[ulli]

Does anyone know how to disable the rotating cube effect when bringing up the log-in panel (fast user switching). I' like to appear instantaneously, rather then waiting several seconds for the animation to complete.

[SMacTech]

That's funny, as there are so many people who want the effect but cannot get it to work on hardware that it is supposed too, like mine.
I read if you change the screen resolution or color depth on one of the accounts it will. Certainly that isn't a solution, eh?

[ulli]

This is correct, but this won't help me. My computer has only a single account. I configure my PowerBook to switch to the Login Panel before it goes to sleep. This is safer than the screen-saver approach Mac OS X uses.

However, if the computer goes to sleep before the cube rotation is finished, there is a chance that the screen is screwed-up after wake-up. Disabling the cube rotation would cure this.

[kcmac]

You are confusing me. I have a single account on my PB and don't know how you would ever see the cube when their is only one user.

On our iMac we have 4 accounts and you would see the cube only when swithching to another account. (Only my iMac is old so the cube effect doesn't work.)

With a single user, you can only get to the log in panel by logging out. When you log back in, their is no cube effect. This would only show up when logging in a new user while you are logged in.

??

[ulli]

kcmac: try this: in the Terminal type (one line):

/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend

You don't even have to have "Fast User Switching" enabled for this to work.

[kcmac]

So it is a hack of sorts. Can't help you there then. Good luck.

[chabig]

With a single user, you can only get to the log in panel by logging out.

That's not true...thus his question. With fast user switching, you can stay logged in, but switch to the login panel using the FUS menu.

Chris

[diamondsw]

Originally posted by kcmac:
So it is a hack of sorts. Can't help you there then. Good luck.

Sort of - that's just what the system executes when you select "Login Window" from the FUS menu.

Personally, I'm very surprised that Apple did not include a "lock screen" option for screen saver/waking from sleep that would take you here. It's more secure than the screen saver (no input "bleeding" to apps behind the screen saver) and allows you to switch users if you want.

[ulli]

diamondsw:

This is what this thread is about. Since Apple didn't implement this, I found my own solution:

It makes use of the "sleepwatcher". Sleepwatcher executes the ".sleep" script in your home directory before the computer goes to sleep. My .sleep script is:


/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu\ Extras/User.menu/Contents/Resources/CGSession -suspend
sleep 3
wait

This brings up he login screen before the computer goes to sleep. The sleep-wait commands in the script make sleepwatcher wait until the cube rotation is finished before the computer goes to sleep. 3 seconds work well for me, but this is probably system dependent. If one doesn't wait for the cube rotation to finish, there is a chance that the compute gets stuck showing only the desktop picture and nothing else.

Therefore my question, whether the cube rotation can be disabled (without disabling Quatz Extreme all together).

[chabig]

What we really need is for an enterprising programmer to write a screensaver that, rather than doing anything to the screen, simply runs a shell script. Then we could do anything we want at sleep time.

That's all.

Chris

[ulli]

This does exist already. Have a look at "SleepWatcher": http://home.t-online.de/home/bernhard.baehr/