# 04 — Screensaver, displays and menus

Three areas the operator named on 2026-10-04, as their own modules. Each sharpens a row of
[01](01-what-the-workstations-run.md) and a question of [02](02-the-questions-and-the-options.md).

## The screensaver: idle, lock and display power

**Measured on both workstations:**

- **Idle and lock** are three things wired by hand in the session's start script:
  - the X screensaver timeout (`xset s 1800`);
  - the display power timeouts (`xset dpms`);
  - `xss-lock` running the colour build of `i3lock` through a wrapper, in a respawn loop.
- **A second screensaver,** xscreensaver, is installed and deliberately not started. Earlier it
  overrode the display power settings with its own, and locked nothing. Its configuration file is
  still in the home.
- **The lock screen's 20-odd colours and formats** were predecessor theme variables.
- **The colour build is not in the official repositories** (research 026/01).

**Starting position:**

- **One module for the lock screen,** holding `node-lock-screen`: the locker and its wrapper as the
  module's own files, the screensaver and display power timeouts, and `xss-lock`.
- The timeouts and colours are its defaults, and settings later (issue 168).
- The colour build ships as ADR 0205's pinned archive, or the module uses the official `i3lock`.
  That is the operator's choice, and the colours are the only difference.
- xscreensaver is not a module; its package and file are removed.
- `xss-lock` needs the logind session, so it stays a session-start line contributed into
  `.xinitrc`'s block (question 4), not a unit.

## Monitor layout (xrandr)

**Measured:**

- Each workstation has a layout script generated by `arandr`, with the monitor names baked in. One
  workstation also has several layouts for named places, a hotplug rule and a wizard.
- **The desktop carried the laptop's layout scripts.**
- No `xorg.conf.d`, and no layout tool beyond the scripts.

**Starting position: `autorandr`** (official repositories) inside the display server's module.

- `autorandr` saves a layout as a profile **keyed by the connected monitors' identities** (their EDID)
  and applies the matching one at login and on hotplug.
- Profiles therefore need no machine's name. A profile can be shared mesh-wide and simply never
  matches on a machine without those monitors. That is exactly the "say it by what is there, never by
  a name" rule (ADR 0112).
- The profiles are the operator's data, saved by the tool itself, so they are *found* (ADR 0182). A
  `layout` verb on `node-display-server` lists, saves and applies them.
- The arandr scripts and the hotplug rule retire once a profile exists for each.

## Menus: rofi and dmenu

**Measured:**

- rofi is the launcher, the power menu, the theme picker and the clipboard menu.
- The operator's scripts call `rofi -dmenu` in four places and **plain `dmenu` in two. dmenu is
  installed on neither workstation, so those two fail.**

**Starting position:**

- **`rofi` holds `node-launcher`**, and the seat's protocol includes a **dmenu-compatible command**:
  read choices on standard input, print the chosen one. Scripts call that command, not a program by
  name.
- **`dmenu` is a module of its own** (official repositories), able to hold the same seat on a machine
  that wants it, for instance a Wayland session where `wofi` or `fuzzel` would hold it instead.
- The rofi module carries its theme files, and the menus that belong to other modules arrive as those
  modules' scripts:
  - power menu → the session;
  - clipboard menu → the clipboard module;
  - theme picker → settings, once issue 168 closes.

## The clipboard: xclip and greenclip

**Measured:**

- **greenclip** keeps the clipboard's history, and rofi shows it on a key binding.
- **greenclip is not in the official repositories.**
- It is started two ways: the window manager's configuration starts it on both workstations, and on
  one a user unit is enabled as well.
- Its configuration names an absolute home path.
- **xclip** (official) is the command-line clipboard the operator's scripts use.

**Starting position:**

- **`xclip` is a module of its own,** a package and nothing else. It is the tool scripts depend on,
  and a module that needs it requires it.
- **The clipboard manager holds `node-clipboard`:** its daemon, started once by the session (a session
  contribution, or a user unit once user-scoped units ship, never both), its configuration with no
  absolute path, and its menu binding contributed to the window manager.
- **Which manager holds it is the operator's choice:**
  - greenclip, as today, shipped under ADR 0205;
  - or `clipmenu` (official), which feeds the same dmenu-compatible command as the launcher seat above,
    and needs no archive.
- **On Wayland** the same seat is held by `cliphist` with `wl-clipboard`, both official.

## Fonts

**Measured:**

- The fonts the desktop uses are **hand-copied files** in the account's font directory, not packages:
  - a Nerd font for the window manager, the bar and the terminal;
  - a second one for the prompt;
  - on one workstation, the same four files twice, once under URL-encoded names;
  - on the other, a different build of the same font and three more copied from a theme's repository.
- The system's default monospace is a different font (`Noto Sans Mono`), so anything that asks for
  `monospace` gets another face than the terminal.
- The DPI is fixed in an X resource.
- **Every Nerd font in use is in the official repositories** (Hack, Meslo, Iosevka, JetBrains Mono).

**Decided** (the operator left the choice open, except that it must not be today's Hack):

| role | face | why |
|---|---|---|
| monospace: terminal, window manager, bar, launcher, prompt | **JetBrains Mono Nerd Font** | built for long reading in a terminal, unambiguous `0O1lI`, optional ligatures; a version-3 Nerd font, so every icon the prompt and bar use is present |
| interface: GTK, Qt, notifications | **Inter** | designed for screens, clear at small sizes |
| icons missing from any face | Nerd Fonts Symbols | a fallback, so a font without icons still shows them |
| emoji | Noto Color Emoji | |
| serif and every other script | Noto | |

All five are official packages.

**Starting position:**

- **A `fonts` module:** those packages, and a fontconfig file it owns that maps `monospace`, `sans-serif`,
  `serif` and the emoji and symbol fallbacks to the chosen faces, so every program agrees.
- The terminal, bar, launcher and prompt modules name the family, not a file.
- The DPI becomes the display server's setting (issue 168).
- The copied files are removed by the operator once the packages are in (ADR 0182).
- Fonts are not a seat: several coexist. The module owns the one place where *the* default is said.