Fidget

A cross platform tool to prevent your computer from sleeping.

Do you really dig caffeinate on OS X and wish that you could use it on Windows? Are you building something that supports multiple platforms and need the display to stay on without much fuss? Does the phrase "Yes. gnome-screensaver has a simple to use DBus API for this" make you irrationally angry?

If so, this might be the tool for you. Fidget provides both a commandline tool and a library to simply and easily inhibit sleep on all major platforms.

$ fidget [-o <options>] [command]

Options should be passed as a comma-separated list. Sleep options may very between platforms. Each platform will include at least the following core options:

• display will prevent the display from sleeping.
• sleep prevent the system from sleeping.
• all to declare all known options.

Additional OS X options:

• idle will prevent the system from idle sleeping.
• disk will prevent the disk from sleeping.
• 'user' will assert that the user is active. This keeps the display on and prevents idle sleep.

Additional Windows options:

• away enables a low-power, but not sleeping, mode on Windows.
• simulate will simulate a user keyboard action every few seconds.

Additional Linux options:

• blanking disables terminal blanking on Linux.

Default options for each platform:

• OS X: user
• Linux: display
• Windows: display,sleep

If you pass a command, then Fidget will execute that command and prevent the system from sleeping until that command terminates. If you do not provide a command, then Fidget will prevent sleeping until you press Ctrl-C to terminate.

Simply keep the computer from sleeping until you press Ctrl-C

$ fidget
System has been prevented from sleeping.
- Press Ctrl-C to resume normal power management.

Pass options and run a command

$ fidget -o sleep,idle make

$ gem install fidget

There are three methods you may use in your programs. The options parameter should be either an array or just a list of options and can be passed as strings or symbols.

• Fidget.prevent_sleep(options)
  • Stops the computer from sleeping.
  • Can accept a block, in which case sleep will be inhibited during the execution of the block and resumed after.
• Fidget.allow_sleep
  • Resume any previously inhibited sleep.
• Fidget.current_process(options)
  • Shortcut method to inhibit sleep during the execution of the current process.

Default options, with a block:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fidget'

Fidget.prevent_sleep do
  100.times do
    print '.'
    sleep 1
  end
end

Define sleep options to inhibit, with a block:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fidget'

Fidget.prevent_sleep(:display, :sleep) do
  100.times do
    print '.'
    sleep 1
  end
end

No block, just calling methods:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fidget'

Fidget.prevent_sleep(:display, :sleep)

100.times do
  print '.'
  sleep 1
end

Fidget.allow_sleep

Simply prevent the computer from sleeping while the current process is running:

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require 'fidget'

Fidget.current_process

100.times do
  print '.'
  sleep 1
end

This is super early in development and has not yet been battle tested. If you discover a platform it doesn't work on, or a use case that it should cover, please do file an issue

I take no liability for the use of this tool.

binford2k@gmail.com