No option to configure screensavers

[cpicon92]

Many xscreensaver hacks are unusable without the configuration screens that go with them. Can this be remedied?

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[szesch]

Please elaborate.

[cpicon92]

As you are probably aware, mate-screensaver is a simplified front-end/daemon for xscreensaver. Xscreensaver is made up of three things, the daemon, the configuration front-end, and the "hacks". The first two are replaced by mate-screensaver, so as to allow for a nicer-looking interface and better integration with mate. The "hacks" (referred to as "themes" in the gnome docs, most people probably think of them as the "screensavers themselves") used by mate-screensaver are the same as the ones used by xscreensaver.
All this is fine and good. I would rather use mate-screensaver than xscreensaver because xscreensaver is really ugly, and included redundant power-management features. The problem is that xscreensaver specifies that "hacks" (which are really just regular app binaries written to certain specifications) are allowed to have a "settings page." As things turn out, this page is rather essential to the working of some screensavers.
For example, the gltext screensaver has an option to customize the string it displays. If you have ever used Windows, I'm sure you can see the utility of this. Unfortunately, mate-screensaver does not have an option to access this configuration screen, making many of the xscreensaver hacks less useful.
The gnome-screensaver developers did not want to fix this: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316654

[cpicon92]

To better illustrate my point, here are some screenshots:
http://just.waffl.in/f/Screenshot-4.png
http://just.waffl.in/f/Screenshot-5.png
The first one shows the configuration page for the glText screensaver and the various options for it.
The second one shows some all-screensaver options that are also very useful and missing.

[Chapu]

I can confirm this. Not sure about calling it a "bug", though, because it was a (somewhat) conscious decision from the gnome-screensaver developer. The problem is most people (myself included) judged it to be a bad decision (you really, really should let the user configure the damn screensavers); and since the whole point of the MATE project is to fork, fix and continue to upgrade Gnome in order to provide a great user experience, I think it makes sense to address glaring inadequacies like this one.

TL;DR: I'd also like to see this fixed, I think it's somewhat important from the project's POV.

[ghost]

Any volunteers to maintain such code?

[Chapu]

@ketheriel Hum... I could try, I guess, if someone guided me a little. I work as a programmer in PHP and Python, and I know C from college, but I've never undertook something of this magnitude. That being said, I'd love to help this project in some way other than reporting bugs and asking for new features, it's just that I'm not convinced of being up to the challenge :-)

So if someone (anyone) is willing to show me the basic ropes, I'd be more than glad to try and maintain this. Contact me at the email address configured on my profile.

[ghost]

@Chapu and we can help; you should stop by #mate on freenode, hang around a bit and get into the workflow. A few people can help there.

The changes going in MATE at the current moment are demanding a lot from the involved people, so a extra pair of hands could really help out the whole community. Hope to see you around there :)

[mdtrooper]

Hi.

How do I can help? Because I want this feature...and in Gnome2 they didn't.

Regards.