
PyRoom — distraction free writing - chanux
http://pyroom.org/
======
Keyframe
I've been doing this with emacs for years now. I usually have emacs running
fullscreen on 4:3 monitor alongside my main monitor, or when I'm on laptop I
run it fullscreen also. Makes me, for some reason, more focused.

clean darkroom

<http://imgur.com/LloOY.png>

and with menu

<http://imgur.com/yTeUz.png>

~~~
starbuck_
Would you mind posting your config? I'm a bit of an emacs noob but I would
love to be able to do this.

~~~
Keyframe
well my .emacs is a lot of collected/revised cruft over the years. It's a mess
really, and I'm always putting away refactoring for some other time - since it
works for me. You'd also need all of the included dependencies and stuff (it's
windows specific, but could be made to work on other OS' also). So I might zip
up my .emacs with all of the dependencies files if you want me to.

~~~
starbuck_
I'd appreciate it if you did. I primarily use emacs on Windows, so that aspect
is not a problem, and I weeding through all of your cruft might be fun :)

~~~
Keyframe
<http://www.vga.hr/temp/home.zip> \- here is my home folder, just be sure to
set HOME var as an environment variable to that folder. There are also minor
install files in darkroom folder inside (you'll see). F12 toggles title bar,
F11 toggles fullscreen (a bit buggy, so sometimes you need to press it a few
times due to external program that sets it), F7 and F8 cycle back and forward
between emacs buffer and F6 toggles line numbers.

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zephyrfalcon
I'm still waiting for the app that makes other household members shut up...
now _that_ would be distraction-free writing. :-)

~~~
oscardelben
It's not an app, and it doesn't work for others, but for you: use noise-
canceling headphones.

~~~
pasbesoin
If you know of noise canceling headphones that are effective against the
irregular waveforms of human speech, I'd be most interested.

~~~
jrockway
In that case, you want something that actually blocks the sound, like these:

[http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-Portable-
Earphones-B...](http://www.amazon.com/Etymotic-Research-Portable-Earphones-
Black/dp/B000XPG2QI/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1267383351&sr=1-11)

35db of isolation. You basically can't hear anything, which is nice when you
need to work somewhere noisy, or want to listen to music on an airplane. It's
infinitely better than noise cancellation.

~~~
pasbesoin
Thank you. I recently spent $80 on another brand that uses foam tips. It had
the highest rating I could find amongst the choices at a specialty shop, at
IIRC 31 dB attenuation. I haven't been in a suitable work environment since
then, to try them out.

I'll probably give those a go, first, but if they do not suffice, these look
worth trying, and at about $120 are within my price range (as opposed th the
$300 plus that I've seen for some other items).

As you say, though, these work via passive blocking and not active
cancellation. Some time ago, I came across an explanation by an audio engineer
claiming that cancellation will never work fully with headphones. Even if the
processing is fast enough, he argued, the distances involved between the
speaker and eardrum just won't permit it. Perhaps this was in combination with
the inertia and therefore delay in the speaker elements; I no longer recall
fully.

When people state "wear canceling headphones", I've never yet seen the
statement backed up with a real / real world use case.

EDIT: I guess/imagine it might be more a matter of the location of the
microphone that drives the noise cancellation, than that of the speakers.
Although I do seem to recall also something about the limitations imposed by
pressure waves operating in such a small, confined space.

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betageek
Seems to be a open source clone of WriteRoom
(<http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom>) - pretty much identical

~~~
Khroma
The sad thing is that people are willing to pay for WriteRoom.

~~~
dirkstoop
Yes, don't you just hate it when people make a living creating software?
</sarcasm>

------
chanux
OMMWriter for Mac - <http://www.ommwriter.com>

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pgbovine
what about using vim with your terminal set to full-screen mode?

Edit: or in-terminal emacs ;) iTerm for Mac OS X has a nice full-screen mode

~~~
onewland
Honestly, I'd like to do this but have a margin on the sides but haven't
figured out how.

I would forever be your e-servant if you know how to do that. I'm sure I could
figure out some hack, but it's just something I'd rather not work on.

~~~
visitor4rmindia
Here you go:

    
    
        (defun fullscreen ()
          (interactive)
          (let (f w l r cb b)
            (setq cb (current-buffer))
            (setq b (switch-to-buffer "*NOSUCHBUFFER*")) ;Temp buffer otherwise
            (setq f (make-frame '((fullscreen . fullboth)))) ;settings don't take effect
            (select-frame-set-input-focus f)
            (setq w (frame-width f))
            (setq l (/ (- w 80) 2))
            (setq r (- w (+ l 80)))
            (seq-default left-margin-width l
                          right-margin-width r)
            (delete-other-frames f)             ;Only one main window
            (kill-buffer b) ;Kill temp buffer - now original buffer will get new margins
            (switch-to-buffer cb)))
        
        (defun fullscreen-off ()
          (interactive)
          (let (f cb b p)
            (setq cb (current-buffer))
            (setq b (switch-to-buffer "*NOSUCHBUFFER*")) ;Temp buffer
            (setq-default left-margin-width nil
                          right-margin-width nil)
            (kill-buffer b)
            (delete-other-frames (make-frame))
            (switch-to-buffer cb)))

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dkarl
AwesomeWM + emacs + turn off the other monitor.

Awesome helps because sometimes you really do need to switch to another
application (a terminal or browser) while writing. With Awesome you can switch
between applications without seeing anything else. Be sure to turn off the
Awesome status bar and the emacs menu bar for maximum immersion.

Also, it's nice to use a web browser like Conky that makes random browsing
less convenient.

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steadicat
Looks like it's targeted squarely at programmers, given the name ("Py*") and
the screenshot (green monospaced font on black).

Why? It's not a programming editor. And, judging by the other comments,
programmers don't want this, as they can get pretty much the same layout in
Emacs.

Change the name and start using a better font for prose and you've got
yourself a much larger and more suitable audience.

~~~
kidko
I used it quite successfully for Nanowrimo. The "Py" is probably because it's
written in Python.

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chadaustin
I use DarkRoom ( <http://they.misled.us/dark-room> ) on Windows, which is
going to be open source if enough people can harass the author. He simply
hasn't gotten around to releasing it yet:
<http://github.com/jjafuller/DarkRoomW>

~~~
jimmi
love it!

------
jrockway
C-x 1.

------
jimmi
i use this one <http://focused.googlecode.com/>

