Manually Activate Ubuntu Screensaver

Yikes, has it really been two weeks since my last post?! Real life can really sneak up on you and suck up all your blogging time.

Anyway, to break the silence, I thought I'd share this handy little tweak that I came up with earlier today. As you may know, I have a EeePC 701 that's running Ubuntu 9.04. Now the 701 only has a 7" screen so my pixels are at a premium and I don't want to just throw them around willy-nilly. Thankfully, Compiz helps me save that screen real estate very effectively.

Now for the good stuff:

gnome-screensaver-command -a

This command will activate your screensaver manually, no waiting for the inactivity timer to kick in. Compiz Configuration Manager lets you bind commands to key combinations, mouse clicks, and ... Edge Bindings!

Personally, I find Edge Bindings to be awesome. Some folks don't, but I sure do. Edge Bindings basically trigger some kind of action when your mouse touches a certain edge of the screen. Here's how to activate your screensaver when you move the mouse to, say, the bottom-left corner of the screen:

1. Open "Compiz Configuration Manager"
2. Open the "Commands" window (it was the first icon in the "General" section in CCM)
3. In the "Commands" tab, type the following into "Command line 0":

   gnome-screensaver-command -a

4. On the "Edge Bindings" tab, click on the "Run command 0" button and pick the part(s) of the screen that you want to trigger your screensaver.
5. And don't forget to activate the "Commands" checkbox from the CCM main screen by checking the checkbox next to it.