Hi,

The preview window doesn't work for you?  Or are talking about fullscreen preview? If the preview window doesn't work for you, how is it failing?  Is the window solid black?  Do you not see a preview window at all?

If you are talking about fullscreen preview, you might want to check out bug 329246 which is tracking that issue.

Regarding configuration, was there some behavior in the default 5 screensavers that you felt wasn't right and you wished you could change?  Or are your concerns primarily about being able to configure the legacy xscreensaver screensavers?

My bad, I went back to using xscreensaver ...
gnome-screensaver shows the preview just fine, but when it's not fullscreen it's not a real preview about cpu usage ...
And the configure option would be nice, since there are different modes for screensavers (Sloarwinds, for example)

Hi,

Well you'll be happy to know, then that fullscreen preview landed in CVS today.

I'm not sure I've heard of solarwinds.  Is it shipped with xscreensaver? or is it from a third party package like the Really Slick Screensavers?

So I just want to be sure I completely understand your problem...Are you saying something like, "Solarwinds (and some other screensavers) offers several screensaver modes in one.  With xscreensaver I can choose between these modes and so I have access to a wider selection of available screensavers than with gnome-screensaver".  Is that about right?  

Good news about the fullscreen preview :)

Regarding Solarwind's package, I guess it does come from rss-glx package as you mentionned, but since it was installed by default (running Ubuntu Dapper Drake here) I assumed it was part of the base package.

You assumed correctly for my problem with each screensaver's configuration, I suggest you install xscreensaver and rss-glx to see the kind of configuration you could have. (I'm not talking about the advanced mode, which allows to send command line options, but the basic one)

Thanks for clarifying, Cyril.

Right now, a stock gnome-screensaver install only ships with configurations for its own screensavers.  It doesn't provide the necessary config files for the xscreensaver screensavers or the rss-glx screensavers.  In some sense, those config files really belong with the screensavers themselves (but, at least in the xscreensaver case, that may not be practically possible).

Ubuntu must have shipped extra theme config files to give their users more screensavers to choose from.  You may want to file a request in launchpad for them to add more theme config files for the Solarwind modes you're missing.  If you do file a bug in the Ubuntu bug tracker, post a link to it here, so that those watching this report can follow along.

Note, gnome-screensaver does provide a migration shell script and stylesheet that converts xscreensaver xml config files into its own native theme config file format, but the script isn't installed by default and is only provided as an example and convenience for distributors and users compiling from source (correct me if I'm wrong William).  It might be feasible to improve the migration scripts for cases like the Solarwind modes, though.  It would require some investigation.  If that would be something you would be interested in, please file a feature enhancement request (a gnome-screensaver bug report with severity enhancment) and post a comment with the new bug number into this report.

I'm going to close the bug NOTGNOME for now, since it seems to be a distro specifc bug and not an upstream GNOME one, but please feel free to follow up.

I don't see how you can classify this bug as NOTGNOME, since it clearly is a missing functionnality in gnome-screensaver-preferences!
You have a screensaver engine that uses screensavers from (?) but isn't able to let the user configure it properly...

Hi, sorry for the confusion.  I think part of my message wasn't completely clear, so I'm going to give some background.

The way gnome-screensaver generates its list of screensavers is by reading a bunch of theme files off disk (one for each screensaver).  In order to see all the Solarwinds screensavers, you'll need several theme files (one for each of the solarwinds modes).  

I marked this NOTGNOME because gnome-screensaver doesn't ship any Solarwinds theme files.  Ubuntu wrote and shipped them.  It's quite possible they don't know that the Solarwinds screensaver requires several theme files.

I was wondering if you'd mind filing a bug report in Ubuntu's bug tracking system and giving a link to it here?

You can file the bug by going to this link:

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+filebug

Allright, I'll add the bug to ubuntu's bugtraq, but just a quick question first:

Does this mean that the only configuration option you'll have for screensavers is different -graphic- modes?

For alot of screensavers you can adjust speed, population, text, etc. Defaults are often not so good, so that would be pretty bad...

I'm surprised at how much I care about a screensaver... It's not even usefull :P

Here's the link for the Ubuntu bugtraq:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/39150

Thanks for the link.

To answer your question in comment 8, gnome-screensaver doesn't have the generated configuration interface that xscreensaver has.  This was an explicit design decision of the gnome-screenaver author.

That doesn't mean you're stuck with bad defaults with your screensavers, however.   It just means the theme files need to be updated to use reasonable config options for the screensavers.

Ray, thank you for a nice explanation.  You have it exactly right.

Cyril, there is a bit more background here:
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

(In reply to comment #10)
> Thanks for the link.
> 
> To answer your question in comment 8, gnome-screensaver doesn't have the
> generated configuration interface that xscreensaver has.  This was an explicit
> design decision of the gnome-screenaver author.

Who was dropped on his head as a baby....