Sometimes you need to switch off
The internet is wonderful but also wonderfully addictive. Be it social media, or the new mass remote working situation that many of us find ourselves in (causing office hours to bleed into family time), it can be very hard to step away. Sometimes you are so engrossed in the web, that when a colleague or loved one drops by and asks you a question, you simply cannot take your eyes away from the screen.
We decided to try and help with such situations and have added a new break feature. When triggered via a pause button in the status bar (or you can use quick commands and even map a keyboard shortcut), all tabs, panels and other content is hidden. All sounds are muted. This stops you (and also those of others around you) from being drawn to the contents of your screen, so that you can interact with others “in real life”, without distractions. Better yet it will even pause all HTML5 audio and videos. Now you can chat with your colleague or loved ones, get up and take a walk, or maybe have a coffee!
When you have finished your break, un-pause and everything becomes visible again, plus audios and videos restart. If you like you can even remap one of your F keys (e.g. F1 is assigned to help but is not regularly used by most people) and you can have a single key to pause/un-pause. Side note, it can then also work as an old school “Boss Key”!
Known issues
- [Break Mode] Audio/Video is only paused in the foreground window
- [Break Mode] Pop-out video (PiP) windows are not hidden
- [Break Mode] Videos in panels are not un-paused after a break ends
Download (2020.3)
- Windows: 64-bit for Win7+ | 32-bit for Win7+
- macOS: 10.10+
- Linux: DEB 64-bit (Recommended)| DEB 32-bit
- Linux: RPM 64-bit (Recommended)| RPM 32-bit
- Linux: DEB ARM32-bit (Unsupported)| DEB ARM64-bit (Unsupported)
- Linux: non-DEB/RPM [help]
Changelog
- [New][Break Mode] Add the pause/break feature (VB-70213)
- [New][Speed Dial] Add the ability to drag entries into a folder (VB-18719)
- [Address bar] Lowlight the subdomain in the URL field to better focus the parent dowmain (VB-69234)
- [Chromium] Upgraded to 85.0.4183.80
- [Crash] Opening a link on a local website asking for a permission (VB-70680)
- [Crash][macOS] When scrolling preferences with a touch pad (VB-70626)
- [Notes manager] Edit area can be shrunk below the window bottom (VB-69940)
- [Panels] Improve resizing and panel animations (VB-70972)
- [Quick Commands][Notes] Notes aren’t opening if Notes Panel is disabled (VB-70397)
- [Regression][Bookmarks] Folder icons are still white on the bar (VB-70734)
- [Themes][History] Poor color selection used on graphs with Blueprint (VB-69011)
- [Windows][Installer][Regression] does not update when a custom install path with non-standalone installs (VB-70512)
Main photo by Daria Nepriakhina
