xidlehook

Because xautolock is annoying to work with.

xidlehook is a general-purpose replacement for xautolock.
It basically just executes a command when the computer has been idle for _ minutes.

Improvements over xautolock: - As well as a notifier, there is now a canceller, for when the user stops it from locking. - Not specific to locking. Multiple instances can run at the same time. - Optionally only run once. - Optionally prevent locking when an application is fullscreen. - Optionally prevent locking when any application plays audio.

Missing features: - Magic corners. - --killer stuff whatever that is. - Bell, because you should be using --notify. - All the instance related stuff (you should use unix sockets with --socket).

Example

Here's a lock using i3lock, with screen dim support:

Bash xidlehook \ --time 5 \ --timer 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1; i3lock' \ --notify 10 \ --notifier 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness .1' \ --canceller 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1' \ --not-when-fullscreen \ --not-when-audio

Note: Every command is passed through sh -c, so you should be able to mostly use normal syntax.

For an example in practice, here's what I use personally.

Installation

Installation using cargo:

cargo install xidlehook

Or if you're on Arch Linux and prefer using the AUR:

AUR package

Or if you're using Nix:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.xidlehook

Or if you want to clone it manually:

git clone https://github.com/jD91mZM2/xidlehook cd xidlehook cargo build --release

Too bloaty?

Are you not using pulseaudio?
You can disable that requirement completely with --no-default-features!
This however gets rid of --not-when-audio.

Socket API

The socket API is very simple. Each packet is a single byte.

| Byte | Command | |------|---------------------------| | 0x0 | Deactivate | | 0x1 | Activate | | 0x2 | Trigger the timer command |

For example, if you wanted to lock the screen, you could bind the following to a keyboard shortcut:

Bash echo -ne "\x2" | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/path/to/xidlehook.sock