One application that does this job very well is PyRoom. PyRoom is a simple to use application that serves as a text editor that takes up your entire screen. There are no window decorations, or minimize buttons, or anything that will get the application out of the way – unless you close the application. So for those who need a distraction from the distractions, PyRoom just might do the trick.

Because you are using a text-based editor, you should expect that the files you write in PyRoom are going to be flat text files – in other words, no formatting. Of course you can always open that text in your standard word processor and doctor it up all you want.  Now, let’s take a look at installing and using PyRoom.

Installation

As you can imagine, the installation of PyRoom is pretty standard. Since this is a text-based editor, let’s install from the command line (instead of the GUI). Here are the steps (for installing within Ubuntu):

1. Open up your terminal window.
2. Issue the command sudo apt-get install pyroom.
3. OK any dependencies that will be needed.
4. Watch the installation fly by.

That’s it.  After PyRoom is installed you will find the executable menu entry in the Office sub-menu of the Applications menu. If, for some strange reason, you can not find it you can always open the “run” dialog with the <Alt>F2 keyboard combination and then enter the command pyroom to start the application.

Using PyRoom

Figure 1

When PyRoom starts you will see a nearly blank screen (see Figure 1). Here you can see I have added a bit of text just so you can see how PyRoom  looks. What you will also notice is the complete absence of everything you have grown accustomed to with applications. That’s the whole point.

The first thing you will probably want to do is get to the help menu. All commands are executed with the help of the <Ctrl> key. To get to the help menu hit the combination <Ctrl>h which will give you a listing of all the possible commands for PyRoom.

One of the cool features of PyRoom is that you can keep multiple buffers open so you can work on more than one file at time. To move back and forth between buffers you would hit the <Ctrl>Page-Up or <Ctrl>Page-Down. Either of those will move you between your buffers.

Of course the most important key combinations are <Ctrl>s for saving and <Ctrl>q for quitting. You can see the entire list from the help screen.

A few configurations

Figure 2

If you hit the <Ctrl>p combination you will bring up the Preferences window (see Figure 2). In this window you can configure a few items (you can see the General configurations in Figure 2). You can also configure a theme for PyRoom. From the Theme tab you can choose a preset them or you can create your own personal theme.

Final thoughts

I am a big fan of minimalism and zero distractions. Of course using today’s desktop, it’s practically impossible to avoid all distractions when you’re trying to concentrate. PyRoom offers some respite from the usual suspects and allows you to concentrate on your work – not your Tweets and Facebook status.

Ah but there is! Yakuake is a terminal window inspired by the terminal window from the game “Quake” and based on the KDE terminal application. This terminal will slide down from the top, ready for action, when you press a hot key and slide away from site when you press the key again. It’s simple to use, convenient, and ready for action. And what makes this better than a keyboard shortcut for, say, gnome-terminal is that Yakuake is already loaded into memory so it drops down lightning quick. And Yakuake remembers your state from instance to instance. So if you have an application running inside of Yakuake, and you hide the window, when you bring the window back the application will still be there.

Getting and installing

Installing Yakuake is simple and can be done from either your package manager or from the command line. Depending upon your particular installation there may be a number of dependencies to be met during installation. In an installation of Elive Compiz (with no KDE ) there were numerous dependencies (most related to KDE). If you have KDE already installed you won’t have any dependencies to meet.

To install Yakuake with the help of your package manager gui do the following:

• Open up your Add/Remove Software utility
• Search for “yakuake” (no quotes)
• Mark Yakuake for installation
• If there are any dependencies, okay them
• Click Apply
• Okay the installation

You’re done!

If you decide to install from the command line just open up a terminal and issue a command like:

sudo apt-get install yakuake

Okay any dependencies and then okay the installation.

First run

Figure 1

When you first run Yakuake you will be greeted with a small window (see Figure 1) asking you to set the hot key. By default the hot key is F12. You can change this by clicking the Hot Key button (in the center of the window) and then selecting the hot key you want to use. Personally I stick with F12 because it is easy to reach with a single finger and doesn’t interfere with any other on screen action.

Using Yakuake

Now that you have your hot key set (or you

Figure 2

are sticking with the default) all you have to do is press the hot key to have Yakuake drop down from the top of your desktop (see Figure 2 – click to reveal full-size image). To make Yakuake go away hit the same hot key as you did to bring it down.

Since Yakuake resides in memory it will always be there ready and willing to work.

If you notice, on the bottom right corners, there are three icons. The downward point icon will open up the menu for Yakuake. This is where you can configure such items as having Yakuake leave the screen when it loses focus (very handy if you don’t want to have to always push F12 to make it go away.)

Final thoughts

Yakuake is a boon to anyone who uses the terminal frequently. After using this handy tool for a while you will wonder what you ever did without it!