Hi,

Workrave is great. It helped me ease my RSI although being helpfully annoying. But I'd like to ask what Workrave counts as "activity"; only keyboard and mouse? If that's the case what about gamepads and countless hours played pushing its buttons? Does Workrave count it or shouldn't it count it too?...

Also what is the case with touchpads and tablets? I currently use mouse on my non-RSI left hand (I'm not a leftie) and tablet on my RSI right hand when the other feels tired/numb. Distributing the load helped me a lot. But since touchpad and tablet clicks are "less" damaging considering the "mouse-click" shouldn't Workrave also include looser time-break "profiles" for these HID-like devices?

One other thing to improve efficiency of Workrave is also to ask user what and how he/she used as input as well as what hands are subjected to RSI? Then Workrave can adjust itself more precisely to the user's needs. Take me as an example:

My left hand got RSI many years ago from 10-finger typing yet managed to recover as I'm not a leftie and use mainly my right hand. The right got RSI for last 2 years and I'm using the configuration I described above. I think what Workrave should do is this; be more cautious on my "right hand activities" and loosen up on my "left hand activities" which can be done my judgment and by asking questions about configuration prior to the user. Workrave can count right-hand activities as "doubled" considered to left hand like; my tablet activities and "right-hand-side" of the keyboard KEYSTROKES such as; YHNUJMIK<OL>P:?{"}| (characters which can only be produced normally by right-hand). By this way not only working efficiency but also strain-releasing efficiency will be doubled...

BTW the working principle of the Workrave is somewhat wrong/incomplete. The "most" important factor is "REPETITIVE KEYSTROKES /(PER) TIME" on the injured hand not only TIME. Since Workrave only considers time, it's a very abstract approach. In the same amount of default 3min time; a secretary can type around 120cpm, a 10-finger user can type 90cpm and a 2-4 finger typer can type 60cpm if he's not a hardcore chatter. By this we can say the DAMAGE of secretary will be TWICE the 2-4 fingered in the "same amount of time". So to be more precise Workrave should count "keystrokes/time" and decide on that rather than deciding only on time. But if keystrokes/time approach seems complicated, only counting keystrokes is more efficient than counting only the time; instead of 3min work allowance, 3x60cpm(lowest)=180 keystrokes allowed to do in pseudo-3min time worth keystrokes is more "accurate" IMHO. Combining this with the previous suggestion Workrave can count my left strokes as 1 and right strokes as 2 within 180 keystroke limit to be more effective. I admit the idea is rough at the moment but I think benefits are considerable for you to decide...

Lastly, I think you should let user to pre-set the "position" and "size" of the warnings. By this way the annoying pop-ups won't interfere as much as they do now. I wrote this because while taking Workrave time-break for 3min or 10min or so, I'd like to enjoy watching my DVB-S Channels on my PC "if" the countdown timers lets me to do so...

Thanks for this great program and I'll be happy to here your thoughts about the things I suggested even if they can be rejections with explanations...

Bye... ;-)