NAME
xwrits - reminds you to take wrist breaks
SYNOPSIS
xwrits [-display display] [typetime=time] [breaktime=time] [other
options]
DESCRIPTION
Xwrits reminds you to take wrist breaks for prevention or management of
repetitive stress injuries. When you should take a break, it pops up an
X window, the warning window. You click on the warning window, then
take a break. The window changes appearance while you take the break.
It changes again when your break is over. Then you just resume typing.
Xwrits hides itself until you should take another break.
The typetime option changes the amount of time between breaks, and the
breaktime option changes the length of a break. The defaults are 55
minutes and 5 minutes, respectively.
Xwrits’s graphics are brightly colored pictures of a wrist and hand.
The hand clenches and spreads ‘‘as if in pain’’ on the warning window,
slumps relaxed during the break, and points forward valiantly when the
break is over. It is trapped behind bars while the keyboard is locked.
Other gestures are included (see the +finger option). You can also use
your own pictures: see the warning-picture, rest-picture, and ready-
picture options.
Normally, xwrits works through annoyance -- it flashes until you stop
typing. However, an option makes it actively prevent you from typing by
locking the screen. See +lock below.
Xwrits notices when you leave your workstation idle, and treats a long
idle period as if you took a break. You can turn this off with the
-idle option. With the +mouse option, it will also monitor your mouse
movements -- you won’t be able to move the mouse during a break without
aborting the break.
Each wrist break normally lasts the same amount of time. This is what
doctors suggest, but, if you’d like, the +quota option will reward you
for taking small breaks by reducing the length of the next official
break.
Some doctors recommend taking a short ‘‘microbreak’’ every five
minutes, as well as a longer break every hour. To use xwrits this way,
just run two xwrits processes, one for the microbreaks and one for the
longer breaks.
ESCALATION
It is easy to put the warning window aside ‘‘for 5 minutes’’ and ignore
it for fifty. The after=delay option causes xwrits to escalate its
activity over time, making it harder to ignore.
Options following after come into effect after you have ignored the
warning window for delay. In other words, xwrits’s behavior escalates
after delay. For instance, with this command line,
xwrits flashtime=:2 after=10 flashtime=:.03
the warning window will begin flashing very quickly if it is ignored
for 10 minutes.
Any options preceding an after option also apply following it, unless
you explicitly cancel them. For example:
xwrits +finger after=10 -finger
Multiple after options create a series of escalations. Delay arguments
are cumulative, so ‘‘after=10 after=10’’ means the same as
‘‘after=20’’.
One interesting use for after is to make a break’s length depend on how
long you waited to take it. For example:
xwrits break=5 after=10 break=7
Here, a wrist break normally takes 5 minutes. However, if you ignore
the warning window for 10 minutes or more before taking a break, the
wrist break will last 7 minutes.
OPTIONS
All options may be abbreviated to their unique prefixes. Some may be
abbreviated further, in which case the smallest legal abbreviation is
shown in brackets. Options are processed from left to right.
Options listed as ‘‘+option (-option)’’ are toggles, which can be on or
off. A + turns the option on; - turns it off. Off is the default for
most toggle options, and only the on behavior is described. You can
leave off the + sign if you like: ‘‘xwrits +finger’’ and ‘‘xwrits
finger’’ are equivalent. Or you can say ‘‘-no-finger’’ instead of
‘‘-finger’’.
Many options take arguments. You can give these after an equal sign, as
in ‘‘xwrits breaktime=2’’. Non-optional arguments can also be given
separately, as in ‘‘xwrits breaktime 2’’.
Time arguments are expressed in minutes. For example, ‘‘2’’ is 2
minutes, ‘‘2.5’’ is 2 minutes 30 seconds. Use a colon to specify
seconds: ‘‘2:05.4’’ is 2 minutes 5.4 seconds, and ‘‘:5’’ is 5 seconds.
-display display
Specify the X display. Xwrits monitors this display for keystrokes
and mouse movements, and displays windows on it. You can
simultaneously monitor more than one display by giving this option
multiple times; for example, ‘‘xwrits display :0.0 display fun-
orgy:0.0’’.
+multiscreen (-multiscreen)
When this option is on, xwrits will open every available screen on
each specified display. Useful for multihead displays.
typetime=time [t]
Allow typing for time between breaks. Default is 55 minutes.
breaktime=time [b]
The amount of time a break lasts. Default is 5 minutes. This
option can be supplied multiple times; see ESCALATION above.
after=delay-time
See ESCALATION above.
bars-picture=file [bp=file]
Sets the background GIF image that appears while the screen is
locked. By default, this is an image of bars designed to work with
the usual lock-picture. If you specify your own lock-picture,
however, bars-picture defaults to a black screen. (Say ‘‘bars-
picture="&bars"’’ to keep the bars.) Animations are not
acceptable.
+beep (-beep)
Xwrits will beep when the break should begin and again when it is
over.
+breakclock (-breakclock) [bc]
A clock will appear in the resting window showing how many minutes
remain in the wrist break.
canceltime=time [ct]
Allow typing for time after a break is cancelled. You cancel a
break by deleting all xwrits windows with your window manager.
This time should probably be less than the regular type time.
Default is 10 minutes.
+cheat[=num] (-cheat)
Allows you to cheat during a break. You can type num keystrokes
before xwrits cancels the break. Default for num is 5. (If you’re
using +mouse, mouse movements also count as keystrokes.)
+clock (-clock) [c]
A clock will appear in the warning window showing how many minutes
you’ve put off the wrist break.
+finger (-finger) [f]
The warning window will be rude to you.
+finger=culture
The warning window will be rude to you, according to culture’s
idea of rudeness. Possible values for culture are ‘american’ (the
default), ‘korean’ (synonyms ‘japanese’ and ‘russian’), and
‘german’.
flashtime=time
The amount of time between flashes of the warning window. Default
is 2 seconds.
+flipoff (-flipoff)
Synonym for +finger.
+iconified (-iconified)
The warning window will initially appear as an icon.
+idle[=idletime] (-idle) [i]
If you leave your workstation idle for idletime or longer, xwrits
will behave as if you took a break. The default for idletime is
the break length (see breaktime above). idle is on by default.
+lock[=jump-time] (-lock)
Xwrits will lock your screen until your break is over. You can
prematurely disable the lock and get a normal warning window by
typing your password (see password below). The jump-time argument
specifies how fast the screensaver will move; default is 4
seconds. If the keyboard has been grabbed by another application
when the lock is attempted, the lock fails and a normal warning
window appears instead.
lock-picture=file [lp=file]
Sets the GIF image that appears while the screen is locked.
Animations are acceptable. See also bars-picture.
maxhands=num
No more than num warning windows will appear on your screen
simultaneously. Normally, there will be only one warning window,
but see +multiply below. Num cannot be less than 1, or more than
137. Default is 25.
minbreaktime=time
Sets the minimum break length to time. This option is meaningful
when +quota is on (see below); no matter how many short breaks you
take, the break length will not be shortened below time. It
defaults to half the break time or the quota time, whichever is
larger.
mono (-mono)
Xwrits will display its graphics in black and white. This may be
useful if you live in a world with a limited colormap.
+mouse[=sensitivity] (-mouse)
Xwrits will monitor your mouse movements. Every couple seconds, it
checks whether the mouse has moved. Movements of more than
sensitivity pixels in any direction are treated like key presses.
Default for sensitivity is 15 pixels.
+multiply[=breed-time] (-multiply) [m]
A new warning window will be created every breed-time. Default for
breed-time is 2.3 seconds.
+noiconify (-noiconify)
The warning window will not allow itself to be iconified.
password=password
The password you type to unlock a locked screen (see +lock above).
Xwrits does not protect this password from intruders. Therefore,
do not use your login password or any other password you must keep
secure. Default is ‘‘quit’’.
+quota[=time] (-quota)
If you leave your workstation idle for more than time, the idle
time is deducted from the length of your next break. This option
turns the break length into a break quota -- instead of resting
for breaktime consecutive minutes every typetime, you must rest
for a total of breaktime minutes per typetime. Default for time is
1 minute. See also minbreaktime.
ready-picture=file [okp=file]
Sets the image that appears when your break is over to an
arbitrary GIF. Animations are acceptable.
rest-picture=file [rp=file]
Sets the image that appears during your break to an arbitrary GIF.
Animations are acceptable.
title=text
Xwrits windows will have text for their title, instead of the
default ‘‘xwrits’’.
+top (-top)
The warning window will try to keep itself above all other windows
on the desktop. (Note: it can be fooled into staying only
partially visible.)
+verbose (-verbose)
Xwrits will print a lot of information about the windows on which
it is listening for keystrokes. This is mostly useful for
debugging.
version
Prints the version number and some quickie warranty information
and exits.
warning-picture=file [wp=file]
Sets the image that appears on the warning window to an arbitrary
GIF. Animations are acceptable.
EXAMPLES
Here is the way I run xwrits:
xwrits typetime=40 finger after 15 clock multiply=5:1.4
This looks pretty spectacular:
xwrits t=0 b=:2 f fla=:.5 m=:.31 max=100 -i
Whee!!
AUTHOR
Eddie Kohler, kohler@icir.org
http://www.icir.org/kohler/
http://www.lcdf.org/xwrits/
The xwrits home page (for distributions and so forth).
Idea for idle processing code from xautolock(1) by Stefan De Troch and
Michel Eyckmans
BUGS
Xwrits does not use the X resource database at all.
More options might be nice. So might more careful screen locking and
password protection. I would like to include rude finger gestures from
other cultures (see the GESTURES file in the distribution for gestures
I know about so far).
Please send any bugs, comments, or suggestions to me.
Yes the misspelling is intentional.
Yes it’s my left wrist.