Quicksilver activate screensaver snippet
When I step away from my computer, I like to lock the screen—-it’s not that I have anything particular to hide, but I don’t really want anyone messing about with my machine while I’m gone. By far the easiest way to accomplish screen locking is to go to the Security pane in System Preferences, then check the ‘Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver’ checkbox. Then you can simply allow the screen saver to kick in after an interval when you leave, or you can activate it immediately by setting a ‘Hot Corner’ in the Desktop & Screen Saver pane. I had it set for the bottom left corner, so that I could just move my mouse to that corner before I left to activate the lock.
However, it was far too easy to activate accidentally. I kept interrupting my own work because I’d unknowingly pushed the mouse over to that corner, and would have to stop what I was doing to wait for the password entry box to come up. Annoying.
Then I realised that Quicksilver could come to the rescue again (Quicksilver Ho!1). I removed the Hot Corner and set up a trigger with the text:
open '/System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework
/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app'
as the item and ‘Run command in shell’ as the target. Then I assigned a mouse trigger to the bottom left corner, but crucially required a click in that corner to activate it. It’s nearly as convenient as just putting the mouse in that spot, but not nearly as easy to trigger accidentally. Sorted!
1 For some reason, I imagine a cowboy in a silver suit and a black mask calling out “Quicksilver, Ho!” before he gallops off on his horse to rescue someone. â
1
How did you assign a mouse trigger to the bottom left corner?----- OS X gives you about a second's grace when you accidentally trigger the screensaver: quickly pull your mouse from the active corner when you see the screen darken - saved. Takes a while to get used to, but works.
by anja @ 03/02/2006 8:03 am • Permalink •
2
Your cowboy in a silver suit seems to be a composite figure from a corrupted TV folk memory derived from a combination of the Lone Ranger ("Hi Ho Silver!") who you are too young to have seen, and a cartoon series called Thundercats ("Thundercats Ho!"), which I assume you are to old to have seen.
by ThoughtBadger @ 03/02/2006 9:03 am • Permalink •
3
brian: Go to the triggers pane, select your trigger and click the button/mouse icon to change to a mouse trigger. Then click the 'i' button at the bottom of the window to open the drawer. On that, you'll see a thumbnail of your desktop, with 8 buttons around it (1 for each of the sides, and one of each of the corners). Click the bottom left corner button, and you'll see it go grey. Then make sure that the 'Type:' dropdown is showing 'Click'. You can also set other modifiers like Shift or Control. Then just close the prefs window.
anja: Yes, I know about that, but when I'm being bone-headed enough to move my mouse to that side, I'm unfortunately not quick enough to shift the mouse before the screen saver kicks in.
ThoughtBadger: That's it exactly! It's been bugging me ever since. I am a bit too young for the Lone Ranger, though I must have seen old clips every now and again. And I've also seen clips of Thundercats. Didn't the lead character have a girly yellow bob haircut? And very big muscles, as I recall...
by bsag @ 03/02/2006 7:03 pm • Permalink •
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I have a rather longer way for locking my screen, if you enable fast user switching, you can click to select "login window\" which requires a password to get back to your desktop.
by irVIng @ 03/02/2006 10:03 pm • Permalink •
5
This tip was bothering me -- I don't use Quicksilver, so I kept wondering if I could do something similar without it.
I finally realized (after doing some scripting and shortcutting and pursuing other failed or Rube Goldberg-type ideas) that all I needed to do to enable one-click access to my screensaver was to drag ScreenSaverEngine.app to my Dock. Works like charm -- and I don't have to travel all the way across my ginormous 24-inch screen to the hot corner anymore!
Oh, I just downloaded QuickSilver. I respect your "m4d skillz" as they say, so I want to find out why you like it so much.
Finally (and completely off-topic): I see Gorillaz in your side bar: awesome group(?). Check their website: it can be a lot of fun and has a lot of content.
by Kevin Gunn @ 07/02/2006 5:03 pm • Permalink •
6
irVing: Does that quit all the applications you've got running, or does it just pop up the login window, leaving your stuff running in the background?
Kevin Gunn: Good tip! There's always more than one way to do it. But have fun exploring Quicksilver---it takes quite a while to discover the really powerful features (the tips page is useful for that) but if it chimes with the way you work, it will completely change your interaction with the computer.
And thanks for the tip about Gorillaz's (eek) page---I hadn't been there before.
by bsag @ 07/02/2006 7:03 pm • Permalink •
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"Hi yo, Quicksilver! Away!"
by Saltation @ 10/02/2006 12:02 am • Permalink •
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What Saltation said.
But what prompts a comment is wondering how ThoughtBadger is neither too old nor too young to recall those characters... A TV Historian perhaps?
by e @ 22/02/2006 9:02 pm • Permalink •
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if u just want to lock the screen, instead of making it pop up the screensaver, try:
/System/Library/CoreServices/"Menu Extras"/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
it just jumps to the login window, making it a bit faster than the screensaver and even more when you have the computer working... A LOT! (iBook G4 1.33MHz/512 RAM) I like my screensaver every 5 min and hate the "nag screen" when it locks accidently... Deactivated the password on screensaver.
(sorry for the bad english) :D
by Rui @ 01/08/2007 11:58 pm • Permalink •
10
Rui: Nice! I've often wondered how to access the login screen via a command. I've now switched my Applescript to this - much better! Thanks for the tip, and your English is great, by the way.
by bsag @ 07/08/2007 6:52 pm • Permalink •
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