Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of Free and Open Source Software
Krusader 2.5
It might be the 21st century, but developers are still working on the idea of what makes the perfect file manager. On the one hand, cloud storage has brought stateless file management, such as the kind you find in Google Drive. On the other hand, we're all still accumulating hundreds of files on our local machines. Neither are we happy to trust entirely on the perpetuity of the cloud and its ability to recall an ancient photo with just a couple of tags or search terms, nor are we happy to trust our own organizational skills with local storage. That's where file management comes in, and KDE is particularly well furnished. It's default file manager Dolphin is brilliant. It lets you create and search for metadata, quickly preview all kinds of file types, and split the view and out of the way. But Krusader, which after four years has finally made it to Plasma/KDE 5, is also a worthy alternative that will perhaps appeal to users who liked Konqueror.
On its first run, it will look for the tools it needs to do lots of clever things. KRename, for example, is used for intelligent multiple file renaming, and both KMail and Thunderbird are used for email access. Integration with GUI diff applications, including KDiff3 and Kompare, is good. Krusader is very good at not reinventing any wheels. The default view is a graphical equivalent to the command line and veritable Midnight Commander, and it's from this that Krusader takes most of its inspiration by using so many external tools. The view is split, mimicking the source/destination paradigm of the command line, along with quick access to the function buttons at the bottom of the view. When you get used to it, it's quick and powerful and I'm really happy to see developers still experimenting with files and modern frameworks.
Project Website
Breaks Reminder
Safe Eyes
Every time we visit the optician, we're asked how many hours a day we spend staring at a screen. Each time we want to tell the truth, but we don't want to quite admit to the extreme lengths of optical duress we put our eyes through. Rather like a 60-a-day smoker saying they only smoke a couple of packs, we usually only admit to staring at the screen for 12 hours or so. We don't like to think about the real number, whatever that might be, but there's one thing we do agree with the optician about – regardless of how much time you spend in front of a screen, it's imperative to have a break. Yet, this sad affliction and addiction that many of us suffer, where our lives aren't complete without the letters F and J beneath our forefingers, also inhibits our ability to remember to take them, which is why we all need some small tool to remind us.
Rather than being a tool that puts a couple of eyes on your desktop that follow your pointer movements around, Safe Eyes is a tool to remind you to take a break. When installed and running, it sits quietly in the background, counting the seconds you spend browsing YouTube before you need to take a rest. You can obviously change the interval between these breaks, the time to prepare for a break, and the duration of short and long breaks, and Safe Eyes will not only remind you but also prompt you to "Roll your eyes" or "Walk for a while." You can even disable the keyboard and the ability to cancel a break. It might sound a little patronizing, but that's exactly what we needed to break our Reddit reverie and get up for a few moments, and our eyes felt all the better for it.
Project Website
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