AmarokScreenSaver

AmarokScreenSaver

Displays information about the currently playing song as a screensaver

I often use my computer to play music when I am having visitors or when I am just not in front of the monitor. I wanted some way to still be able to see what song was playing. As my TV is connected to the computer I decided to make a screensaver that would do just this. (you don't need to even own a TV to use this script, but my TV is in my living room and my computer is not...)

This script creates an image based on the currently playing song in Amarok, then changes your screensaver to KSlideshow and tells it to display this particular image. It restores your original screensaver settings when you stop the script or exit Amarok.

The script has some basic settings configurable via a dialog:

Party / safe - mode:
The script can be configured to lock the screensaver, you will need your password to return to the desktop. This is great if you are having a party and don't want everybody to use the computer for surfing or changing track every other minute.

DPMS:
I use display power management to turn off my monitor after a given period of time. This did not work well with my idea. Therefore I created an option to turn off DPMS, and turning it back on when the script is exited or Amarok is shut down.

Rotate image placement:
To prevent damage to the screen the images can be placed at random position, or fixed.

Screen width:
Enter the width of your screen in pixels

Screen height:
Enter the height of your screen in pixels

Cover factor:
Size of the cover relative to the size of your screen (in percent).

Requirements:
- Amarok (duh...)
- KDE, not sure if it will work with anything else, at least KScreensaver and KSlideshow is needed
- ImageMagick
- PyQt (Only to configure the script, this can also be done manually by editing a textfile)

Version 0.5.0:
- Works with KDE4 (>= 4.0.5)
- Does not start the screensaver if computer is in use (KDE4 only)

Version 0.4.1:
- Restores your original screensaver settings when you stop or pause playback (as well as when you exit Amarok).

Version 0.4.0:
- More config options
- Added reflection
- xwininfo and bc no longer needed
- Settings not lost when you reconfigure
- Tracknumber not shown when there is none

Version 0.3.1:
- Fixed bug where screensaver did not find any images after being active for a while

Version 0.3:
- Takes care of Kopete status. No longer changes status on each trackchange.
- The screensaver stays active on trackchange. Amarok is no longer shown
- Changed the name from KoverSS to AmarokScreenSaver

Version 0.2.1:
- Regression fix, images have better quality again!

Version 0.2:
- Better configuredialog
- More screen-friendly. Creates more than one image with the text and cover art in different places.
- Various fixes and speed improvements

Version 0.1.2:
- Works even if user has no screensaver set (Thanks to David Hugas Germà)

Version 0.1.1:
- Cover image now has better quality

Version 0.1:
Here we go!