Time's Up is an application developed to help computer users take care of their eyes. After a long time staring at their screens, computer users – who can be developers, analysts, youtubers, whoever – need to take a break and look somewhere else. Time's Up has been devised to remind and "force" users to take a break after a certain period of time.
Time's Up consists of a timer which, when it expires, displays a desktop notification to the user reminding her to take a break. After a pre-defined period of time (by default, it corresponds to 5 minutes) if the user have not locked the screen yet, the application will automatically lock the computer screen.
This application is based on Teatime by Pavel Rojtberg. Teatime is "a simple egg-timer type application to time your teas. Rings an alarm and displays a desktop notification, when the tea is ready".
Time's Up has been tested working only on Linux. In particular, it has been tested working on Ubuntu 18.04 (GNOME) and on Linux Mint 20 (Cinnamon).
Time's Up is written in Python3.
pip3 install requirements.txt
python3 timesup.py
When the app starts, a 1 hour timer (default) is started.
To add a new timer, click on "Create a New Timer", then type name and duration for the new timer. To modify an existing timer, follow the previous procedure. To delete a timer, instead, select a timer and press "Del". Timers are stored in config/store.json
.
The following configuration parameters can be changed from the config/constants.json
file.
remind_delta_seconds
: pre-defined period of time in seconds from when the timer expires and when the screen is "forced" to be locked; default is300
.sound_alert_file
: sound played when timer expires; default is/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/service-login.oga
.sound_lock_file
: sound played when screen is locked; default is/usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/service-logout.oga
.
In the following some ideas to improve Time's Up are listed.
- Make it work for other OSes, starting from Windows
- Improve user interface, maybe using a different technique
- Add theming and other customisation settings, like:
- Set default starting timer
- Activate or deactivate default timer on start
Thanks to my mum for her precious support.