In 2020 I’ve started a lot to work with python, so it was the time to create and release a python package in the wild.

Why

I wanted to learn how I can build a python package, how I can test it and release it to community under test package first then to official repository

Besides that I wanted to experiment with tkinter the standard Python interface to the Tcl/Tk GUI toolkit.

How

As first step I’ve started to look into Packaging Projects tutorial to build a generic minimal structure and understand how thigs work.

Then I’ve started to create a Makefile to group tasks that I can run multiple times like: building, install dev dependencies, testing, deploying to public repo, cleaning up afterwards.

Next step was to actual implement the code (details bellow)

What

The end solution will be an executable python package that will tell me when to take a break :), with the following features:

• I can execute it from command line
• I can configure after how many minutes/hours should I take the break
  • add a GUI just for fun - how this works
• The notification will be:
  • a random joke
  • a random image taken from unsplash that will be displayed in a full screen form
• when I press ESC the image will disappear
• the application will run in the background

The end results:

• clone the source code

$ git clone https://github.com/paulbrodner/take-a-break

• install it

$ pip install .

• run it

$ python -m take_a_break
No one has ever pair-programmed with Chuck Norris and lived to tell about it.

This is the full screen image that will show a random image It has also a joke displayed at the bottom and also some menus to access the settings dialog:

Here I can update the link to the url resource and also the reminder alert