Up until GNOME 3.5, GNOME Screensaver was the

GNOME A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depict ...

project's official screen blanking and locking framework. With the release of GNOME 3.5.5, screen locking functionality became a function of GDM and

GNOME Shell GNOME Shell is the graphical shell of the GNOME desktop environment starting with version 3, which was released on April 6, 2011. It provides basic functions like launching applications and switching between windows. GNOME Shell replaced GN ...

by default.

History

GNOME Screensaver continued to be used by the GNOME Fallback mode until GNOME Fallback was deprecated with the release of GNOME 3.8. GNOME Screensaver continues to be used in the

GNOME Flashback A gnome () is a mythological creature and diminutive spirit in Renaissance magic and alchemy, introduced by Paracelsus in the 16th century and widely adopted by authors, including those of modern fantasy literature. They are typically depicted ...

session, a continuation of the GNOME Fallback mode. In October 2014, a member of the GNOME Flashback team requested maintainer-ship of GNOME Screensaver which would allow it to officially become part of the GNOME Flashback project. On some GNOME-based

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

s, GNOME Screensaver was used instead of the framework that is a part of XScreenSaver. On these systems, the screen savers themselves still came from the XScreenSaver collection, GNOME Screensaver just provided the interface. The GNOME Screensaver interface was designed for improved integration with the GNOME desktop, including themeability, language support, and

human interface guidelines Human interface guidelines (HIG) are software development documents which offer application developers a set of recommendations. Their aim is to improve the experience for the users by making application interfaces more intuitive, learnable, and ...

compliance. However, it no longer runs any screensavers and is more properly referred to as a screen blanker. Compared to the front end included with XScreenSaver, GNOME Screensaver has a simplified

interface Interface or interfacing may refer to: Academic journals * ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society * '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics'' * '' Inter ...

but less customizability. For instance, users may not select which screensavers to select at random – either only one is selected or the program randomly selects from the whole list. In addition, the inability to configure individual screensavers and the developers' response to this issue has been criticized by some users. It also lacks a setting to control cycling through different screensavers. In GNOME 3, GNOME Screensaver was drastically simplified, supporting only screen blanking and no graphical

screen saver A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gnome-Screensaver GNOME Applications Screensavers