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Topic: «New screensaver feature » on forum: Beta Testing   Views: 3340
 
Steve Kalide
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 144
Joined: 03/29/2011
Posted: 07/12/2013 05:30:53
 
 
 Wow! I must say -- the new screen saver feature for individual monitors is BRILLIANT! Especially the ability to activate with a hotkey. If I wasn't already an AWM customer, I would purchase AWM for that feature alone. Fantastic work, guys.

If there's ever any possible room for suggestions with it -- :)

1.) Any chance that screen savers can be activated per monitor based on a timer of last use? For example, if I have three monitors, but monitor #3 hasn't had any mouse movement or window/program activity in 10 minutes, the individually selected screen saver would activate for that monitor only, while monitor's 1 and 2 would still be awake. And then if monitor #1 doesn't have any movement/activity on it for X minutes, the screensaver for that monitor gets activated.

But then once you mouse over to monitor #3 or #1 (or there's window popup/movement on either one), the screensaver is woken up.

2.) Keyboard shortcuts to activate individual monitor screensavers (i.e., a keyboard shortcut to activate #2's screensaver, or shortcut to activate #1 and #3's screensavers at the same time).

Anyway, fantastic work, guys. You continue to impress, and I'm adamant that this is the best, most useful piece of software I have on my entire machine (and I use a lot of software)!

Win7/Win8.1 Pro (x64)
AWM 8.3b2
 
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Michael Plant
Registered user
 
 Posts: 51
Joined: 10/13/2009
Posted: 07/12/2013 23:05:59
 
 
 Wow - fantastic suggestions, Steve! Also, thank you for alerting me to the new screensaver functionality - I hadn't looked at it yet. Looking at it now, the title "Save Idle Screens" in the screen saver options *suggests* that this might satisfy your first suggestion. I'm playing with it now.

One thing I'd like to add to the discussion is that I appreciate the new, simplified interface for screen saver settings. Very nice!
 
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Pim Joosten
Resident
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 07/13/2013 00:32:18
 
 
 Hello Steve and Michael,

Michael, you have already seen this thread, because you have also posted there. Steve, in that thread you can read that your first idea will probably not be implemented, because it might lead to a high CPU load. I also proposed your second idea in that thread, so right now it makes three of us that have explicitly stated that we would like to have this feature  ;)
 
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Steve Kalide
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 144
Joined: 03/29/2011
Posted: 07/13/2013 08:53:18
 
 
 Ah, I didn't see that thread. I see that you've requested verbatim the exact same feature subset (and before me, as well). The more, the merrier! :)

I guess I can understand that the feature might take higher load, with having to actively, constantly poll the mouse use throughout the entire system use. I wonder if there's perhaps a less intensive way of monitoring for such activity? Perhaps painting a thin, transparent "window" on the border between each monitor -- a very thin strip, similar to a vertical line -- that spans the entire edge/border between two monitors, like a fence. And then have those transparent windows act as "gates" of detection (detection zones).

So for example, if the mouse cursor is on monitor number one and crosses over gate #2 (the invisible border between monitors #1 and #2), then it resets a simple timer of "activity", thereby restarting the countdown to activating the screensaver shortcut on a certain monitor.

I would think that it would be more resource intensive to actively poll the mouse cursor position constantly -- but perhaps it'd be less intensive if you instead set up these detection "gates" or "zones" that keep an eye out for mouse cursor crossing/hovering, and then let those gates do the resetting of the activity timers.

And to help the function determine direction of mouse movement (without having to constantly poll mouse cursor position), you could set up two thin "gates" on each monitor border, side by side, with a gap between them -- that way, if gate #1 gets hit/crossed first and then gate #2 gets hit/crossed, you know the mouse cursor is moving fr om left (monitor #1) to right (monitor #2).

Anyway, just some hypothetical brainstorming. No doubt, ActualTools knows and understands the lim itations and resource demands of the operating system better than I do, and whether such a feature would be possible.

Win7/Win8.1 Pro (x64)
AWM 8.3b2
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4010
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 07/23/2013 10:17:57
 
 
 Hello Gentlemen

We'll consider the implementation of automatic mode for this feature.

Best regards.
 
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