Decouple screen lock and screen blank functions from each other
Current situation
The screen lock and screen blank functions are closely linked to each other.
Manually locking the session, for instance, immediately causes the screen to go blank. The setting to automatically lock the session after a period of inactivity (Privacy > Screen Lock) can only be used in combination with the Blank Screen Delay option.
For internal displays of laptops or if the only purpose of an external display is to present the desktop to the user, this is probably reasonable.
Limitations
Modern displays are increasingly often equipped with a USB-C port that makes them behave similar to a docking station for laptops. If this USB-C port forwards audio to the speakers or an audio jack of the display, it is not unusual that the screen going blank (from the OS side) causes the display to enter its sleep mode and therefore the audio connection to drop.
This is the case with my current 4K monitor: Locking the screen manually (Super+L) causes the audio to switch from my external speakers to the internal speakers of the laptop. This is obviously not the desired behavior. It should be possible to listen to music while the screen is locked.
A possible solution would be to not make use of the screen blank function. However, this comes at the cost of not being to able to lock the screen.
Feature request
To tackle this issue, it would be great if the screen lock and screen blank functions were decoupled from each other.
The current screen lock settings could, for instance, be changed to look as follows:
- Blank Screen Delay: Period of inactivity after which the screen will go blank.
- Lock on Screen Blank: Boolean flag to connect the automatic locking to the screen going blank.
- Screen Lock Delay: (Depending on the previous value: Period of inactivity/Period after screen blank) until the screen will be locked.
The first setting is obviously unchanged and should be clear. Turning the second option off decouples the the screen lock and screen blank functions. In this case, manually locking the session should no longer cause the screen the go blank and the meaning of the third option should change in such a way that you can use it to configure the screen lock delay (which is totally independent of anything else).
To simulate the current behavior, you just have to enable the Lock on Screen Blank option and use the Screen Lock Delay as it is used right now. It only needs to be extended with a Never option that can be used to disable the automatic screen lock.