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Sleep displays with password protection
Authored by: flammable on Jul 29, '09 09:52:20PM

Hey, hint author here. Lots of people suggesting the same solutions - not a fan of blanket replies, but here's mine anyway.

  • I've used BlackenedPixels up until this point - it leaves the monitor on, but displays black pixels. This gives the room a grey glow, which is not the same as turning your monitor off. I have not tried the other screensavers/widgets mentioned, but it sounds like they do the same thing.
  • With BlackenedPixels, I had the screen saver set to activate at 9 minutes, but energy saver set to sleep the display at 8 minutes. This didn't always work, and I'd end up with a black screen in the middle of the night. I guess something was preventing the screen from sleeping, yet the screen saver stayed activated? I'm not sure. This seemed to happen on the Mini far more often than the iMac.
  • The Keychain Access menu locks the display, but it seemed to do the same thing as BlackenedPixels. I haven't tested that so much, though. Regardless, there's no way to set it to a timer - you can only activate it manually. Same with those who suggested a keystroke - you can't set that to a timer.
  • Yes, the iMac is in my bedroom, but people tend to walk in here when I'm not around. It's not foolproof, but a password is enough to keep people from touching things.
  • Running the screensaver directly will activate the lock, yeah, but you're still left with your choice of a screensaver - not a screen that's turned off.
  • I do have the checkbox in System Prefs --> Security called "Requre password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver" enabled. Frankly, I forgot to mention in the original hint, but that's a requirement for getting this working (d'oh, sorry rob). By itself, though, it only applies to the screen saver or full sleep - not display sleep. That's why this hint exists.


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