theatertime- hold power-saving to get through a flick

Getting down to watching you favorite movie on your computer? Start the movie, sit down, grab your snack and ten or so minutes later the screen goes blank. This happens in Linux because the desktop has built-in defaults for display power management (DPMS) and screensaving. Timeout settings can vary from distribution to distribution but they all got them. Here’s a basic script that can toggle DPMS and screensaving on and off.

Xorg Server Settings

You can set the values of blank, standby, suspend, and off in the the xorg server configuration file. The defaults are: 15, 20, 30, and 40 minutes. Personally I like to set these to better match how I use my computer:

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier  "Monitor0"
  Option      "DPMS"    "true"  # display power management on (true/false)
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option "BlankTime"    "13"    # LED still on, no + (0 disables)
  Option "StandbyTime"  "15"    # turns off LED
  Option "SuspendTime"  "0"     # turns off LED, and most power
  Option "OffTime"      "50"    # turns off all power
EndSection

BlankTime is just a cheap screensaver and only real use for me is to tell me that I forgot to disable dpms while watching a movie. Doing this saves me a few seconds that StandbyTime requires to turn on the display again. SuspendTime and StandbyTime are nearly the same thing so I don’t bother setting SuspendTime.

Movietime

Here’s movietime. Movietime should work with just about any type of desktop environment (at least any system with dbus installed which really all of them do). If you aren’t familiar with having your own scripts and how to run them, take a look at this page).

#!/bin/bash
# movietime - disables power savings to watch movies.

# Movietime options
#  Resume time - resume normal display pm and suspend after set time.
# 0 = disabled, time in minutes
resumetime=0
if [ $resumetime = 0 ]; then 
  resumetime=1440 # Re-enable resume after a full day
fi

# Check that values for 'resumetime' are numbers
if [ $(echo $resumetime | sed 's/^[-+0-9][0-9]*//' | wc -c) != 1 ]; then
  echo "$warn variable 'resumetime' is not a number.  Exiting."
  exit
fi

# Name of suspend script
tmploc="/tmp"
suspinhscript="$tmploc"/"movietime-suspend-inhibit"

# Program name from it's filename.
prog=${0##*/}

# Text color variables
txtund=$(tput sgr 0 1)          # Underline
txtbld=$(tput bold)             # Bold
bldblu=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 4) #  blue
bldwht=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 7) #  white
bldred=${txtbld}$(tput setaf 1) #  red
txtrst=$(tput sgr0)             # Reset
info=${bldwht}*${txtrst}        # Feedback
pass=${bldblu}*${txtrst}
warn=${bldred}*${txtrst}

# Check that Xorg server is running
if [[ -z $(ps aux | grep /usr/bin/X) ]]; then
  echo "$warn The Xorg server is not running."
  exit
fi

# Check if user is regular user
if [ $(whoami) == "root" ]; then
  echo "$warn You are the root user, must be a regular user."
  exit
fi

# Current DPMS times (in minutes)
dispdpms=$(xset -q | grep "DPMS is" | awk '{ printf $3 }') # Enab. or Disb.
dispstand=$(xset -q | grep "^  Standby: " | awk '{ printf $2/60 }')
dispsusp=$(xset -q | grep "^  Standby: " | awk '{ printf $4/60 }')
dispoff=$(xset -q | grep "^  Standby: " | awk '{ printf $6/60 }')
dispblank=$(xset -q | grep "^  timeout:  " | awk '{ printf $2/60 }')

# Resume time in hours
resumetimehr=$(echo "scale=1;${resumetime}/60" | bc)

# Display help
case $1 in
  -h | --help | h | help )
    # Help message.
    echo
    echo "  $prog disables screen blanking and screensaver to allow viewing a video.  Running the program again will enable them.  If the 'resumetime' variable is set after that time $prog will resume normal powersaving values." | fmt -c -w 76
    echo

    # Display current values of power management and movietime.
    suspinhtest=$(ps aux | grep -v grep | grep $suspinhscript)
    suspinhval=$([ -n "$suspinhtest" ] && echo "Disabled" || echo "Desktop settings")
    
    # DPMS disabled information
    echo "   ${txtbld}Current settings ${txtrst}(in minutes, 0 = disabled):"
    if [[ "$dispdpms" == "Disabled" ]]; then
      echo "   DPMS:         $dispdpms"
      echo "   Suspend:      $suspinhval"
    fi

    # DPMS enabled information
    if [[ "$dispdpms" == "Enabled" ]]; then
      echo "   DPMS:         $dispdpms"
      echo "   DPMS times:   Blank: ${dispblank}; Standby: ${dispstand}; Suspend: ${dispsusp}; Offtime: ${dispoff}"
      echo "   Suspend:      $suspinhval"
    fi
    echo
    echo "   ${txtbld}$prog settings${txtrst}:"
    echo "   Resume after: $resumetimehr hours"
    echo
    exit
    ;;
  [a-g,i-z,A-G,I-Z,0-9,-]* )
    echo " Use '-h' for help"
    exit
    ;;
esac

# Suspend inhibit script (must be run as seperate process)
suspinhibit () {
    echo '#!/bin/bash
    for time in $(seq 1 '$resumetime'); do
    # Simulate user activity every minute
    dbus-send --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver /ScreenSaver org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver.SimulateUserActivity
    sleep 60
    done'
}

# Toggle powersaving
if [[ "$dispdpms" == "Enabled" ]] && [ -z "$suspinhtest" ]; then
  # Disable blanking, screen power saving
  xset s off; xset -dpms
  # Create script in tmp
  suspinhibit > "$suspinhscript"
  # Make script executable
  chmod u+x "$suspinhscript"
  # Run script
  nohup "$suspinhscript" &> /dev/null &
  echo "$pass $prog started, powersaving disabled."
else
  # Enable blanking, screen power saving
  xset s on; xset +dpms
  # Kill script
  if [ -n $suspinhtest ]; then
    echo "$info $prog stopped, powersaving enabled."
    kill -s 9 $(pgrep movietime-susp) &> /dev/null
  fi
fi

Turn off all cellphones and enjoy the show!