# The &rsibreak; Handbook

Tom
Albers

    tomalbers@kde.nl

Bram
Schoenmakers

    bramschoenmakers@kde.nl

2006
Tom Albers
2006
Bram Schoenmakers
&FDLNotice;
2010-10-03
0.11 (&kde; 4.5)

Repetitive Strain Injury is an illness which can occur as a result of continuous work with a mouse and keyboard. The risk of suffering injury increases the longer users work without breaks. &rsibreak; simply offers reminders to take a break now and then.

KDE
rsibreak
RSI
project

## Introduction

Repetitive Strain Injury can occur as a result of working with a mouse and keyboard. This utility can be used to remind you to take a break now and then. It displays a random picture from a collection at specified intervals for defined durations. You can configure the pictures to show and lengths of time to show them. You might use the breaks reminders to do some stretching exercises, for example, or as a reminder to walk away from the computer for a while.

Logo &rsibreak;
Logo &rsibreak;

&rsibreak; was originally written by Tom Albers. Early in the development Bram Schoenmakers joined the project

## Installing &rsibreak;

There are several ways to install &rsibreak;. If you are using a distribution like &SuSE;, Gentoo, &ubuntu;, &kubuntu; or Debian, then your distribution probably contains a version of &rsibreak;. We try to keep updated information on the website at the Download page.

For detailed, distribution-specific instructions, please refer to your distribution's manual. If you are not using a recently updated installation of a major distribution then the latest version of this program can be installed manually. Relevant information can be found on the Source Download page.

On that page there are also instructions for installation from Subversion. Use that version if you want the newest version possible (the 'bleeding edge' version). However, be aware that you can run into bugs which we do not yet know about, or that the source code may be impossible to compile, due to ongoing changes and enhancements to the code. The instructions for source download are provided on that page. If something is wrong, please feel free to change and improve it. You are invited and encouraged to do so.

Type `rsibreak` at a command prompt or select &rsibreak; from the Utilities group in the KDE start menu. The standard &Qt; and &kde; command options are available, and can be listed by entering ``rsibreak` `--help`` at the command line.

## Using &rsibreak;

The idea of &rsibreak; is to interrupt you in your work. The intention is to do that in a user-friendly manner. There will be times, though, that it will display itself when you are very busy. The configuration options in &rsibreak; are an effort to allow you to customize the interruptions. In that way we hope you will be able to improve your effectiveness at work while lessening your chances of injury.

After starting, you can see an icon in your tray and you will see a welcome pop up. Although the application should be useful with default settings, it may be wise to take control by examining the settings. To discover and to obtain an access to the options available, right click on the tray icon; in the context menu that appears, select Configure. The following chapters contain further configuration information.

&rsibreak; statistics
Left click on the tray icon to see statistics

When you left click on the tray icon you will see some statistics. If you configure &rsibreak; to break at fixed times your idle time will not be measured. In that case, some of the options in the statistics may not be very informative.

The upper left block shows general statistics: some totals and some information about idle time. The bottom left block shows something about your work pace. You will see the total amount of activity since you started the current log-in session. The amount of activity during some other intervals will also be shown. The Pause Score decreases every time you skip a break. The blocks to the right report on which short and long breaks have already passed. At present, the labels in the dialog can either be black or red and green. In the latter case a red statistic indicates a recommendation to relax and take a break, which will bring the color closer to green.

When you right-click the tray icon, the context menu will show an option to Suspend &rsibreak;. When you don't want to be interrupted, such as during a game or a presentation, you can use this to silence &rsibreak; You can resume &rsibreak; when you click right on the icon again and select Resume.

Suspended &rsibreak;
The tray icon when &rsibreak; is suspended

The last way to influence &rsibreak; is via &DBus;. There are &DBus; commands available to force breaks and to suspend and resume &rsibreak;. You can use these to suspend &rsibreak; automatically when you start a game or any other specified program. Execute `qdbus org.rsibreak.rsibreak /rsibreak` to see the possibilities.

## Break types

Most settings are straightforward. On the general page, there is an option to start up automatically at &kde; startup. You might wonder why that is because the session manager should take care of that. Some users may need to start &rsibreak; at startup while they are not using the session manager. Note that Gnome will ignore the setting.

There are two behavior options in &rsibreak;. There is an option to break at fixed intervals for fixed periods, and there is an option to reset the timers when &rsibreak; detects that you have been idle for the duration of a break.

&rsibreak; popup
The lock button enables you to lock your screen whenever you leave your computer

You may find the full-screen notice to take a break inconvenient at the time it appears. In this case, on the During Breaks page you can indicate that you want to use a popup; a small popup near the tray will appear asking you to take a break. If you choose to ignore that, the full-screen activity-block will appear anyway.

There are three options for the full screen break. It can show a Complete Black Effect (this is the default action), Show Plasma Dashboard or Show Slide Show of Images where a path may be set up to specify a folder on your hard disk which contains images. During a break, you will see a slideshow of those images.

## Duration/Interval of a break

&rsibreak; supports two different types of break: Tiny breaks and Big breaks. The usual way to use these is to take frequent tiny breaks, and occasional big breaks. For example, a break of 20 seconds every 20 minutes (the tiny break), and a longer break of 2 minutes every hour (the big break).

It is no use to set up intervals which are irritating. Those will, by definition, get on your nerves and you will be more likely to hit &Esc; – or any other key you have setup on the During Breaks page – to skip the break.

If you find that you are often skipping breaks, you could decide to disable the shortcut and hide the minimize button. Remember, you choose how strictly to follow the break sequence.

## Credits and License

&rsibreak; copyright 2005-2006 Tom Albers, Bram Schoenmakers

Documentation copyright 2006 Rob Moore, Tom Albers, Bram Schoenmakers

&underGPL; &underFDL;

&documentation.index;