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XScreenSaver Changelog

What's new in XScreenSaver 6.08

Oct 11, 2023
  • macOS: Worked around a macOS 14.0 bug where savers would continue running invisibly in the background after un-blanking.
  • macOS: Upgraded Sparkle (the “Check for Updates” library) for macOS 14.0 compatibility.

New in XScreenSaver 6.07 (Aug 30, 2023)

  • New hacks, droste, skulloop, papercube and cubocteversion.
  • xscreensaver-settings was sometimes turning off the DPMS checkbox.
  • Log pid of caller of deactivate command, to give a hint about who is preventing the screen from blanking.
  • recanim uses libffmpeg.
  • Updates to sphereeversion.
  • Added some new map sources to mapscroller.
  • macOS: Worked around a macOS 13.4 bug where multi-head systems would fail to launch savers on some or all screens.
  • Minimum compiler target is now ISO C99 instead of ANSI C89. Didn't want to rush into it.
  • macOS, Android: Better looking thunbmail images.
  • Various other minor bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 6.06 (Dec 12, 2022)

  • New hack, hextrail.
  • marbling works again.
  • Adjusted some of the very old hacks, which were written when pixels were larger, to be more visible on today's higher rez displays.
  • X11: More robust desktop image grabbing.
  • X11: Various improvements to xscreensaver-settings.
  • X11: Silence new new Perl warnings from xscreensaver-getimage-file.
  • X11: Supports “Lock” messages from systemd, e.g. when logind.conf has “HandleLidSwitch=lock” instead of “suspend”.

New in XScreenSaver 6.05 (Dec 12, 2022)

  • X11: Cope with dumb DPMS settings that existed pre-startup.
  • X11: Silence new Perl warnings from xscreensaver-getimage-file.
  • X11: Fix sonar pthreads crash on recent Pi systems.
  • X11: Removed dependence on gdk-pixbuf-xlib-2.0.
  • X11: GTK 3 is now required.
  • macOS: Fixed the “Run savers on screens” preference in Random mode on multi-screen M1 systems.
  • Retired thornbird, which is redundant with discrete.

New in XScreenSaver 6.04 (May 31, 2022)

  • New hacks, nakagin and chompytower.
  • Settings dialog shows diagnostics for bad image folders and feeds.
  • URLs for imageDirectory can now point at archive.org collections.
  • Sliders for various “Speed” preferences are easier to use.
  • X11: Settings dialog shows saver description below embedded preview.
  • X11: Better behavior when zero monitors are attached.
  • X11: Improvements to inhibiting blanking while videos are playing: No longer necessary to hack GNOME and KDE to get them to not usurp the org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver endpoint.
  • X11: unicrud displays character names.
  • Updated webcollage.

New in XScreenSaver 6.03 (Feb 28, 2022)

  • New hack, squirtorus.
  • New hack, mapscroller (X11 and macOS only).
  • sphereeversion now has corrugation-mode, and can evert the Earth.
  • glplanet is higher resolution, and displays time zones.
  • glslideshow displays relative pathnames again.
  • iOS: Apple broke drag-to-rotate again. Fixed.
  • macOS: fixed spurious error message in auto-update installer.
  • X11: fixed sonar failing to ping on some Linux systems.
  • X11: Touch-screens work.
  • X11: Hold down Backspace to clear the whole password field.

New in XScreenSaver 6.02 (Oct 13, 2021)

  • New hacks, marbling and binaryhorizon.
  • atlantis behaviors are more random and lifelike.
  • headroom is now Mask Headroom.
  • X11: fontglide skips fonts that can't display ASCII.
  • X11: Use asterisks in the password dialog if the system fonts don't have bullets in them.
  • X11: “Disable Screen Saver” was behaving like “Blank Screen Only”.
  • Android: These hacks work now: antinspect, barcode, energystream, fliptext, fontglide, glsnake, raverhoop, starwars, unicrud.

New in XScreenSaver 6.01 (Oct 13, 2021)

  • X11: Properly disable the server's built-in screen saver.
  • X11: The passwdTimeout option was being ignored.
  • X11: The display of the unlock thermometer was weird.
  • X11: Fixed password entry on old-school multi-screen setups (:0.1).
  • X11: Worked around a KDE 5 compositor bug that caused the desktop to momentarily become visible when cycling.
  • X11: Fixed possible high CPU usage in xscreensaver-systemd.
  • X11: Fixed some spurious warnings in xscreensaver-text.
  • X11: Warn when Wayland is in use, since it makes both screen saving and locking impossible.

New in XScreenSaver 6.00 (Apr 2, 2021)

  • X11: Major refactor of the xscreensaver daemon for improved security, dividing it into three programs: xscreensaver, xscreensaver-gfx and xscreensaver-auth.
  • X11: Dropped support for systems older than X11R7 (2009).
  • X11: Renamed xscreensaver-demo to xscreensaver-settings.
  • X11: Unlock dialog has user-selectable color schemes.
  • X11: Everything uses XFreeType for fonts now.
  • X11: Install a few custom fonts needed by some savers.
  • X11: Fading works on systems without gamma (e.g. Raspberry Pi).
  • X11: Use EGL instead of GLX when available.
  • X11: xscreensaver-systemd now detects when a video player has inhibited screen blanking and then exits without uninhibiting.
  • Improved GLSL and GLES3 support: Phong shading in etruscanvenus, hypertorus, klein, projectiveplane,`romanboy' and sphereeversion.
  • Updates to cubicgrid.
  • macOS: Added a Random XScreenSaver screen saver, which implements cycle mode, among other things.
  • iOS: Also added cycle mode.

New in XScreenSaver 5.45 (Dec 9, 2020)

  • New hacks, covid19, headroom, sphereeversion and beats.
  • Shader updates to hypertorus.
  • No more image-loading pause in glslideshow.
  • BSOD supports GNOME.
  • Image loaders support SVG.
  • macOS: Fixed text loading on 10.15.
  • X11: xscreensaver-systemd now allows video players to request that the screen not blank.
  • X11: -log implies -verbose -no-capture-stderr.
  • X11: Glade -> GtkBuilder.
  • Android: These hacks work now: carousel, juggler3d, molecule, photopile, polyominoes.
  • Various bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.44 (Mar 24, 2020)

  • New hacks, gibson, etruscanvenus and scooter.
  • BSOD supports Tivo and Nintendo.
  • New color options in romanboy, projectiveplane, hypertorus and klein.
  • macOS: Fixed “Use random screen saver” on macOS 10.15.
  • iOS: Supports dark mode.
  • iOS: Fixed image loading on iOS 13.
  • iOS: Fixed rotation on iOS 13 (Apple incompatibly breaks rotation every two years as a matter of policy).
  • Performance tweaks for eruption, fireworkx, halftone, halo, moire2, rd-bomb.
  • X11: Always use $HOME/.xscreensaver, not getpwuid's directory.
  • Various bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.43 (Jul 3, 2019)

  • New hacks, GravityWell, DeepStars.
  • GLPlanet now supports the Mercator projection.
  • Bouncing Cow has mathematically ideal cows (spherical, frictionless).
  • Foggy toasters.
  • Unknown Pleasures can now use an image file as a clip mask.
  • Updated webcollage for recent changes.
  • macOS: Fixed BSOD fonts on UWQHD+ displays.
  • X11: Added some sample unlock dialog color schemes to the .ad file.
  • X11: On systemd systems, closing your laptop lid might actually lock your screen now, maybe.
  • X11: 'sonar' can ping without being setuid by using setcap.

New in XScreenSaver 5.42 (Jan 8, 2019)

  • macOS: Fixed Sparkle auto-updater.

New in XScreenSaver 5.41 (Jan 8, 2019)

  • X11: Those new font-loading fallback heuristics work again. Oops.
  • iOS, Android: Plugged many memory leaks at exit.
  • New hack, handsy.
  • Fixed noof from displaying minimalistically.
  • Rewrote unknownpleasures to be faster, and a true waterfall graph.
  • BSOD Solaris improved. DVD added.
  • macOS: Upgraded Sparkle (the “Check for Updates” library).
  • macOS: Screen saver settings work again on 10.14.

New in XScreenSaver 5.40 (Aug 13, 2018)

  • New hacks, filmleader, vfeedback.
  • New hack, glitchpeg (X11 and macOS only).
  • GLPlanet blends between day and night maps at the dusk terminator.
  • DymaxionMap can display arbitrary map images, and animate sunlight across the flattened globe.
  • Tessellimage can draw either Delaunay or Voronoi tilings.
  • XAnalogTV includes test cards.
  • Android: These hacks work now: blitspin, bumps, cityflow, endgame, esper, flipscreen3d, gleidescope, glslideshow, jigglypuff, queens, tessellimage, xanalogtv, xmatrix, zoom.

New in XScreenSaver 5.39 (Apr 15, 2018)

  • New hacks, 'razzledazzle', 'peepers', 'crumbler' and maze3d.
  • More heuristics for using RSS feeds as image sources.
  • Android: Image loading works.
  • Built-in image assets are now PNG instead of XPM or XBM.
  • X11: Better font-loading fallback heuristics on systems with a terrible selection of installed fonts.
  • macOS: Retina display-related bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.38 (Dec 28, 2017)

  • New hack, 'esper'.
  • macOS: Support for Retina displays.
  • X11: webcollage now works with ImageMagick instead of with pbmtools if webcollage-helper is not installed.
  • 'bsod' now accepts Dunning-Krugerrands.
  • Android: These hacks work now: 'anemone', 'anemotaxis', 'atlantis', 'bouboule', 'celtic', 'compass', 'crackberg', 'epicycle', 'fuzzyflakes', 'goop', 'kumppa' 'munch', 'pacman', 'polyominoes', 'slip'.
  • Android: Thick lines work better for: 'anemone', 'anemotaxis', 'celtic', 'compass', 'deluxe', 'epicycle', 'fuzzyflakes', 'pacman'
  • Android: Assorted performance improvements, especially for 'kumppa' and 'slip'.
  • Android TV: Daydreams work.
  • iOS: Tweaks for iPhone X.
  • Lots of xlockmore-derived hacks now have animated erase routines.
  • 'crystal' works properly on non-X11 systems.
  • 'm6502' now includes 'texture.asm'.
  • X11: Try harder to find sensible fonts for the password dialog.

New in XScreenSaver 5.37 (Jul 6, 2017)

  • New hack, vigilance.
  • Added Mac Software Update and VMware to bsod.
  • OSX: Grabbing the desktop works again.
  • OSX: Pinch to zoom.
  • Android: Both Daydreams and Live Wallpapers are implemented.
  • Updated webcollage for recent changes.
  • Various bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.36 (Oct 12, 2016)

  • New hacks, discoball, cubetwist, cubestack, splodesic and hexstrut.
  • OSX: loading image files works in dymaxionmap, glplanet, lavalite, pulsar, gleidescope and extrusion.
  • Several new programs in m6502.
  • rotzoomer -mode circle.
  • Better titles in photopile.

New in XScreenSaver 5.35 (May 30, 2016)

  • New hacks, dymaxionmap, unicrud, energystream, raverhoop and hydrostat.
  • Added Windows 10 to bsod.
  • X11: ignore WM_USER_TIME property changes with days-old timestamps. Thanks, KDE.
  • MacOS, iOS: Better fonts in BSOD and memscroller.
  • MacOS 10.7 or later and iOS 6.0 or later are now required, since Xcode 6 can no longer build executables that work on older OSes.
  • Many, many Android improvements.
  • iOS: Fixed rotation to work with the new iOS 8+ API.
  • X11: pong is now playable.

New in XScreenSaver 5.34 (Oct 26, 2015)

  • Fixed a crash when hot-swapping monitors while locked.
  • Fixed some incorrect output from xscreensaver-command -watch.
  • Various OSX and iOS performance improvements.

New in XScreenSaver 5.33 (Jul 2, 2015)

  • New hacks, splitflap and romanboy.
  • Better detection of user activity on modern GNOME systems.
  • Sonar now does asynchronous host name resolution.
  • Improved Unicode support.
  • Updated webcollage for recent changes.
  • Various minor fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.32 (Nov 22, 2014)

  • Fixed some X11 compilation problems.
  • Fixed display size and shake gestures on iOS.

New in XScreenSaver 5.31 (Nov 18, 2014)

  • New hacks, geodesicgears, binaryring and cityflow.
  • UTF-8 text support (instead of only Latin1) and antialiased text on X11 with Xft (instead of only on OSX/iOS) in fontglide, noseguy, fliptext, starwars, and winduprobot. The other text-displaying hacks (apple2, phosphor, xmatrix, and gltext) also now accept UTF-8 input, though they convert it to Latin1 or ASCII.
  • glplanet now has both day and night maps, and a sharp terminator.
  • Fixed webcollage on OSX.
  • Fixed a transparency glitch in winduprobot.
  • lockward works on iOS.
  • Text and image loading work on OSX 10.10.
  • Rotation works properly on iOS 8.
  • Added a search field on iOS.
  • Preliminary, unfinished support for Android.

New in XScreenSaver 5.30 (Sep 11, 2014)

  • New hack, winduprobot.
  • Many improvements to lament, including Leviathan.
  • Fixed the normals in flyingtoasters: shading is correct now.
  • Implemented TEXTURE_GEN in GLES: flying toast is now toasted on iOS.
  • Make cel-shading sort-of work in skytentacles on iOS.
  • Fixed dragging-to-rotate on rotated iOS devices, I think.
  • Dragging has inertia now.
  • Most hacks respond to mouse-clicks, double-taps and swipes as meaning “do something different now”.
  • Reworked OpenGL fonts.
  • The OSX auto-update installer wasn't working. This time for sure?
  • Various minor fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.29 (Jun 9, 2014)

  • Downgraded to Xcode 5.0.2 to make it possible to build savers that will still run on 10.6 and 10.7. Sigh.
  • Updated webcollage for recent changes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.28 (Jun 5, 2014)

  • Fixed some compilation problems and intermittent crashes.
  • Turned off the OSX 10.6 enable_gc hack. It didn't work.

New in XScreenSaver 5.27 (May 27, 2014)

  • New hacks, tessellimage and projectiveplane.
  • Added support for pthreads, because Dave Odell is a madman.
  • Updated webcollage for recent changes.
  • Minor iOS tweaks to the analogtv hacks.
  • X11: Don't assume Suspend = 0 implies “No DPMS”.
  • Minor updates to boxed and klein.
  • Fixed possible crash in apple2, noseguy, xmatrix, shadebobs.
  • Fixed possible crash in OSX preferences.
  • OSX Performance improvements.
  • Plugged some leaks.

New in XScreenSaver 5.26 (Dec 9, 2013)

  • More auto-updater tweaks.

New in XScreenSaver 5.25 (Dec 9, 2013)

  • Try harder to bypass Quarrantine and Gatekeeper in OSX installer.
  • Some files were missing from the tarball.

New in XScreenSaver 5.24 (Dec 9, 2013)

  • Added “Automatically check for updates” option on OSX.
  • Updated feed-loading for recent Flickr changes.
  • Updated webcollage for recent Google changes.
  • Added Instagram and Bing as webcollage image sources.
  • Updated to latest autoconf.
  • Bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.23 (Nov 11, 2013)

  • New hack, geodesic.
  • iOS and OSX: huge XCopyArea performance improvements.
  • More heuristics for using RSS feeds as image sources.
  • Improved Wikipedia parser.
  • Updated webcollage for recent Flickr changes.
  • Added Android to bsod.
  • OSX: Added a real installer.
  • iOS and OSX: fixed a font-metrics bug.
  • iOS: Fixed aspect ratio bug in non-rotating apps when launched in landscape mode.
  • Made quasicrystal work on weak graphics cards.
  • iOS: fixed ifs.
  • Better compression on icons, plists and XML files: smaller distribution and installation footprint.
  • Reverted that DEACTIVATE change. Bad idea.
  • Phosphor now supports amber as well as green.

New in XScreenSaver 5.22 (Jul 17, 2013)

  • New hacks, kaleidocycle, quasicrystal, unknownpleasures and hexadrop.
  • Performance improvements for interference.
  • Fixed possible crashes in apple2, maze, pacman, polyominoes, fireworkx, engine.
  • Fix for bumps in 64 bit.
  • Fixed preferences crash on old iOS 5 devices.
  • Fixed ``Shake to Randomize''; display name of saver.
  • Fixed weirdness with ``Frame Rate'' sliders on iOS.
  • Fixed rotation problems with pacman, decayscreen.
  • Better dragging in fluidballs.
  • Ignore rotation in hacks that don't benefit from it.
  • Ignore DEACTIVATE messages when locked, instead of popping up the password dialog box.

New in XScreenSaver 5.21 (Feb 5, 2013)

  • Changed default text source from Twitter to Wikipedia, since Twitter now requires a login to get any feeds.
  • New version of fireworkx.
  • Minor fixes to distort, fontglide, xmatrix.
  • New MacOS crash in bsod.
  • New mode in lcdscrub.

New in XScreenSaver 5.20 (Oct 17, 2012)

  • Support for iPhone 5 screen size.
  • Fixed modifier key handing in Apple2.app and Phosphor.app on MacOS.
  • Various minor bug fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.19 (Jul 27, 2012)

  • MacOS 10.8.0 compatibility.
  • iOS performance improvements.

New in XScreenSaver 5.18 (Jul 4, 2012)

  • iOS responds to shake gestures to randomize.
  • iOS can load images from your Photo Library.
  • iOS has clickable Wikipedia links in Settings panels.
  • Made pipes be ridiculously less efficient, but spin.
  • Added better mouse control to rubik, cube21, crackberg, and julia.
  • Cosmetic improvements to queens and endgame.
  • sonar can now ping local subnet on DHCP.
  • Most savers now resize/rotate properly.
  • Various fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.17 (Jun 23, 2012)

  • More iOS tweaks.
  • Fixed some compilation problems.
  • Enlarged the texture image for lament.

New in XScreenSaver 5.16 (Jun 21, 2012)

  • Ported to iPhone and iPad.
  • XInput devices now also ignore small mouse motions.
  • Loading images via RSS feeds is much improved.
  • Various minor fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.15 (Apr 18, 2012)

  • New hacks, hilbert, companioncube and tronbit.
  • Image-manipulating hacks can now load from RSS or Atom feeds: imageDirectory may contain a URL.
  • Updated webcollage for recent search engine changes.
  • phosphor and apple2 can now be run as standalone terminal emulator applications on MacOS.
  • photopile sped up.
  • New molecule in molecule.
  • ``Upgraded'' to XCode 4.0, which means that MacOS 10.4 PPC builds are impossible, and Intel is now required.
  • Turned on LC_CTYPE on Linux; maybe Japanese password entry works now?

New in XScreenSaver 5.14 (May 21, 2011)

  • Fixed crash in Blank Only Mode when DPMS disabled.
  • Added ``Quick Power-off in Blank Only Mode'' option.
  • BSOD GLaDOS.

New in XScreenSaver 5.13 (Apr 19, 2011)

  • Optionally enabled full-scene OpenGL antialiasing. Set the resource *multiSample to true if doing so doesn't kill performance with your video hardware.
  • New version of glhanoi.
  • Image-loading hacks that display the file name now also display the sub-directory (xscreensaver-getimage now returns relative paths under imageDirectory).
  • Passwords that contain UTF-8 non-Latin1 chars are now typeable.
  • Numerous minor stability fixes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.12 (Dec 5, 2010)

  • Big speed improvement on OSX for heavy XCopyArea users (xmatrix, moire2, phosphor, etc.)
  • Plugged a bad OSX-only Pixmap leak.
  • Kludged around the OSX pty bug that caused text to be truncated in phosphor, starwars, apple2, etc.
  • New molecule in molecule.
  • glhanoi now supports an arbitrary number of poles.
  • Turned on ``New Login'' button by default.
  • Added support for XInput-style alternate input devices.

New in XScreenSaver 5.11 (Aug 2, 2010)

  • New versions of photopile, strange.
  • Worked around MacOS 10.6 garbage collector bug that caused the screen saver process to become enormous.
  • Fixed flicker in pipes, cubestorm, and noof.
  • Fixed EXIF rotation on MacOS 10.6.
  • Fixed desktop-grabbing when screen locked on MacOS.
  • Minor fixes to circuit, polyhedra, tangram, gears, pinion, substrate, xanalogtv.
  • Fixed some leaks in xanalogtv and apple2.
  • Better seeding of the RNG.

New in XScreenSaver 5.10 (Sep 8, 2009)

  • Fixed some crashes and color problems on MacOS 10.6.
  • Retired hypercube and hyperball, which are redundant with polytopes.

New in XScreenSaver 5.09 (Sep 3, 2009)

  • Ported to MacOS 10.6, including various 64-bit fixes.
  • New hack, rubikblocks.
  • Fixed another potential RANDR crash.
  • Use correct proxy server on MacOS.
  • Molecule now correctly displays PDB 3.2 files.
  • Updates to mirrorblob, glhanoi, and sonar.
  • Rewritten version of klein hack.
  • New hack, surfaces, incorporating objects from old klein hack, plus new ones.
  • Merged juggle and juggler3d hacks.
  • Fixed compilation under gcc 4.4.0 (strict aliasing).
  • Fixed intermittent failure in xscreensaver-command.

New in XScreenSaver 5.08 (Dec 29, 2008)

  • New hack, photopile.
  • Rewrote sonar and jigsaw as OpenGL programs.
  • Minor tweaks to maze, m6502, hypnowheel, and timetunnel.
  • Savers that load images now obey EXIF rotation tags.
  • Arrgh, more RANDR noise! Fixes this time for rotated screens, and for systems where RANDR lies and says the screen size is 0x0.
  • When the password dialog has timed out or been cancelled, don't pop it right back up a second time.
  • Password timeouts/cancels don't count as ``failed logins''.
  • Retired some of the older, less interesting savers: say goodbye to bubbles, critical, flag, forest, glforestfire, lmorph, laser, lightning, lisa, lissie, rotor, sphere, spiral, t3d, vines, whirlygig, and worm.
  • Merged munch and mismunch.
  • Updated webcollage to use twitpic.com as well.

New in XScreenSaver 5.07 (Aug 11, 2008)

  • Xinerama/RANDR tweaks for old-style multi-screen.
  • Added bumpy skin and cel shading to skytentacles.
  • flipflop can load images onto the tiles.
  • Fixed the bouncing ball in stairs.
  • Added the missing Utah Teapotahedron to polyhedra.
  • blitspin works with color images on OSX now.
  • Added transparency to stonerview.
  • Improved layout of the preferences dialogs: they should all now be usable even on ridiculously tiny laptop screens.
  • MacOS preferences text fields now prevent you from entering numbers that are out of range.
  • Added ``Reset to Defaults'' button on X11.
  • Added relevant Wikipedia links to many of the screen saver descriptions.
  • All hacks support the -fps option, not just GL ones.
  • The -fps option now shows CPU load.

New in XScreenSaver 5.06 (Jul 17, 2008)

  • Xinerama/RANDR fixes: this time for sure. It should now work to add/remove monitors or resize screens at any time.
  • New hack, skytentacles.
  • New version of gleidescope.
  • Added the -log option to the xscreensaver daemon, since a truly shocking number of Linux users seem to have no idea how to redirect output to a file.
  • Added -duration arg to most image-loading hacks, so that they pick a new image every few minutes.
  • Added an ATM crash to BSOD.

New in XScreenSaver 5.05 (Mar 3, 2008)

  • New hacks, cubicgrid, hypnowheel, and lcdscrub (which isn't really a screen saver).
  • Updates to m6502 and gears.
  • Fixed double-buffering problems in cubestorm and noof.
  • Better handling of horizontal scroll wheels.
  • Attempt to work around latest Xinerama braindamage: if the server reports overlapping screens, use the largest non-overlapping rectangles available.
  • Don't warning about receipt of bogus ClientMessages, since Gnome's just never going to stop sending those.
  • Worked around MacOS 10.5 perl bug that caused the text-displaying hacks to fail on some systems.
  • Hopefully fixed font-related System Preferences crashes in MacOS savers.
  • The recent PAM changes broke the ``Caps Lock'' warning in the password dialog, the failed login warnings, and syslogging. Fixed all that.