IDEA: Screensaver for individual screens

[Genomi]

Having multiple monitors can be beneficial, but then there comes the thoughts of burn-in when one's not "moving" much. Sometimes I'd like to play a game and leave something on my other screen to monitor, like maybe a download or a chat. The problem with this is, the chat monitor may get a little burn-in or image persistence after a while. My 20" Dell2001FP LCD will give me some image persistence when I leave anything in one spot for even a couple minutes.

I'd like to have a "screensaver" that activates when there's no activity on a screen, but being able to use the other screen(s) while the screensaver is up (i.e. mouse movements won't affect the screensaver until the mouse goes onto that screen).

[mouser]

nice idea.. don't know how hard it would be, but nice idea.

[belkira]

Have not tested it but I did find this:

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

[lanux128]

did some googling but as belkira mentioned only UltraMon claims to have this feature.. it seems that when it comes multi-monitors, UltraMon is ahead of the crowd, if there is one..

UltraMon™ Screen Saver included with UltraMon™, lets you use screen savers that aren't multimon-compatible by running them on the primary monitor and blanking all secondary monitors. You can even run a different screen saver on each monitor!

• http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/products.asp

[Genomi]

I tried UltraMon and it's only activating the screensavers when I've not moved my mouse at all. I was hoping for something that would let monitor 2's screensaver come on while I'm doing stuff on monitor 1. Is there a specific way to configure it to do that?

[Ralf Maximus]

Ultramon rocks (it's what I use) but indeed, it will only trigger screensavers in the "normal" fashion.

Since .scr files are really just another kind of .exe (right?  right?) it should be possible to write a little something that can launch a specified .scr file and target it on a specific monitor via command-line arguments or something.

But then again I believe in UFOs and the Chupacabra.

[lanux128]

i've yet to explore UltraMon fully but at the web-site, there is an add-on named UltraMon Screen Saver Player, maybe this is the missing link..

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• http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/addons.asp

[Genomi]

Hey lanux, it works! Like Ralf said, with some Autohotkeying, I've got that to function just as I wanted. I've made it so it turns off when your mouse goes on the screen saver'd monitor too, so it should work much like a regular screen saver would. I'll attach the .ahk (need Autohotkey from www.autohotkey.com). Open the .ahk in notepad and read the instructions first, though - there's a couple lines to edit before it may work for you.

Thanks - now I can use my second monitor without worry!

[lanux128]

good work, Genomi! i'm sure that AHK script will come-in handy for me as well..