lock screen notifier

#i3 #tooling #devjournal #tutorial

This article is about how I tried to notify I was

Please read the article about xautolock corners from the i3-screensaver-tips series

So here is my xautolock configuration

xautolock -time 5 -locker "~/bin/lockscreen.sh" -detectsleep -corners '++--' -cornerdelay 5 -notify 5 -notifier ~/bin/lockscreen-notify.sh

Here is the content of my ~/bin/lockscreen-notify.sh

#!/bin/sh

set -e

notify-send --urgency=critical --icon preferences-desktop-screensaver --expire-time=5000 "about to lock screen ..." "move or use corners"

I'm using dunst, but this is syntax is compatible with all notifiers.

Alternative #1: progress bar

Please note, you will need dunst 1.7.0

dunst --version
Dunst - A customizable and lightweight notification-daemon 1.8.1 (2022-03-02)

highlight aka progress bar is only available with 1.7.0 , it's the int:value:10 hint in the next command

To test if your dunst or notifier is able to support it, just try this

dunstify -h int:value:42 "Working ..."

if you see a progress bar, you can use this technique.

The following script uses the x-dunst-stack-tag hint that allows me to reuse an existing message.

To test it, you can try this

notify-send $(date) -h 'string:x-dunst-stack-tag:whatever'
notify-send $(date) -h 'string:x-dunst-stack-tag:whatever'

If you see 2 messages, then it doesn't work.

I'm not sure if other notifier supports such kind tag, but dunst does.

So here is the script I made, and I'm using right now as a notifier.

#!/bin/bash

set -e

for p in $(seq 0 2 100); do
    dunstify --icon preferences-desktop-screensaver \
        -h int:value:$p \
        -h 'string:hlcolor:#ff4444' \
        -h string:x-dunst-stack-tag:progress-lock \
        --timeout=500 "about to lock screen ..." "move or use corners"
    sleep 0.05
done

The step in seq and sleep setting were adapted to render completely in a 5s loop.

Here is the result

Alternative #2: brightness

I initially tried to play with brightness and so my lockscreen-notify.sh script was like this, creating a wave of brightness to force me to react.

#!/bin/sh

set -e

primary=$(xrandr | grep " primary" | cut -f1 -d " " | head -n 1)

# decreasing brightness
trap "xrandr --output $primary --gamma 1" EXIT
for g in $(LANG=C seq 1 -0.02 0.4) ; do
    xrandr --output $primary --brightness $g
    sleep 0.01
done

# increasing brightness
for g in $(LANG=C seq 0.4 +0.02 1) ; do
    xrandr --output $primary --brightness $g
    sleep 0.01
done