Use a window as a screensaver on a second monitor

screensaver.py

import win32gui, win32con, time
import tkinter as tk
import pywintypes

windowList = []

def winEnumHandler( hwnd, ctx ):
 if win32gui.IsWindowVisible( hwnd ):
  windowList.append((hwnd, win32gui.GetWindowText( hwnd )))

win32gui.EnumWindows( winEnumHandler, None )

window = tk.Tk()

wtitle = tk.Label(text="Select a window to use:")
wtitle.pack()

sWindow = None
sTitle = None
def selected( elem ):
 global sWindow
 global sTitle
 sWindow = elem[0]
 sTitle = elem[1]
 window.destroy()

wbody = tk.Frame(window)
for windowElem in windowList:
 if len(windowElem[1]) != 0:
  thisName = tk.Button(wbody, text=windowElem[1],command=lambda val=windowElem: selected(val))
  thisName.pack()
wbody.pack(side = tk.BOTTOM)

print("Selecting idle window")
window.mainloop()
print("{} selected".format(sTitle))

px, py = 0, 0# previous mouse location
timer = 0# idle timer
active = False# is idle window open
while True:
 _,_, (x, y) = win32gui.GetCursorInfo()
 dy, dx = abs(y-py), abs(x-px)
 py, px = y, x
 if x >= 0 or dy*dy + dx*dx < 100:
  timer += 0.01
 else:
  if active:
   print("No longer idling.")
   win32gui.ShowWindow(sWindow, win32con.SW_SHOWMINNOACTIVE)
   active = False
  timer = 0
 
 if timer > 10 and not active:
  print("Now idling.")
  cwin = win32gui.GetForegroundWindow()
  active = True
  win32gui.ShowWindow(sWindow, win32con.SW_MAXIMIZE)
  try:
   win32gui.SetForegroundWindow(cwin)
  except pywintypes.error as e:
   if e.args[2] == 'Access is denied.':# hacky solution around access denied
    win32gui.ShowWindow(cwin, win32con.SW_MINIMIZE)
    win32gui.ShowWindow(cwin, win32con.SW_RESTORE)
   else:
    raise e
 time.sleep(0.01)

This was fun.

Basically just select a window to use, then when the mouse isn't moving considerably or it hasn't been on that monitor, the idle window will be maximized.

As soon as the mouse moves onto that monitor, it is minimized. Timeout is 10 seconds on line 53.

Might turn this into a repo... if I choose to keep working on it.

comments are basically just a post it board for myself.

there's a pretty big issues when maximizing, it loses your current active window. I can't find the exact window command to reactivate a window.

Added some print statements to tell if the system is in idle or not. Will throw access denied if run in non-admin due to setforeground requiring admin. Gonna add except statemtns soon

This should be a repo

I think im done though... added more prints, added workaround for access denied