Screen Saver API: Purpose

Screensaver is a S60 application which monitors the system for user inactivity and displays graphical objects in case of prolonged inactivity. Screensaver immediately stops displaying these objects when user activity resumes. In addition, the display is partially shut down during inactivity.

The graphical object displayed by the Screensaver application can be one of the following:

• Text
• Time
• User-supplied plug-in with arbitrary graphical content

Screensaver plug-ins are used by Screensaver and Themes applications.

• Screensaver application uses selected plug-in to show graphical objects
• Themes application allows the user
  • viewing the list of available screensavers
  • activating the selected screensaver
  • previewing screensavers
  • configuring plug-in specific settings

Screen Saver API allows third party developers to create screensaver plug-ins. These plug-ins only need to implement code for displaying the custom graphical object. All other functionalities (user activity monitoring, management of screensaver settings, preview functionality, etc.) are already available in Screensaver and Themes applications.

Screensaver plug-ins are implemented as ECom plug-ins and can be installed from SIS packages.

This document describes how to use Screen Saver API to create custom screensaver plug-ins.

Constraints

This API is valid for all platforms running on Symbian OS 9.1 or later.

Classification and release information

Screen Saver API is an SDK API and was first published in S60 release 3.x.