xidlehook

Because xautolock is annoying to work with.

xidlehook is a general-purpose replacement for xautolock. It executes a command when the computer has been idle for a specified amount of time.

Improvements over xautolock: - Allows "cancellers" which undo a timer action when new activity is detected. - 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. - 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 \ `# Don't lock when there's a fullscreen application` \ --not-when-fullscreen \ `# Don't lock when there's audio playing` \ --not-when-audio \ `# Dim the screen after 60 seconds, undim if user becomes active` \ --timer normal 60 \ 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness .1' \ 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1' \ `# Undim & lock after 10 more seconds` \ --timer primary 10 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1; i3lock' "" \ `# Finally, suspend an hour after it locks` \ --timer normal 3600 'systemctl suspend'

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

Installation

Installation using cargo:

cargo install xidlehook

It's also available on Nix and the AUR (not officially maintained).

Or if you want to clone it manually:

git clone https://gitlab.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 command is a single byte, sent over a unix socket. Bind a file using --socket /path/to/xidlehook.sock (where the path is whatever you want), and then you can send one of the following:

| Byte | Command | | --- | --- | | 0 | Deactivate | | 1 | Activate | | 2 | Run the timer command immediately |

A common use case of xidlehook is using it to run a lockscreen. To then manually lock the screen, you could bind this bash command to a shortcut:

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