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Is there a way to add widgets to a Gnome screensaver? I think this can be done with KDE 4, but I've never liked KDE very much. I'm a programmer and comfortable with writing code if needed.

I'd like to be able to:

  1. See the weather and forecast
  2. Control Rhythmbox
  3. Use a flash card widget for reviewing musical concepts

The reason I want these on the screensaver is that I have login restrictions. I would like to be able to do a very limited subset of activities without having to log in.

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I'm pretty sure that the Gnome screen saver is a (heavily?) modified version of XScreenSaver by jwz. He won't support the Gnome version, but his source code (and theirs) may provide you some pointers to get started.

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Thanks for the note. In the FAQ I found this: "gnome-screensaver runs the screen lock password dialog in a separate process and embeds the interface using XEmbed." This means I can replace that dialog program if I wish. This sounds like the best place to hook in. –  Dark Falcon Apr 10 '10 at 18:12
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