4 screensaver", there a list of about 10 screen savers.
When I use the "Kickoff Application Launcher" from the desktop and select "Configure Desktop" option, and then click on "Display and Monitor", there is only 1 screen saver: Screen Locker.

How do I add the screen savers listed in "kcmshell4 screensaver" to the list on the "Display and Monitor"?

BTW: When I ran this command the 1st time, I got about 100 warning messages:
dell-p490:~ # kcmshell4 screensaver
Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
kbuildsycoca4 running...
kbuildsycoca4(14643)/kdecore (services) KServicePrivate::init: The desktop entry file "/usr/share/applications/YaST2/samba-server.desktop" has Type= "Application" but also has a X-KDE-Library key. This works for now, but makes user-preference handling difficult, so support for this might be removed at some point. Consider splitting it into two desktop files.
...
...
... repeat about 100 times
kbuildsycoca4(14643)/kdecore (services) KServicePrivate::init: The desktop entry file "/usr/share/applications/YaST2/joystick.desktop" has Type= "Application" but also has a X-KDE-Library key. This works for now, but makes user-preference handling difficult, so support for this might be removed at some point. Consider splitting it into two desktop files.
kbuildsycoca4 running...
delete ConfigWidget

Then the screen saver selection dialog box pops up.

When I ran it the 2nd time - no warnings.
Weird.

Apologies:
Okay - after looking more closely at the "kcmshell4 screensaver" dialog box, it is now clear it is the same as when I use the "Kickoff Application Launcher" from the desktop and select "Configure Desktop" option, and then click on "Display and Monitor" and check the box "Screen saver".
They are the same list of screen saver options.

After looking through the screen savers listed, there is only one that offers a slide show based on the contents of a folder:
Banners & Pictures -> Slide Show.
This is the one I have been using, and it is the one with the transitions issue.

There are two others that allow me to import images to the "Settings" - I'll try those, but it is not what I was hoping for.

The question still stands (with minor modification):
How do I change the "Banners & Pictures" -> "Slide Show" transitions?

Yet another stupid question I guess:
There is the "OpenGL Screen Saver" that has an option for "GLSlideshow".
But all it displays is a picture that looks like a color TV test pattern with a big red flame in the middle.
In the GLSlideshow "setup", there is no way to change the picture directory (eg: /home/<user>/Pictures/screen-saver) like there is in the "Banners & Pictures" -> "Slide Show".

A few web sites recommended creating a ~/.xscreensaver file with a single line: "imageDirectory: /home/<user>/Pictures/<picture_folder>"
Obviously I used my real home directory path and screen-saver folder.
I tried it, but it didn't change anything.

Is there a trick to getting openGL Screen Saver to use my screen-saver pictures folder?

That's an xscreensaver hack.
Run "xscreensaver-demo" and open the second tab. There you can specify where all xscreensaver hacks obtain images from.
Do NOT activate the xscreensaver daemon.

About the other slideshow saver, i installed and checked it - seems it picks a random change algorithm and this does not seem to be configurable.

I'm not sure why you care, but you're aware that most image viewers (including eg. gwenview) have a (more or less configurable) slideshow mode?
Ie. you don't need a screensaver to run a slideshow.

luebking wrote:That's an xscreensaver hack.
Run "xscreensaver-demo" and open the second tab. There you can specify where all xscreensaver hacks obtain images from.
Do NOT activate the xscreensaver daemon.

About the other slideshow saver, i installed and checked it - seems it picks a random change algorithm and this does not seem to be configurable.

I'm not sure why you care, but you're aware that most image viewers (including eg. gwenview) have a (more or less configurable) slideshow mode?
Ie. you don't need a screensaver to run a slideshow.

I appreciate your reply.
I already know there are a bunch of picture viewing programs that include a "slide show" option.

What I am after is a slide show that starts after some configurable time period of inactivity.
And, I want to dump an ever change bunch of files in a designated directory for the slide show.
In other-words; A screen saver that doesn't have 3 transitions that take 5 min to transition.

And, I do not want a screen saver that I have to add files to the "settings". The "Banners & Pictures" <Media Screen Saver> works fine, but it requires me to <Add> files one at a time to a list.

And...
There is no 'xscreensaver-demo' program currently installed on my system. I did see that suggestion on a different web site.

I am running OpenSuSE 12.3 with KDE 4.10.5

dell-p490:~ # xscreensaver-demo
If 'xscreensaver-demo' is not a typo you can use command-not-found to lookup the package that contains it, like this:
cnf xscreensaver-demo
dell-p490:~ # zypper search xscreensaver
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...

S | Name | Summary | Type
--+--------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+--------
| kdeartwork3-xscreensaver | XScreensaver Support for KDE | package
| xscreensaver | A screen saver and locker for the X Window System | package
| xscreensaver-data | Selection of screensavers from xscreensaver | package
i | xscreensaver-data-extra | Selection of screensavers from xscreensaver | package
dell-p490:~ #

Should I install xscreensaver to get the xscreensaver-demo program?

> Should I install xscreensaver to get the xscreensaver-demo program?
yes =)

It's a desktop environment independent screensaver implementation.
/The/ (desktop independent) screensaver environment implementation on X11

But ensure not to run it AND kscreensaver, only one XOR the other.

Ok! I have it figured out!
I have given up on the "Banners & Pictures" "Slide Show". The transitions are killing me.

But, I figured out how to get the OpenGL screen savers to work.
If you want to use the OpenGL Screen Savers, then you have to install the xscreensaver package (zypper install xscreensaver).
Then, run 'xscreensaver-demo' -
Be Careful! When a gray dialog box pops up warns you that the XScreenSaver daemon doesn't seem to be running on display ":0". Click <Cancel> - NOT <OK>

Now, there will be a Screen Preferences (XScreenSaver 5.20) dialog box with two tabs and some options.
In the "Display Modes", I picked "Only One Screen Saver" and picked "GLSlideshow".
In the "Advanced" tab, I selected the check box for "Choose Random Image:" and then my directory path to the folder.
Back on the "Display Modes", I clicked on "Settings". Now click on "Advanced" (lower left hand corner of the dialog box).
There will "Command Line:" text box at the top:
Mine reads "glslideshow -root -duration 60 -zoom 50 -pan 31 -fade 5"
Key to making this work reliably is to make sure that -pan < -duration value. If -pan > -duration, it seems to repeat the same picture several times before it changes - or it may never change.

Now, you can click on <OK>, and <File> "Quit".

Two things should happen:
In the "Kickoff Application Launcher" -> "Configure Desktop" -> "Display & Monitor" -> "Screen Locker", with the check box for "Screen Saver" and then scroll down to "OpenGL Screen Savers" and expand, then scroll down to "GLSlideshow", your preview should show the contents of your screen-saver picture folder.

And, when the time set in "Start automatically after:" minutes is reached, you slide show should kick in as expected.

Intuitively obvious.