My GSOC 2013 project: a new break timer application for GNOME

A little while ago, my proposal was accepted for Google Summer of Code 2013. So, this summer I will be working with Jasper St. Pierre and the GNOME project on a shiny new break timer application. We’re going to spend some time filling out the wiki page for the new break timer design, and from mid-June to mid-September I will try to implement it as well as I can.

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GNOME Break Timer: Week 2

I’m starting the third week of coding on my GSoC 2013 project, a new break timer application for GNOME. I spent the last two weeks working on an odd mix of little things. For the most part, my goal over that time was to make the gnome-break-timer project (previously brainbreak, still brainbreak in most places) nicer to work with. I’m a bit of a sucker for clean code, and, well…

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GNOME Break Timer: Week 4

My work is coming along nicely with the new break timer application for GNOME. I started off week three working on some extra pieces for the break monitor component. I disabled its big “take a break” overlay, and I added some new functionality: the screen locks automatically during a long break, there’s a new “break interrupted” notification that appears at just the right moment (like when you unlock the screen), and there are some helpful sounds when breaks start and stop.

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GNOME Break Timer: Week 6

It’s time to talk about my GSoC project again, where I’m making a new break timer app for GNOME. First, thank you, dear readers, for your feedback and support so far! It really helps to know other people are interested in this.

The last two weeks have been about tying up loose ends so I don’t get bogged down later on. First, I removed all traces of the old working title. This application is called GNOME Break Timer, now, instead of having several different names (and things that looked like names) strewn about. It probably only bothered me, but I’m really glad to have some logic on that front.

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GNOME Break Timer: Week 8

Seriously regretting my boring choice of titles for these blog posts, but it’s too late to change it now.

Why, hello there! The last two weeks haven’t been the brilliantest for my work on GNOME Break Timer – partly because all my other unrelated projects, which I’ve been mostly ignoring in favour of Break Timer, have suddenly flared up and demanded attention – but I still got some nice stuff done. And I passed my statistics course and almost finished a cool charity website. (More on that soon, I hope?).

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