[NBLUG/talk] Play a sound when the screensaver terminates?

[sms at sonic.net]

> > I'm trying to discourage a cat who is developing the habit of nesting
> > on a computer desk, leaving fur all over the mousepad and occasionally
> > stepping on the keyboard.  Since the mouse moves every time she jumps
> > on the desk, I figure that if I could set up the screensaver to play a
> > WAV file (probably /usr/share/sounds/error.wav) whenever it
> > deactivates,
>
> Depending on your enviornment, you could also have the screen 'lock'
> when it goes into screensaver mode.
> Unless your cat looks over your shoulder and learns your password... and
> then how to type it... you should be fine. ;^)

I think he's more worried about _PHYSICAL_ security than the
feline-hacker-ninja _DATA_ issue.  He wants to keep the cat-hair
off the desk/keyboard/etc.  Maybe allergies, maybe worried about
shorting the keyboard, maybe... <shrug>

<hastily suppressing the mental image of an incontinent cat...>


> > Does anyone know of a way to do what I'm describing?  The computer is
> > running Red Hat Linux 9.0 with KDE 3.1.3.
>
> Unfortunately, I can't think of anything off-hand.  KDE might have some
> option to play a sound when the screensaver comes back.  *shrug*

You _should_ AFIAK be able to write a small wrapper-script to:
(a) run screensaver
(b) kill -9 cat-ears
and then call $HOME/bin/wrapper instead of the /bin/screensaver directly.

Details left as an exercise for the reader ('cause I ain't no KDEguru).

Have fun!



- Steve S.