Safe Eyes

Protect your eyes from eye strain using this continuous breaks reminder. A Free and Open Source Linux alternative for EyeLeo.

Read more about Safe Eyes on WEB UPD8:

1. SafeEyes Protects You From Eye Strain When Working On The Computer
2. Computer Eye Strain Prevention App 'Safe Eyes' Sees New Release

INSTALLATION

Ubuntu:

1: Add the PPA: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:slgobinath/safeeyes

2: Download the package list: sudo apt update

3: Install Safe Eyes: sudo apt install safeeyes

4: Start Safe Eyes from start menu.

Arch:

Install SafeEyes via AUR. Credits to Yamakaky

Other Linux:

1: Install the dependencies:

• Arch: hicolor-icon-theme, libappindicator-gtk3, xorg-xprop, python2-xlib, python2-gobject, python2-dbus, python2-babel, xprintidle and mpg123

• Debian: gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1, python-xlib, python-gobject, python-gi, python-dbus, gir1.2-notify-0.7, python-gtk2, python-babel, xprintidle and mpg123

• Fedora 24: libappindicator-gtk3, python-xlib, python-gobject, xorg-x11-utils, python-dbus, python-babel, xprintidle and mpg123

2: Download and extract safeeyes.tar.gz into /: sudo tar -xzvf safeeyes.tar.gz -C /

4: Start Safe Eyes using this command: /opt/safeeyes/safeeyes

Once started, Safe Eyes will copy the desktop file to ~/.config/autostart and the configurations to ~/.config/safeeyes. Therefore, from next time onwards, it should start with the system.

UNINSTALLING SAFE EYES

Use the following commands to uninstall SafeEyes from your system.

sudo apt remove safeeyes
rm -r ~/.config/safeeyes
rm ~/.config/autostart/safeeyes.desktop

FEATURES

General Features:

• Short breaks with eye exercises
• Long breaks to change physical position and to warm up
• Disable the keyboard during break
• Notifications before every break
• Do not disturb when working with fullscreen applications( Eg: Watching movies)
• Smart pause and resume based on system idle time
• Multi-monitor support
• Elegant and customizable design
• Multi-language support
• Highly customizable

Optional Features:

• Strict break for those who are addicted to computer
• Skip or take break based on active windows (Regardless of fullscreen-mode)
• Customize individual break time
• Audible alert at the end of break
• Turn on/off audible alert for individual breaks
• Customize disable time period

CONFIGURING SAFE EYES

Just install and forget; Safe Eyes will take care of your eyes. To customize the basic preferences, go to Settings from Safe Eyes tray icon. If you need advanced features, you can manually edit the ~/.config/safeeyes/safeeyes.json for the following requirements:

Override individual break time

Add the optional time property to the desired break with the required time parameter. The time unit is seconds. For example, to extend the break time of short_break_close_eyes to 30 seconds and the long_break_walk to 5 minutes (300 seconds), modify the configuration file as given below.

...
"short_breaks": [
    {
        "name": "short_break_close_eyes",
        "time": 30
    },
    {
        "name": "short_break_roll_eyes"
    },
    ...
],
...
"long_breaks": [
    {
        "name": "long_break_walk",
        "time": 300
    },
    {
        "name": "long_break_lean_back"
    }
]
...

Override audible alert after each break

Add the optional audible_alert property to the desired break with the required true/false parameter. For example, to disable audible alert for all breaks except the short_break_close_eyes, modify the configuration file as given below.

...
"audible_alert": false,
...
"short_breaks": [
    {
        "name": "short_break_close_eyes",
        "audible_alert": true
    },
    {
        "name": "short_break_roll_eyes"
    },
    ...
]
...

Customize disable time period

The default disable dor a given time options provide 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours and 3 hours only. If you want to customize them or if you want to add/remove time based disable option, you can configure them in the safeeyes.json file. To add an additional Disable for 45 minutes, modify the configuration as shown below.

...
"disable_options": [
    {
        "label": "for_x_minutes",
        "time": 30,
        "unit": "minute"
    },
    {
        "label": "for_x_minutes",
        "time": 45,
        "unit": "minute"
    },
    {
        "label": "for_x_hour",
        "time": 1,
        "unit": "hour"
    }
    ...
]
...

NOTE: The unit can be one of these case-insensitive constants: second, seconds, minute, minutes, hour, hours

Skip or Take breaks based on the active window regardless of the full-screen mode

By default, Safe Eyes does not show the break screen if the current window is in fullscreen mode. However, you can override this feature by specifying the window-class of your interested applications.

For example, to take the break if your current window is Google Chrome regardless of the fullscreen mode, add google-chrome to take_break as given below:

...
"active_window_class": {
    "skip_break": [],
    "take_break": ["google-chrome"]
},
...

Similarly, you can skip the break even if your current application is in normal window state. For example, if you do not want to take a break while VLC player is in focus, add vlc to skip_break as shown here:

...
"active_window_class": {
    "skip_break": ["vlc"],
    "take_break": ["google-chrome"]
},
...

NOTE: The names vlc and google-chrome are not the application names but their window classes. Inorder to get the window class of an application, enter the following command in your terminal and click on the desired application. In the printed WM_CLASS, choose the second one.

xprop WM_CLASS

Some more sample window class names:

• Mozilla Firefox: firefox
• Sublime Text: sublime_text
• Gnome Terminal: gnome-terminal
• LibreOffice Writer: libreoffice-writer

Change the look and feel of the break screen

You can change the look and feel of the break screen in ~/.config/safeeyes/style/safeeyes_style.css.

CONTRIBUTING

Are you a developer?

1. Fork it!
2. Create your feature branch: git checkout -b my-new-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -am 'Add some feature'
4. Push to the branch: git push origin my-new-feature
5. Submit a pull request

Are you using a different Linux system?

Please test Safe Eyes and create installers for your operating system

Found a bug?

Please report them here

Can you translate English to your mother tongue (or whatever the language)?

Show your support by translating Safe Eyes to a new language or by improving the existing translations.

How else can you show your support?

• Vote for Safe Eyes in alternativeto.net.
• Suggest any improvements.
• Share with your friends.

TRANSLATING SAFE EYES

From version 1.1.0, Safe Eyes supports translation. Translation files for each langauges must be placed in /opt/safeeyes/config/lang directory. The language file name must follow ISO 639-1 language code standard. For example, the language file of English must be en.json. Follow these steps to translate Safe Eyes to your language.

1. Copy /opt/safeeyes/config/lang/en.json to /opt/safeeyes/config/lang/<iso-639-1-language-code>.json (Please compare the en.json with the online version before sending PR, because there can be new changes made to the language files)

2. Provide language_name in the language itself and language_name_en in English.

3. Translate other property values to the selected language.

4. Translate the comment in safeeyes.desktop file.

Note 1: The {} used in property values will be replaced by runtime variables related to those commands. For example the {} in Next break at {} will be replaced by time at the runtime.

Note 2: Use Unicode when translating Safe Eyes.

Note 3: To change the language of Safe Eyes, select the language name from the combo-box in the Settings dialog.

For more details, have a look at existing language files: lang

Currently available translations

• Čeština
• Deutsch
• English
• Español
• Français
• Magyar
• Português
• Русский
• Slovenský
• தமிழ்
• Türkçe

TESTED ENVIRONMENTS

Core functionalities of Safe Eyes are tested by the developer in the follwing environments:

• Ubuntu 14.04
• Ubuntu 16.04
• Ubuntu 16.10
• Linux Mint 18
• Ubuntu Mate 16.04
• Kubuntu 16.10

LICENSE

GNU General Public License v3