Xfce Forum

ordinary

Member

Registered: 2011-05-21

Posts: 7

Can I inhibit the power manager for certain applications?

Hi all,

I switched to XFCE/Xubuntu about a month ago and while I'm happy about lots of things, I've still got several weird issues that I can't seem to solve.

By and large I'm finding xfce4-power-manager 1.0.10 to be a little lacking in features I'd like, but I'm wondering if there's a way to accomplish what I want.

There are two applications I'd like to whitelist (as it were) so that xfce4-power-manager doesn't send the computer to sleep when they're running. Alternatively, I would like the computer to consider the use of those applications as "activity". The two applications are Quodlibet (music player) and Parole (video player).

So far I've been opening up the preferences panel each time I run these applications and maxing the "Put the computer to sleep when inactive for" setting and the "Put display to sleep when computer is inactive for" settings, but the screen will still dim at a maximum of 120 seconds. So when I try to watch a movie or listen to music for an extended period, even while connected to AC power, I have to move the mouse every couple of minutes.

Is there anything I can do about this? I have the applet "Caffeine", but it only works on the screensaver, which I have disabled.

(Related question: if I have the screensaver turned off and have removed it from the startup applications preferences, why is it still running?)

Thank you!

hasufell

Member

Registered: 2011-08-11

Posts: 1

Re: Can I inhibit the power manager for certain applications?

same problem here

even when i run BOINC and virtualbox at 100% cpu power the tricky power manager wont know that my computer is actually in use.

Is it just lazy code or is there a way to achieve/hack proper idle-detection?

sonycdr

Member

Registered: 2009-01-30

Posts: 130

Re: Can I inhibit the power manager for certain applications?

Applications need to tell the power manager to inhibit. The next release of Quod Libet (2.4) will probably contain a plugin for this.

hb2012

Member

Registered: 2011-08-29

Posts: 1

Re: Can I inhibit the power manager for certain applications?

On a somewhat related note: I'm using a poor man's hack by using a little script that quits xfce4-power-manager, then runs my application, and then restarts xfce4-power-manager:

#!/bin/bash
xfce4-power-manager --quit
vlc -f $* vlc://quit
xfce4-power-manager & disown

The trouble is that even though the power manager icon re-appears in the tray after vlc is finished, the timer does not work, i.e., the system does not suspend after the specified time has elapsed.

Any hints on what I'm doing wrong?  I posted this message on a Xubuntu forum, and got the suggestion to add "disown"; this does move xfce4-power-manager directly under the init process, but the system still does not suspend unless I manually select the option by clicking on the tray icon.