pomm.el

Yet another implementation of a pomodoro timer for Emacs.

This particular package features:

• Managing the timer with the excellent transient.el.
• Persistent state between Emacs sessions. The timer state isn’t reset if you close Emacs. Also, the state file can be synchronized between machines.
• History. I’ve implemented an option to store the timer history in a CSV file. Eventually, I want to join this with other activity data to see if the state of the timer changes how I use the computer.

None of the available alternatives were doing quite what I wanted, and the idea of the timer is quite simple, so I figured I’d implement one myself.

Installation

The package is available on MELPA. Install it however you usually install Emacs packages, e.g.

M-x package-install pomm

My preferred way is use-package with straight.el:

(use-package pomm
  :straight t
  :commands (pomm))

If you want sounds before the MELPA recipe got updated to include resources, use:

(use-package pomm
  :straight (:host github :repo "SqrtMinusOne/pomm.el" :files (:defaults "resources"))
  :commands (pomm))

Or you can clone the repository, add the package to the load-path and load it with require:

(require 'pomm)

The package requires Emacs 27.1 because the time API of the previous versions is kinda crazy and 27.1 has time-convert.

Usage

Run M-x pomm to open the transient buffer.

The listed commands are rather self-descriptive and match the Pomodoro ideology.

The timer can have 3 states:

• Stopped. Can be started with “s” or M-x pomm-start. A new iteration of the timer will be started.
• Paused. Can be continuted with “s” / M-x pomm-start or stopped competely with “S” / M-x pomm-stop.
• Running. Can be paused with “p” / M-x pomm-pause or stopped with “S” / M-x pomm-stop.

The state of the timer can be reset with “R” or M-x pomm-reset.

“u” updates the transient buffer. The update is manual because I didn’t figure out how to automate this, and I think this is not really necessary.

With “r” or M-x pomm-set-context you can set the current “context”, that is some description of the task you are currently working on. This description will show up in history and in the csv file. Also, M-x pomm-start-with-context will prompt for the context and then start the timer.

Customization

Some settings are available in the transient buffer, but you can customize the relevant variables to make them permanent. Check M-x customize-group pomm for more information.

Alerts

The package sends alerts via alert.el. The default style of alert is a plain message, but if you want an actual notification, set alert-default-style accordingly:

(setq alert-default-style 'libnotify)

Sounds

By default sounds are disabled. Set pomm-audio-enabled to t to toggle them.

This functionality needs pomm-audio-player-executable to be set so that the program could be invoked like: <executable> /path/to/sound.wav.

The package ships with some built-it sounds, which you can replace by customizing the pomm-audio-files variable.

Modeline

If you want the timer to display in the modeline, activate the pomm-mode-line-mode minor mode.

Polybar module

If you want to display the Pomodoro status in something like polybar, you can add the following lines to your config:

(add-hook 'pomm-on-tick-hook 'pomm-update-mode-line-string)
(add-hook 'pomm-on-status-changed-hook 'pomm-update-mode-line-string)

Create a script like this:

if ps -e | grep emacs >> /dev/null; then
    emacsclient --eval "(if (boundp 'pomm-current-mode-line-string) pomm-current-mode-line-string \"\") " | xargs echo -e
fi

And add a polybar module definition to your polybar config:

[module/pomm]
type = custom/script
exec = /home/pavel/bin/polybar/pomm.sh
interval = 1

State file location

The package stores the current state to a file by the path pomm-state-file-location, which is emacs.d/pomm by default. Set it to wherever you like.

History

If you set the pomm-csv-history-file variable, the package will write CSV with the usage history there. Just keep in mind that the parent directory has to exist.

The file has the following columns:

• timestamp
• status (stopped, paused or running, according to the usage section)
• kind (work, short-break, long-break or nil)
• iteration
• context

A new entry is written after a particular state of the timer comes into being.

To customize timestamp, set the pomm-csv-history-file-timestamp-format variable. For example, for traditional YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss:

(setq pomm-csv-history-file-timestamp-format "%F %T")

The format is the same as in format-time-string.

Alternatives

There is a number of packages with a similar purpose, here is a rough comparison of features:

Package	3rd party integrations	Control method (1)	Persistent history	Persistent state	Notifications
pomm.el	-	transient.el	CSV	+	alert.el
org-pomodoro	Org Mode!	via Org commands	via Org mode	-	alert.el + sounds
pomidor	-	self-cooked interactive buffer	custom delimited format?	+, but saving on-demand	alert.el + sounds
pomodoro.el	-	-	-	-	notifications.el + sounds
tomatinho	-	self-cooked interactive buffer	-	-	message + sounds
redtick	-	mode-line icon	+	-	sounds
gtk-pomodoro-indicator	GTK panel	CLI	-	-, but the program is independent from Emacs	GTK notifications

Be sure to check those out if this one doesn’t quite fit your workflow!

(1) Means of timer control with exception of Emacs interactive commands

P.S.

The package name is not an abbreviation. I just hope it doesn’t mean something horrible in some language I don’t know.

The sounds are made by Mike Koening under CC BY 3.0.