Question

I am completely new to javascript programming and I have a question that I didn’t manage to find an answer for anywhere.

I have recently put together a simple slideshow to view the photos remotely that I host on my home computer. This by itself works fine. The problem I run into is that when I’m viewing photos I don’t interact with the hardware, which after some time causes the monitor to switch off. This is particularly annoying when watching photos on my mobile phone.

My question is: is there a way to prevent this from happening? I am thinking in the direction of faking a mouse or other event every time I refresh the photo, but I have no clue how to do that and if it is possible.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

No. JavaScript on the browser cannot interact with the underlying system. Simulating keystrokes in the browser will not stop the screen saver from turning on. This is for security reasons, so that malicious code can’t harm the system when you visit a web page.

Link on JavaScript Security

The modern JavaScript security model
is based upon Java. In theory,
downloaded scripts are run by default
in a restricted “sandbox” environment
that isolates them from the rest of
the operating system. Scripts are
permitted access only to data in the
current document or closely related
documents (generally those from the
same site as the current document). No
access is granted to the local file
system, the memory space of other
running programs, or the operating
system’s networking layer. Containment
of this kind is designed to prevent
malfunctioning or malicious scripts
from wreaking havoc in the user’s
environment. The reality of the
situation, however, is that often
scripts are not contained as neatly as
one would hope. There are numerous
ways that a script can exercise power
beyond what you might expect, both by
design and by accident.