An addition MODE that allows suspending of breaks for X number of minutes, this way suspension could be enabled and it would automatically re-enable itself.  Very helpful for forgetful people.

Preferably the amount of time could be set in the settings, with a default time of 10 or 15 mins.

I've been giving some thought as to how/when I'd like this feature to work.

Usually, when an IT guy arrives at my desk and a prelude window appears, I ask them if I could please disable workrave for them. In 99% of the cases, I manage to grab the mouse and disable workrave before the break starts. In the 1% of the cases where I do not manage, usually, the IT guy is too stubborn to comply. In the end, he usually ends up being impressed at how you really cannot skip breaks :-)

Still, IT guys tend to hang around really briefly, so I manage to remember to re-enable workrave. Especially since the sheep icon in the system tray changes to remind me (not so on linux though, see bug 717)

For me, problems arise when someone wants to use my computer for a longer time. In these cases, a reminder might be useful. I just have a little difficulty defining how long "a longer time" exactly is. It might be as little as 10 or 15 minutes, it might also be that my colleague wants to keep using my computer for the remainder of the day after I went home.

I would not be very much in favor of silently re-enabling workrave after some timeout expires. Otherwise, an unsuspecting user might still be confronted with an unexpected prelude window, although sometime later than currently is the case. Instead, I'd propose to show a popup asking the user if he wants to keep working with workrave disabled, or if he wants to re-enable it. If he chooses to  keep working with wr disabled, he should be reminded again after some time. (This is beginning to sound like requesting one additional break timer ;-)

Anyway. The one thing I cannot figure out is how long to disable workrave by default. An arbitrary value like 10 or 15 minutes will work in some cases, but not all. Putting up a dialog box "Please select for how long you want workrave to be disabled" seems overkill.

The cleanest solution I can come up with is to show a popup "Do you want to enable workrave now" on each startup, as well as when the daily limit is reset. This at least, will keep you from working without workrave for several days. For shorter periods, maybe it is best to rely on your memory and the visual clues you are given (after bug 717 gets fixed).

Any thoughts?

An additional popup asking how long would be silly, what I was thinking about was a textbox in the settings that pre-determines how long X is.

>> maybe it is best to rely on your memory and the visual clues you are given

I guess this is my dilemma, I'm an avid hider of system tray icons (WR is one of them) and the very reason I proposed this is because of memory, or lack there of.   I've gone hours before I notice WR is still in suspended mode.

I could point out, AntiVirus software often have a suspend feature, that silently re-enables itself after 5 or 10mins.  One could claim WR is as important for the wrists as AV is important for your OS protection.

I'm not requesting altering the existing suspend mode, but merely having an additional suspend mode.

Something just struck me.

Currently, Windows treats the regular workrave sheep icon as the same icon as the "quiet" or "suspended" icons.

If we could convince windows that these are different icons (maybe you have to register three independent system tray items??), then, you could choose to hide only the regular sheep, but show the "quiet" and "suspended" sheeps.

I'm not sure this is at all feasible, but I just wanted to record the idea.

While this does make a simple fix for my scenario, I don't know if fooling windows into thinking the same .EXE launches a replacement icon that's recognized is a good idea (I'm speaking as a developer and as a fan of the OldNewThing blog).  What I mean to say is this is starting to sound more like a "hack that gets the job done rather than an elegant solution".

Although it's easy to say that when I'm not the one doing the work.  I don't really have anything more to say on the issue, so I'll leave it into your hands if this issue is relevant enough to become a feature, and how that feature is implemented.

Thanks for all the great work so far.

Any news on this issue?

Ugh, I wanted to fill a new feature request, but this one is similar to my problem: sometimes I have to do things NOW while on call or my boss is standing behind me, etc. I have to suspend workrave and then I forget to turn it on. And that means serious pain at the evening a day or two later!

It would be great to have a simple re-enabling feature, a checkbox in options: "Re-enable workrave from suspended mode" and an input field for the delay.

I came here to add this as a feature request but I see others have already requested it.

I'd like to see a similar implementation to the Crashplan solution. Crashplan is a continual backup tool that can swallow up your bandwidth. If you are about to do something bandwidth-intensive, you can set Crashplan to "sleep". But when you do so, you are prompted to select (from a dropdown list) the duration of the "sleep" period (the window asks "How long would you like to sleep?" and offers 5 preconfigured options).

It seems to me this would be the perfect model for Workrave.

+1 for this request.

Some scenarios I close, suspend, or quiet workrave, and forget to revive it are:

- Teaching. I am an instructor that use my laptop in class.
- Sometimes I watch a movie on my PC, during which I close workrave...
- Sometimes I work with others.

The workrave system tray icon does not catch my attention even if it is there with the suspended mode.

WorkRave users absolutely need something like this, especially for those cases when someone else uses the computer. 

If you use F.lux to change the color temperature of your screen at night, you probably have used its great "disable for one hour" option when watching movies or doing photo editing. For tools that are meant to be forgotten most of the time, like F.lux and WorkRave, it's an invaluable design feature to allow for forgetfulness. 

In fact, I suggest that by default the "suspended mode" option should be time limited. If the use case is so that when someone else is temporarily borrowing the computer, it will not be logged, it doesn't make sense to not re-enable automatically.

Most people would be happy if the "suspended mode" timed out after an hour and then popped up a dialog saying, "WorkRave has be re-enabled. Click here to suspend it again for another hour."

Hello, all,

I work as a software consultant and often have client meetings where I suspend WR for a presentation or collaboration.  Unfortunately, I often forget to turn WR back on afterwards, which has historically resulted in injury.

I have a few free days this week and would love to contribute this improvement if I could get it done by the end of this week.  Someone has suggested a configuration option such that WR is only suspended for the time specified and then returns to Normal mode.  Another person recommended popups after the same  amount of time that suggests to turn Normal mode back on.  I am happy to implement either feature but am partial to the first option as it's more "failsafe", if you will.

Since I am new to the codebase, I would appreciate some guidance before I implement a fix, specifically around which dialog this configuration option should reside in.  From a glance at the code base, there doesn't appear that  any automated tests need to be implemented before a fix is pushed up.  Are there any other assets that need to be provided around a fix before a push request is made?

Thank you,

Old Hamlet

(In reply to oldhamlet from comment #10)
> Hello, all,
> 
> I work as a software consultant and often have client meetings where I
> suspend WR for a presentation or collaboration.  Unfortunately, I often
> forget to turn WR back on afterwards, which has historically resulted in
> injury.
> 
> I have a few free days this week and would love to contribute this
> improvement if I could get it done by the end of this week.  Someone has
> suggested a configuration option such that WR is only suspended for the time
> specified and then returns to Normal mode.  Another person recommended
> popups after the same  amount of time that suggests to turn Normal mode back
> on.  I am happy to implement either feature but am partial to the first
> option as it's more "failsafe", if you will.
> 
> Since I am new to the codebase, I would appreciate some guidance before I
> implement a fix, specifically around which dialog this configuration option
> should reside in.  From a glance at the code base, there doesn't appear that
> any automated tests need to be implemented before a fix is pushed up.  Are
> there any other assets that need to be provided around a fix before a push
> request is made?

I really like the simplicity of RedShift, it just have a "suspend for" menu item in the context menu with a submenu with 30 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. For me that's more than enough.

See http://i.imgur.com/IfCRf5b.png for an example.

Although in WR it would be nice to have the timeout submenu for both "suspend" and "quiet" modes. You could just make it always a submenu and add an extra option: Always, for 30 minutes, for 1 hour and for 2 hours.