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· • ● a quiet terminal screensaver in dots ● • ·
dotsaver draws slow, calm scenes in your terminal using three
characters: · • ●. Dark ground, soft light, no noise.
Style inspired by ascii.rest.
One C file. C99 + POSIX. No dependencies beyond libm.
cc -O2 -o dotsaver dotsaver.c -lmor make. make install puts it and the idle helpers in ~/.local
(PREFIX=/usr/local to change that).
That's it. Copy dotsaver somewhere on your $PATH if you like.
./dotsaver # cycle through every scene
./dotsaver -s donut # play a single scene
./dotsaver -t 20 -c theme # 20s per scene, in your terminal's palette
./dotsaver -s cabin -b # braille: 2x4 dots per cell, much finer detail
./dotsaver -g 2 # square dot grid, like ascii.rest
./dotsaver -o -s aurora # print one frame to stdout and exit
./dotsaver -l # list scenesaurora slow curtains of light over a few stars
cabin northern lights over snowy peaks, a cabin and a lake
dawn snow peaks catching first light above a misty lake
reef light shafts through blue water, coral, fish, bubbles
desert moonlit dunes, the milky way and a falling star
earthrise the earth climbing over a grey lunar horizon
kyoto a pagoda against a dusk sky, lanterns and birds
marine a night seafront: a curve of street lights, a lit skyline
forest layered pines fading into drifting mist
coast a moonlit sea, cliffs and a sweeping lighthouse
sunset the sun sinking into the sea, a glittering path
storm rolling clouds over plains, rain and lightning
taj a domed mausoleum at dawn, mirrored in its pool
ghats river steps and temples, floating lamps and fires
donut the classic, in dots
stars slow flight through a starfield
fireflies wandering lights that blink and glow
rain soft vertical drops with fading trails
./dotsaver -o -m -s donut
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┌─ dotsaver ───────────────────┐
│ │
│▸ scene ‹ all (cycle) › ←→│
│ seconds ‹ 30s › │
│ color ‹ truecolor › c │
│ spacing ‹ 1 › ↑↓│
│ density ‹ normal › sp│
│ backdrop ‹ on › b │
│ glyphs ‹ fine › g │
│ detail ‹ rich › d │
│ │
│ ↑↓ select ←→ change │
│ p / esc close q quit │
│ h help │
│ │
└──────────────────────────────┘
The menu and the key help open in the top-left corner. Each menu row
shows its shortcut on the right.
dotsaver can start by itself after a while without input: in your shell (bash, zsh), in tmux, or on the whole desktop. Install everything first:
make install # dotsaver and helpers into ~/.localEvery helper reads the same two settings:
DOTSAVER_IDLE seconds without input before it starts (default 300)
DOTSAVER_ARGS flags for dotsaver, e.g. "-s cabin -g 2 -c theme"
bash: add to ~/.bashrc
DOTSAVER_IDLE=300
source ~/.local/share/dotsaver/dotsaver.bashzsh: add to ~/.zshrc
DOTSAVER_IDLE=300
source ~/.local/share/dotsaver/dotsaver.zshBoth start dotsaver at the prompt once nothing has been typed for
DOTSAVER_IDLE seconds, and never while a command is running. A key
brings the prompt back, with any half-typed line intact. bash uses the
ALRM trap and zsh TMOUT/TRAPALRM, so they replace your own if you
have one.
tmux: add to ~/.tmux.conf
source-file ~/.local/share/dotsaver/dotsaver.tmux.confor set the two options yourself:
set -g lock-after-time 300
set -g lock-command "dotsaver -s cabin"tmux counts input across all its panes and windows. When tmux runs dotsaver this way, the bash and zsh hooks step aside inside it, so it never starts twice.
the desktop (Wayland: niri, sway, Hyprland, river, ...): a systemd
user service runs swayidle, which opens dotsaver fullscreen in a
terminal after DOTSAVER_IDLE seconds of no input anywhere, and closes
it when you come back.
cp ~/.local/share/dotsaver/dotsaver-idle.service ~/.config/systemd/user/
systemctl --user enable --now dotsaver-idle.service
systemctl --user edit dotsaver-idle.service # change the settings:
# [Service]
# Environment=DOTSAVER_IDLE=600
# Environment=DOTSAVER_ARGS=-s aurora -g 2It needs swayidle and one of foot, kitty, alacritty, konsole or xterm
(DOTSAVER_TERM picks one). dotsaver-screen opens and
dotsaver-screen --stop closes the fullscreen window, if you want to
wire it into another idle tool (hypridle, xidlehook, ...).
Claude Code (in tmux): a plugin shows dotsaver in a full-size tmux popup over Claude Code once it has been waiting for you for about a minute. Any key closes it.
claude plugin marketplace add /path/to/dotsaver
claude plugin install dotsaver@dotsaver(or /plugin marketplace add and /plugin install inside Claude Code).
It uses Claude Code's idle_prompt notification, which comes about 60 s
after Claude finishes. It only opens when Claude's pane is the one on
screen, so it never covers work in another tmux pane or window.
DOTSAVER_ARGS picks the scene and look.
colour
truecolor 24-bit ink on dotsaver's own dark ground (default)
theme your terminal's 16-colour palette and background, so the
scenes follow your shell theme (works without truecolor)
mono your terminal's foreground colour only
spacing puts empty cells between dots. 1 is the classic dense look.
Terminal cells are about twice as tall as they are wide, so 2 leaves a
gap every other column and gives a square grid like ascii.rest.
3 and 4 spread the dots further.
density braille packs 2×4 dots into each cell with braille
characters (⣿), for about 8× the detail. Every braille dot is the same
size, so brightness comes from colour and from how many dots are lit.
Spacing applies to these dots too.
backdrop puts a faint · on every empty grid point, so the whole
screen reads as one dotted canvas. Turn it off for blank darkness.
glyphs fine uses four dot sizes, · ∙ • ●. classic uses
three (· • ●) if your font draws ∙ badly.
detail rich gives cabin separate aurora rays, a violet haze,
forested mountains and long window reflections. simple is its first,
plainer version.
Scenes keep their shape and speed whatever the spacing and density.
- truecolorwants a 24-bit colour terminal (most modern ones are). If yours isn't, use- -c theme.
- -ois handy for screenshots, previews, or piping a frame into something else:- COLUMNS=80 LINES=24 ./dotsaver -o -s rain > frame.txt
MIT — see LICENSE.
· • ● rest. ● • ·