ABOUT THIS PROGRAM

Meditation timer (v0.4.0) is a simple program to assist in the practice of mindfulness. The ascii terminal interface provides a meditation timer that plays chimes at the start and the end of the meditation session and, optionally, at regular intervals.

It has been tested under Linux with python3.6+.

FEATURES

• Set preparation and meditation periods durations
• Choose number of bells to play before and after the meditation period
• Add optional bells at intervals during meditation
• Use as a pomodoro timer! (see details in the Pomodoro section)

DEPENDENCIES

Meditation timer depends on:

• Python 3.6+
• pygame (pip install pygame)
• Linux (possibly works under MacOS)

INSTALLING

In Linux, you have two options in order to use Meditation-timer:

1) No installation

Simply put the program directory anywhere on your system. When you want to launch the program, open a terminal and move into the directory (using 'cd'). Make sure the file meditation_timer.py executable. In the console, type:

 chmod +x meditation_timer.py

Launch the program:

./meditation_timer.py -h

Alternatively, add the meditation-timer directory to your PATH variable, then launch with:

meditation_timer.py -h

2) Installing

You can install meditation-timer via the 'install.sh' script. This will install the Python program file ('meditation_timer.py') in the '/usr/local/bin' directory and the data in '/usr/share/meditation-timer/'. In order to install the program, you will need to have admnistrative rights on the computer you are using. To proceed with the installation, launch the installation script (use 'sudo' to gain administrative rights):

sudo make install

The program is now installed. If there is a previous installation of meditation_timer on your computer, run the following command to remove it before doing the install:

sudo make uninstall

USING THE PROGRAM

• Launch the program with the -h option to list available options. Open a terminal and lauch the following command:

meditation_timer.py -h

(Note: add './' before the command if the program was not installed)

You can also create a bash alias with your favorite settings. For example:

# No print, 5 minutes with 1 bell every minute
alias med='meditation_timer.py -n -p 5 -d 10 -i -I 1 >/dev/null'

Pomodoro

If you like the pomodoro system (15 minutes of work and 5 minute breaks), you can use the following alias:

alias pomodoro='while true; do meditation_timer.py -n -p 15 -d 3 -s 1 -e 2 >/dev/null; sleep 5m; done'

This will start a 15 minutes working session with one bell and then end it with two bells. The session will be followed by a 5 minute break an then loop again until you stop it with CTRL-C.

You can save this alias by adding it to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile file, prefixing the line with export , like this:

export alias pomodoro='while true; do meditation_timer.py -n -p 15 -d 3 -s 1 -e 2 >/dev/null; sleep 5m; done'

CONTACTING THE AUTHOR

You can send comments to the author at:

eric [dot] normandeau [dot] qc at gmail [dot] com