I also use the GNOME desktop, and although I agree that being able to install a filter/locator for pictures would be a great boon, it's also probably not one for the target audience. (Look at your command line for glaring evidence why.) Here's what I would propose; I am using Fedora Core 5 but I imagine just about any GNOME 2.14 will act the same way.

The screensaver choices are stored in /usr/share/gnome-screensaver as .desktop entries. Notice that the personal-slideshow.desktop (hopefully your system's file is similarly named) includes the appropriate line, which calls the screensaver program located in /usr/libexec/gnome-screensaver, using the --location option. Writing your own .desktop file is trivial.

If you want to filter your custom location, you could simply have a cron job that runs hourly, for instance. Create a ~/linked_pics and run something like:

find /share/Backup/flickr -type f -mtime -60 -name '*_o.jpg' | xargs -i ln -s {} ~/linked_pics

Then you can have the screensaver .desktop file use that location instead.

I realize this is would be complicated for the type of user who's not already comfortable with the command line -- but that user is precisely the type GNOME's usability guidelines target. For that user, simply dropping pictures into a ~/Pictures folder makes much more sense than writing cumbersome CLI-based filters. You and I, who are comfortable with things like find and cron, can take care of our own needs without requiring GNOME to sacrifice usability on the Altar of Tweak.

I've been frustrated with the lack of configurability as well. Not only does the personal slideshow screensaver not allow you to customize the directory, but it gives no indication what that directory is. This is certainly not an example of good usability.

A simpler method:

Install F-Spot, import all your photos into it, and create a "Screensaver" tag. Next, tag all the photos you want to show up in your screensaver with that tag. Finally, in F-Spot, go to Edit --> Preferences, select "Screensaver" in the dropdown list of tags, and hit the "Make F-Spot your screensaver" button.

Voila, problem solved!

I went back to Gnome screen saver. $@%#!? ~/Pictures and all.

It's not much consolation, but the directory containing the pix the Gnome screen saver's personal slideshow will display can be changed in the line

Exec=slideshow --location=Pictures

in the file

/usr/share/gnome-screensaver/themes/personal-slideshow.desktop

I discovered this through my rabid detestation of capitalized filenames like "Pictures". :^)

Hi Norman,

There's no need to manually edit /etc/alternatives, there's a tool that does that for you:

update-alternatives --config java

will let you pick a systemwide VM. I typically do an "update-alternatives -all" after a fresh installation to set things just how I like them. There's a gui tool in universe called "galternatives" which does the task, though it's not as straightforward as the text tool.

gnome-screensaver really is bothersome. For some reason common video players (e.g. totem, gmplayer) cannot inhibit the screensaver from running. sort of makes them useless for watching movies/network streams.

Even better than update-alternatives is a program specifically for Java packages that does the same thing but easier to use. It is called (what else?) update-java-alternatives and you can read its man page for details.

I have started using gnome in the last 3 months. In the past I usually use KDE. (I switched just to have a balanced perspective.)

As of yet the ~/Pictures directory (Just one example of the lack of easily customizing things on what seems to be a high level) and the over-all slowness of gnome are my only issues. (though KDE is not much snappier). Part of this could be my own ignorance too but gnome is not as friendly as KDE by a LONG stretch IMHO.

I have the same issues with gnome screen savers on the ~/Pictures dir, that others have. The developers say "adding certatin types of functionality will only confuse users". (Read that in Linux Format)

I say to that:
Not telling the end user that a picture directory needs to exist (when they are trying to set the screen saver) or where it should be and not creating one automatically so it can be populated, isn't going to cause confusion?

To work around the lack of user friendliness I just made a symlink to my existing images directory. (KDE had no problem pointing to my existing directory. Thumbs up to KDE developers for "thinking outside their code".)
"ln -s /path/to/image_dir /home/usersname/Pictures"
As for the recursion though... I don't have an easy solution to populate the Pictures directory with items from subfolders.

(Unless you want to create symlinks in the Picture dir to each individual file you want to include. Which is possible I guess, but NOT user friendly at all!)

Any-who ... nice blog Norman.

try Xfce!

Well whenever one asks one of the GNOME people about this, they come back with this lame excuse about user experience referring to useless papers academic papers on the subject. We all know that academic UI 'research' is like statistics, you pick the input based on the output result you want to end up with.

What infuriates me is that with every release the GNOME crowd makes it harder to put sanity back in. It's not a matter whether or not they are supposed to use Emacs keybindings, but fact is that there is a significant userbase out there who relies on this keyboard layout and removing it can only be described in one way: outright irresponsible.

With gnome-2.15 it seems that the trick of using gconf-editor to set the theme to Emacs no longer works .... so what the f**k does one do now to get it back?

Do I really have to switch desktop because a bunch of kids are more interested in making Linux look like Windows than they are in accomodating those who created Linux in the first place?

Um.. shouldn't somebody fork the slideshow screensaver, then?

I liked KDE better as a desktop when I tried it as it had so many more configuration options. But when running KDE, X was using CPU like there was no tomorrow and everything on my system slowed to a crawl. So it was back to gnome by default :( Then I discovered that my updated gnome 2.14 screensaver had no option to specify a different picture folder location, as so many other have noted. Totally insane and stupid design!!!! The workaround I used was to create a symbolic link called ~/Pictures and set its true location to MY folder the way I like it.

The command I used was ln -s ~/Documents/pics/For_Screen_Saver/ ~/Pictures

Screensaver seems to work ok now with my pictures, including subfolders.

But we SHOULDN'T have to go throught this sort of kludge for such basic and simple functionality. Is anyone with the gnome team listening?????

There is one simpler trick that I just used:

ln -s /usr/share/games/anywhere/pix ~/Pictures

That should work, aye?