Motivation

A few weeks ago a great project appeared on Reddit and other platforms: mpris-timer

A simple timer which uses the MPRIS interface to display a timer as a notification. I really liked the idea and wanted to create a similar application which uses the dunst notification system, because different window managers and desktop environments use different styles of a bar so maybe a media-styled notification would not fit in every environment.

Features & Usage

Emojis are supported too 😍

And if you don't want to be stressed by the remaining time you can disable the percentage

Need more color in your life?

(see Configuration how this is done)

---

python dunst-timer.py -d 10m -t "A 10 minute timer 💼 "

or if the application is installed

dunst-timer -d 10m

The timer is blocking, so you can't use the terminal until the timer is finished. If you want to run the timer in the background you can use the & operator

dunst-timer -d 10m &

Full Spec

Usage: dunst-timer [-t TITLE] -d DURATION [-p]
Run a timer with notifications.
  -t, --title       Title of the timer (default: 'Timer')
  -d, --duration    Duration of the timer (e.g., '1h5m8s' or 'HH:MM:SS')
  -p, --percentage  Print the percentage of the timer
  -h, --help        Print this help message

Installation & Configuration

Arch User Repository

The application is available in the AUR as dunst-timer

yay -S dunst-timer

Manual Installation

On any other system you can install the application by cloning the repository and copying the script to /usr/bin (or any other directory in your $PATH)

    git clone https://github.com/bitSheriff/dunst-timer.git
    cd dunst-timer
    cp dunst-timer.py /usr/bin/dunst-timer
    chmod +x /usr/bin/dunst-timer

Configuration

The script uses the dunst notification system, so it will use the default settings of dunst. If you want to change the settings you can do this in the dunstrc file. The default location is ~/.config/dunst/dunstrc.

To enable the progress bar, use these (or similar) settings:

    # Window Confiration
    width = 300
    height = 100
    offset = +5x+10
    origin = top-right

    # Turn on the progess bar
    progress_bar = true

    # Set the progress bar height. This includes the frame, so make sure
    # it's at least twice as big as the frame width.
    progress_bar_height = 10

    # Set the frame width of the progress bar
    progress_bar_frame_width = 1

    # Set the minimum width for the progress bar
    progress_bar_min_width = 150

    # Set the maximum width for the progress bar
    progress_bar_max_width = 300

Change the color of the timer:

    [dunst-timer]
    appname = Dunst Timer
    urgency = normal
    frame_color = "#2b18e1"

For more information about the configuration of dunst see the dunst documentation