Do not initiate breaks when the display is blank/sleeping/off or the screen is locked

[vedgy]

When the Reading mode is on, workrave keeps asking for breaks indefinitely even if there is nothing to read on the screen and the user stopped all mouse/keyboard activity some time ago.

Workrave can check if the screen is readable before initiating a break. If the screen is not readable, check again after some time (a percentage of the shortest interval between enabled breaks perhaps).

For example, on GNU/Linux xset q can be used to query the current display state. Unfortunately, it is probably unfeasible for workrave to support all the different screen lockers. But I think some checks (the display state at least) is better than no detection at all.

#120 proposes an alternative manual way to address this issue - by configuring the inactivity timer.

[vedgy]

I've implemented a workaround that works perfectly with xfce4-screensaver. I added the script below into Autostart list. It has to be constantly running and monitoring D-Bus.

The script always works for screen locking. However it requires the Activate screensaver when computer is idle option to be on in xfce4-screensaver settings in order to detect display blanking/sleeping/off. With this option on the screensaver emits the necessary ActiveChanged signal even if the Enable Screensaver option is off.

suspend-workrave-on-screensaver-activation

#!/bin/bash

setWorkraveOperationMode () {
    dbus-send --session --dest=org.workrave.Workrave --type=method_call \
    /org/workrave/Workrave/Core org.workrave.CoreInterface.SetOperationMode \
    string:"$1"
}

justChanged=0

dbus-monitor --session "interface='org.xfce.ScreenSaver',member='ActiveChanged'" |
while read -r line; do  
  if [[ $justChanged == 1 ]]; then
    if [[ "$line" =~ 'true' ]]; then
      setWorkraveOperationMode "suspended"
    elif [[ "$line" =~ 'false' ]]; then
      setWorkraveOperationMode "normal"
    else
      echo "Error! Unexpected activated value: '$line' $(date)"
    fi
    justChanged=0
  elif [[ "$line" =~ 'ActiveChanged' ]]; then
    justChanged=1
  fi
done

[xeruf]

This sounds like a great way to implement other custom behavior - is the workrave dbus API documented somewhere?

[vedgy]

Not that I know of. You can explore the DBus API in QDBusViewer or a similar tool.

[xeruf]

Btw, maybe you can add a PR to add the script to the contrib section, so it doesn't get lost here :)

[vedgy]

The script is now in contrib.

[xeruf]

@vedgy nice! Can this be adapted to suspend workrave when there is a fullscreen application running?

[vedgy]

Only if your window manager/desktop environment sends a D-Bus signal when an application enters and exits the full-screen mode.

[xeruf]

Well, I now figured out how to check it: https://askubuntu.com/a/1265587
so I guess a cronjob would be the way to go