Tuesday, January 15, 2013

How to Change the Pictures Folder in Mate-Screensaver's Slideshow

mate-screensaver's GUI doesn't permit changes to the pictures folder option for the slideshow. This can present a small problem for some of us who have our pictures located in other places.

To change the Pictures folder in mate-screensaver, open a Terminal and enter:

sudo pluma /usr/share/applications/screensavers/personal-slideshow.desktop

Scroll down to the end of the file. Change the line that says:

Exec=/usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slideshow --location=/home/Pictures

to instead indicate your desired pictures folder. On my rig, it was:

Exec=/usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slideshow --location=/media/sda1/pix

Then click save. Go to Control Center | Preferences | Screensaver and you should see the Pictures Folder option. Click on it and presto, you should see a picture displayed in the preview.

Important: to disable mate-screensaver while watching videos, refer to this thread.

Post a Comment
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I have a problem passing arguments to /usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slideshow.
If I put --location=mylocation screensaver disappears from screensaver's list.
I try with " or ' without success.

Finally I put
/usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slideshow --location=mylocation in /usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slides
and set Exec=/usr/lib/mate-screensaver/slides.

igor said...

I do not use mate's screensaver any longer, nor Mate, so I cannot be of further assistance other than to recommend installing xscreensaver and uninstalling mate's screensaver.

With xscreensaver, it is possible to modify the config file in the hidden directory .xscreensaver, found in /Home, and get everything working. In fact I have wrestled with xscreensaver to the point that the error messages no longer display and it works fine as a slideshow without interfering with video playback. (Mate's screensaver is by default buggy and will activate during video playback.)

I used to use Mate, but ran into a strange problem unrelated to the screensaver problem. Script files stopped working from desktop shortcuts. There was no solution available, so I discarded Mate and installed KDE in its place. I am happy with KDE, although it too has annoyances such as KDE Wallet and Kmail.

Anonymous said...

--location=/media/WallPapers/NEW/ note in my case the tail / was needed

Unknown said...

1) just add x-screensavers to MATE, here's the description how you can do it

http://greyblake.com/blog/2013/02/02/install-more-screensavers-on-mate-desktop/

2) type xscreensaver in terminal, press Enter

3) you will see the message that the program is not installed and terminal will tell you how to install it

4) now you have a separate control panel for x-screensavers

5) find "GL Slideshow"

6) go to advanced settings

7) specify the path to your pictures folder

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