How to check if screen saver is running?

Question

I have a script written in bash, which I need to take different route in case screensaver is currently running. This is Linux with Xorg and KDE. Script is called from cron, and it connects to DISPLAY=:0.

Any hint/idea how to check for state of screensaver?

Answer 1

If it is KDE4 you are running, you can use dbus to check if the screen saver is running:

$ qdbus org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver /ScreenSaver org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.GetActive

or

$ qdbus org.kde.screensaver /ScreenSaver org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.GetActive

This works also for gnome, but they are known for not following FreeDesktop standards, so you have to use:

$ qdbus org.gnome.ScreenSaver /ScreenSaver org.gnome.ScreenSaver.GetActive

Last but not least, you can check whether the standard X screen server is running using XScreenSaverQueryInfo() and checking the state field.