Hi Matt,

Thanks for this really cool tool. I was wanting to give it a try, but both the windows app store application as the installer I downloaded give an error. I've attached a screenshot. Upon clicking continue the error message just reappears.
Thanks again for investing your time into this application and sharing it with us! https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Hi Jozef,

I just released a new version (v3) that addresses this issue! Thank you for feeding back

All the best,
Matt

Thanks Matt,

It's working perfectly now!

There is a .Net Framework error on the latest version. It says "converstion of the link "0.5" to "Single" type isn't valid. And it's pops up everytime we launch the app. Very annoying. I love this app and I hope the bug will be solved

Hi Mimi,

I believe you must have a french/german/spanish regional format on your machine. I've rolled out 2.9.2 to address this.

All the best,
Matt

Thank's!

The default install location for Big Stretch Reminder’s program folder is in the Start Menu folder rather than in the Program Files folder, at least when using bsrp_setup.exe (I didn't try bsrp_setup.msi). When I changed the install location to the Program Files folder during setup, installation failed, stating that access was denied to the Program Files folder. I aborted the failed setup and tried again, this time running bsrp_setup.exe as Administrator, and was able to change the install location and successfully install Big Stretch Reminder to the Program Files folder. I imagine that the program will run okay no matter where it’s installed, but I prefer to use Program Files or Program Files (x86), as the case may be, for non-portable installations … unless, of course, there’s a compelling reason not to.

Otherwise, Big Stretch Reminder (v2.9.1) has been working well for me. I was happy/relieved to find a simple reminder program that is reasonably small and lightweight, as several programs I looked at were >100 MB, and one was well over 400 MB—I have a hard time trusting a reminder program that’s almost as big as Microsoft Office. I’ve been using the Windows Task Scheduler as a makeshift reminder program, having it launch a “Take a break …” .txt file via Notepad every 30 minutes, but I decided to try something a bit more sophisticated … Big Stretch Reminder as it turns out. So far, so good. Thanks.

Hi JR,

Yes the privilege's required for the installer are the lowest possible allowing people to install and use Big Stretch without Admin rights. Moving the install location would require an elevation but I'm glad you got it sorted.

All the best,
Matt

Nice app! Wondering if it would be possible to either add a setting for the default postpose time, or persist the postpone time that the user selects between machine reboots?

This has been rolled out Ryan,

all the best,
Matt

Works great. Thanks!

Hi Ryan,
Sure I'll do a little update soon.
All the best,
Matt

This app is still awesome

Hello, great simple app! Would it be possible to add a setting to not focus the skip button? It often pops up when I'm typing and gets immediately cancelled, thank you for consideration!

Hi Jiri,

The micro-break behavior has been tweaked, we no longer give focus to the skip button and the "esc" key will now postpone the break. Please update to the latest version and let me know how you get on!

all the best,
Matt

Thank you for the program, I'm using it to take 20 second breaks every 20 minutes to prevent eye strain. One thing I've found is I can accidentally dismiss it if I hit ESC or Enter when it is up (which is easily possible when typing), or my reflex is to get rid of it when I'm in the middle of a thought. I was wondering if you could add an option for ESC to map to postpone instead of skip? Likewise make the default selection postpone rather than skip, so Enter will not skip by default. Skip would still be an option, but I'd have to move the mouse or use the cursor keys first, which makes it more of a conscious action. Thank you again for all your hard work!

Edit: forgot to say this is using the Mirco-break option to count down the 20 seconds. Plus I enable the disable desktop with intrusive reminders to grey-out my screen (nice feature! forces me to notice it!).

Hi MonkeyFish,

The micro-break behavior has been tweaked, we no longer give focus to anything on the microbreak and force the user to pay attention to the microbreak!

Additionally, the "esc" key will now postpone the break.

all the best,
Matt

Thank you!

Thank you for this lightweight and useful app. I am able to use it on my work laptop easily.

Finally I found a great break time app. Thank you ❤️

Kinda wild how great this program is. I'm using this app to enforce the 20:20 rule for eyes and it's such a breeze to use, and I don't have to touch it ever again after setting it up once and the fact that it auto starts on startup is really cool! Wish there was a way to have more than one timer running at the same time so I could also do some productivity things as well, but that could also just be a pomodoro app on the side so no worries.

Thank you very much Matt for this elegant program; I find it very useful. Not sure if I must minimise or close for the program to run in the background. Also, I do use windows “sleep” and am not sure if the timer resumes on its own. Thank you again.

Hi Christopher,

Minimizing or closing the settings window will have the same effect, Big stretch will still be running in your taskbar.

There is an option under the 'advanced' tab which will 'reset timer when resume from idle' which monitors time not using the computer regardless of whether you have sleep mode on your machine. If 5 minutes passes and you havent interacted with your computer, with this option selected, the timer will reset.

All the best,
Matt

Amazing program from every aspect! Is it possible to set the Big Stretch volume at a level independently of the overall system volume of Windows? I tried System > Sound > Volume Mixer but it does not seem to work.

Bee,

I know its been a while but with the latest version (2.8) I have added volume control for sounds.

All the best,
Matt

Is there a way to not have the notification pop up while playing a video game only? I suppose I could write a batch file to close Big Stretch, then start a game, then when I close the game then run Big Stretch again but is there an easier way?
Thanks for the great program.

Hi Gary,

Under the advanced tab try the setting "Disable when in full screen mode". The app will try to detect if you are playing a game in full screen mode and suppress reminders.

All the best
Matt

I was thinking more of differentiating between games and movies, so no reminders while gaming but allow reminders while watching movies and video. I can pin the program to the taskbar and manually close it when starting a game, I was just wondering if there's another way.

Silly me, I forgot to mention that I like full screen mode reminders everywhere else other than games such as while watching full screen video and would like to be able to disable them only in games.

Pick the level of intrusiveness (depending on strictness)

What does it actually do and how to adjust it?

Hi Przemo,

There are different types of notifications, some are subtle, some block what you are doing on your computer, different styles for different needs.

All the best,
Matt

Hey bro I'd like make a dark mode for the app and maybe a better UI. Would you want me to do that?

Hey its really gonna do wonders for me, thank you for making this.
I find the customizable message and notification sound really useful and kinda hilarious, but the notification itself looks a bit out of place, would there be any way to customize the way it looks to make it look similar to other windows notifications?

Hi Matt,

I get reminders when I am screen sharing in Microsoft Teams. I was wondering if there was a way to add "Skip reminders when screen sharing"?

Thanks,

Alex

Hi Alex,

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way of detecting screen sharing, not in a clean way anyway.

Best I can do is suggest you pause reminders manually by right clicking the icon in the tray.

All the best,
Matt

Love this software, perfect for my purposes. Except for one thing. I'd really like micro-break to have the notification abilities that the normal break has. I use this for Pomodoros, so I need 25 minutes and 5 minutes both to have intrusive reminders. I regularly miss the sound that plays at the end of microbreaks, so I do need an actual notification.

Hi,

Not sure this could be implemented without adding more advanced features and over complicating things is always a concern. My only suggestions would be to use the "postpone" option when taking a microbreak? this would give you another break in 5 mins but would mean hitting postpone before the first microbreak completes.

all the best,
Matt

This is going to do wonders for my carpal tunnel, thank you!! One wishlist item, though perhaps a bit silly :) The option to add custom messages is great, but how about adding the option to paste in a photo? I love the idea of having a picture of my cat doing a big ol' stretch pop up every time I need to take a stretch break.

Hi there,

Thank you for your suggestion and for using the app.

All the best,
Matt

Hi Matt,
I found the reminder yesterday and it is amazing! I set it off overnight, but cannot get it to start workigg again :(
I have uninstalled and reinstalled, restarted my laptop. I appears in the toolbar below and in the tray. But won;t restart.
Have you any idea what I might be doing wrong? Thanks

Hi,

Not sure if you resolved this issue, did you try launching the app from the desktop icon?

All the best,
Matt

love this program--simple, easy to use, all the features I need and not complicated by ones I don't. My physiotherapist/massage therapist/yoga instructor/body/I thank you!!

Hi Jules,

Glad the app is of help to you.

All the best,
Matt

Hello, just butting to recommend a "saved presets" feature. Maybe be able to save the current settings and making another for maybe off work and one for work?

Hi Alvin,

For now the app will remain as a single reminder. The main reason for this is that adding schedules and multiple reminder types would obviously add more features and ultimately make the app more complicated to configure and use. A more advanced version of big stretch may surface in the future under a different name but for now this is about as advanced as it will get :)

Thank you for your understanding

All the best,
Matt

Hello Matt.

This program is one of the best ones out there for taking breaks!

I have only one question: Is it possible to make a break reminder at specific times?

Thank you.

Hi,

The app has been designed to remind the users to take breaks mostly based on usage, so how long and how intense their usage is at any one time. Having a break at a scheduled time can often be missed or not reflect time spent in front of a computer. I'd recommend setting a calendar reminder if there are specific times you need a break in addition to BS.

Hope you can appreciate this approach and continue to enjoy big stretch!

All the best,
Matt

Hey I just wanted to thank you for this program!

I had been sorting through all the modern things like this that require monthly subscriptions and throw 50 other random features at you and I was just thinking to myself "god, I just need something bare bones that was made like 10 years ago" you cannot imagine my delight when I found this.

So thank you so much for keeping this a no frills thing, and thank you for upkeeping it for so long!!

Hi Liv.

First released in 2006! And there are elements and code that still exist from that time. Hopefully it'll be around for many years into the future in one form or another, we need to get people off their computers!

All the best,
Matt

I've been using BSR for years. It's a great program. Recently, I got a second monitor and found one issue. I'm using "Micro-break". It's working fine. However, if I select also "Disable desktop when using intrusive reminders", the reminder window always pops up on a secondary monitor (the leftmost one). If I move it to the primary monitor, the position is not remembered and the next break is displayed in the second monitor again. This is annoying, if the second monitor is off, in which case I have no chance to skip the break.