Add an option to not blank/block/color the screen when locking (like xtrlock does)

i3 / i3lock

improved screen locker

https://i3wm.org/i3lock

BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License

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Add an option to not blank/block/color the screen when locking (like xtrlock does) #211

Closed StefanHex closed 5 years ago

StefanHex commented 5 years ago

I'm submitting a…

[ ] Bug
[x] Feature Request
[ ] Other (Please describe in detail)

Current Behavior

When you use i3lock, it replaced the currently visible windows with a color or an image.

Expected Behavior

It would be nice if there was an option to lock the screen but not change it, i.e. let people see the screen content while the device is locked. (Basically what xtrlock does but with the nice i3lock features like the password indicator.) It would be useful e.g. if you (or others) want to check the progress of some slow process on your device without having to unlock it.

Environment

Output of i3lock --version:

i3lock version: `i3lock: version 2.11.1 © 2010 Michael Stapelberg`

eplanet commented 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure that feature won't be added to i3lock itself. But you can achieve that very easily by wrapping the following into a script:

take a screenshot using scrot
display it as a background for i3lock
delete the image after unlock

Example, save the following into i3lock_screen.sh and call it instead of i3lock:

#!/bin/bash

IMAGE=/tmp/i3lock.png
scrot $IMAGE
i3lock -i $IMAGE
rm $IMAGE

Some people are even blurring the screen so that sensitive informations are hidden.

Airblader commented 5 years ago

The method suggested by @eplanet of course won't help tracking an on-going process, but he is correct in that I don't think we want to add this to i3lock – it's a footgun, as you still leak information. I don't think the philosophy in i3lock fits that well, so I would suggest just using xtrlock in this case. Thanks for understanding!