Script to keep inhibit screen idle while playing media

teekay

Using Mate on GhostBSD, one frustration I've had is that the screen keeps locking/blanking while I'm watching a video or playing audio. This is especially true in Firefox, where even a YouTube video wouldn't inhibit the screen idle. So I whipped up this script to detect when media is being played, and if so, use mate-session-inhibit to prevent the screen from blanking. Hopefully others find it useful.

#!/bin/sh

# Function to inhibit the session
inhibit_session() {
        uninhibit_session
        mate-session-inhibit --inhibit 'idle:suspend' sleep 5h &
        INHIBIT_PID=$!
}

# Function to un-inhibit the session
uninhibit_session() {
    if [ -n "$INHIBIT_PID" ]; then
        kill $INHIBIT_PID
        INHIBIT_PID=""
    fi
}

# Monitor D-Bus for media playback events
dbus-monitor "path=/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2" "interface=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player" | while read -r line; do
    if echo "$line" | grep -e "Playing" -e "member=Seeked"; then
        echo "Media is playing. Inhibiting session..."
        inhibit_session
    elif echo "$line" | grep -q "Paused"; then
        echo "Media is not playing. Uninhibiting session..."
        uninhibit_session
    elif echo "$line" | grep -q "Stopped"; then
        echo "Media is not playing. Uninhibiting session..."
        uninhibit_session
    fi
done```