Hi,

In the menu (right click either on the sheep icon in the tray, or on the applet, or on the workrave main window), there is an option "reading mode" that should do as you ask.

On a related note: Occasionally, we get requests like yours to add this new option, even though it already exists. Do you have any tips for us, how we could make this option more easy to find? Thanks!

Groetjes,

Kees-Jan

Hi fellow users and developers, Thank you for your efforts, Workrave is an outstanding, very useful application.

Enabling reading mode does work, however it disables one of the more powerful features of Workrave (in my opinion): activity monitoring.

Workrave is able to assess when I am actively using the computer (through input events) and to further fine-tune the sensitivity (through gsettings in Linux) as needed. I find this functionality very useful, as it can measure real work-time, e.g. 20 work-mins as compared to just 20 timer-minutes. This is the real beauty of Workrave, albeit a little hard to explain sometimes (I link to an old blog post of mine at the bottom)

Regarding this issue:
**I think keeping activity monitoring but disabling natural breaks can be very useful**

For example (use case with disabled natural breaks):

Say a person is working in the computer and then becomes idle (no input activity after 5 secs), workrave then *stops* the global activity-timer while the person is idle (and *does not* start any break-timers), but then as soon as the person starts working in the computer again (input event) the timers continue where they left off. Eventually the activity-timer aggregates up to 20 work-mins and the break prompt is triggered, the person then takes a *conscious* short break from work.

What you end up with is with an activity-timer that increments and triggers (conscious/prompted) breaks based only on active computer use: 

*I need to take a "conscious" short break after 20 work-mins*

With natural breaks I often find that when I turn to jot down an idea or to read a paper or to use my phone (for more than break time), the computer assumes I was taking a nice natural break when I was still working as usual. The end result is that I never take real conscious breaks from work. 

Overall, I find that disabling natural breaks (i.e. disabling break-timers when idle) but keeping activity monitoring might be a nice feature to have.

Thank you very much, please let me know if you think otherwise, or perhaps I have missed something in my reasoning?

_Here is the article I wrote in my blog sometime ago:_ https://camilotejeiro.github.io/2017/02/27/using-workrave-for-activity-breaks.html

(In reply to Camilo from comment #2)
Sorry just modified some confusing wording for the use case

~~~

Hi fellow users and developers, Thank you for your efforts, Workrave is an
outstanding, very useful application.

Enabling reading mode does work, however it disables one of the more
powerful features of Workrave (in my opinion): activity monitoring.

Workrave is able to assess when I am actively using the computer (through
input events) and to further fine-tune the sensitivity (through gsettings in
Linux) as needed. I find this functionality very useful, as it can measure
real work-time, e.g. 20 work-mins as compared to just 20 timer-minutes. This
is the real beauty of Workrave, albeit a little hard to explain sometimes (I
link to an old blog post of mine at the bottom)

Regarding this issue:
**I think keeping activity monitoring but disabling natural breaks can be
very useful**

For example (use case with disabled natural breaks):

Say a person is working in the computer and then becomes idle (no input
activity after 5 secs), workrave then *stops* the global activity-timer
while the person is idle (and *does not* start any break-timers), but then
as soon as the person starts working in the computer again (input event) the
activity-timer continues where it left off. Eventually the activity-timer
aggregates up to 20 work-mins and the break prompt is triggered, the person
then takes a *conscious* short break from work.

What you end up with is with an activity-timer that increments and triggers
(conscious/prompted) breaks based only on active computer use: 

*I need to take a "conscious" short break after 20 work-mins*

With natural breaks I often find that when I turn to jot down an idea or to
read a paper or to use my phone (for more than break time), the computer
assumes I was taking a nice natural break when I was still working as usual.
The end result is that I never take real conscious breaks from work. 

Overall, I find that disabling natural breaks (i.e. disabling break-timers
when idle) but keeping activity monitoring might be a nice feature to have.

Thank you very much, please let me know if you think otherwise, or perhaps I
have missed something in my reasoning?

_Here is the article I wrote in my blog sometime ago:_
https://camilotejeiro.github.io/2017/02/27/using-workrave-for-activity-breaks.html

~~~