xidlehook

Because xautolock is annoying to work with.

xidlehook is a general-purpose replacement for xautolock. It executes a command when the computer has been idle for a specified amount of time.

Improvements over xautolock:

• Allows "cancellers" which undo a timer action when new activity is detected.
• Not specific to locking. Multiple instances can run at the same time.
• Optionally only run once.
• Optionally prevent locking when an application is fullscreen.
• Optionally prevent locking when any application plays audio.

Missing features:

• Magic corners.
• Bell, because you should be using --notify.
• All the instance related stuff (you should use unix sockets with --socket).

Example

Here's a lock using i3lock, with screen dim support:

xidlehook \
  `# Don't lock when there's a fullscreen application` \
  --not-when-fullscreen \
  `# Don't lock when there's audio playing` \
  --not-when-audio \
  `# Dim the screen after 60 seconds, undim if user becomes active` \
  --timer normal 60 \
    'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness .1'  \
    'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1' \
  `# Undim & lock after 10 more seconds` \
  --timer primary 10 'xrandr --output "$(xrandr | grep primary | cut -d " " -f 1)" --brightness 1; i3lock' "" \
  `# Finally, suspend an hour after it locks` \
  --timer normal 3600 'systemctl suspend'

Note: Every command is passed through sh -c, so you should be able to mostly use normal syntax.

Installation

Installation using cargo:

cargo install xidlehook

It's also available on Nix and the AUR (not officially maintained).

Or if you want to clone it manually:

git clone https://gitlab.com/jD91mZM2/xidlehook
cd xidlehook
cargo build --release

Too bloaty?

Are you not using pulseaudio?
You can disable that requirement completely with --no-default-features!
This however gets rid of --not-when-audio.

Socket API

The socket API is very simple. Each command is a single byte, sent over a unix socket. Bind a file using --socket /path/to/xidlehook.sock (where the path is whatever you want), and then you can send one of the following:

A common use case of xidlehook is using it to run a lockscreen. To then manually lock the screen, you could bind this bash command to a shortcut:

echo -ne "\x2" | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/path/to/xidlehook.sock