Crazy idea - ScummVM screensaver

fabio · Post by **fabio** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:43 am

It would be nice if ScummVM could be used as a screensaver

.

First, adding recording and replaying support to ScummVM. Then writing a screensaver script which call a replay of a ScummVM game, eventually with some options (e.g. using a 2x speed, disabling music and sound and enabling subtitles). You could just use a video for your screensaver obliviously, but this looks original and funnier!

Then your colleagues could enjoy Guybrush adventures during your lunch time (but you probably won't enjoy too much getting fired by your boss

).

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 1:03 pm

Well, screensavers are basically executable files. Thus, once our event recorder is functional, it could be used to replay games, thus you could just set up ScummVM as a screensaver (by renaming the exe to .scr), together with an event recording of the games you played. So yes, this could be possible at some point in the future, once the event recorder is functional

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:50 pm

md5 wrote:Well, screensavers are basically executable files. Thus, once our event recorder is functional, it could be used to replay games, thus you could just set up ScummVM as a screensaver (by renaming the exe to .scr), together with an event recording of the games you played. So yes, this could be possible at some point in the future, once the event recorder is functional

I don't see where he said he used Windows.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:00 am

clone2727 wrote:I don't see where he said he used Windows.

He didn't, I assumed as such. And I am not familiar with how screensavers work in *nix and MacOS operating systems - I use xscreensaver there. But my answer covers Windows users. Happy now?

Do you have any proposals on how to do this on non-Windows systems?

fabio · Post by **fabio** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:49 am

Great, is an event recorder already planned? Is this: http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/TODO#Event_recorder ? The inside link to the patch is probably wrong, however.

(I am using Linux anyway).

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:18 pm

md5 wrote:He didn't, I assumed as such. And I am not familiar with how screensavers work in *nix and MacOS operating systems - I use xscreensaver there. But my answer covers Windows users. Happy now? Do you have any proposals on how to do this on non-Windows systems?

No, I was just pointing how horrible your assumption was

Especially since he isn't using Windows in the end.

clone2727 · Post by **clone2727** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:18 pm

fabio wrote:Great, is an event recorder already planned? Is this: http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/TODO#Event_recorder ? The inside link to the patch is probably wrong, however.

(I am using Linux anyway).

The code is in the master now, but it's not really working at all atm.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:12 pm

clone2727 wrote:
md5 wrote:He didn't, I assumed as such. And I am not familiar with how screensavers work in *nix and MacOS operating systems - I use xscreensaver there. But my answer covers Windows users. Happy now? Do you have any proposals on how to do this on non-Windows systems?
No, I was just pointing how horrible your assumption was Especially since he isn't using Windows in the end.

Horrible or not, in Windows it's a simple file rename. I don't know how hard it'll be in *nix.

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:53 pm

md5 wrote: Horrible or not, in Windows it's a simple file rename. I don't know how hard it'll be in *nix.

The documentation for XScreenSaver says that "Any program that can be made to render on an X window created by another process can be used as a screen saver. Just get the window ID out of $XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW, draw on that, and you're done."