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Pomodoro FAQ

• Q: Where is the documentation?
  • A: The original site has been down for a while (due to trademark concerns), but you can see an old version of it at wayback archives.

• Q: Is Pomodoro free and open source?
  • A: Yes it is open source. It is also free if you build it on your own, but I don’t provide anymore pre-built binary. From 1.0 onwards, Pomodoro is downloadable only in Mac App Store℠ where isn’t free, although it is offered at a very low price. The code is still open source, though: you can build your own version from the source and use it for free

• Q: Why don’t you provide a downloadable binary?
  • A: Apple requires that the App Store has the best price: they can ban you from the Store if you don’t comply. So I can’t offer a binary for free if I want to continue to stay on the Store. Just build it.

• Q: Pomodoro is BSD licensed, that means I could build it and host a binary on my site.
  • A: Yes and no, anyway that would be a trick and I don’t want to be involved in legal issues. If that would happen either I’d have to put it in the Store for free or I’d have to make new releases closed source. I really like to maintain Pomodoro open, but I also want to stay on App Store: royalties keep the work continuing. So pls don’t do that :)

• Q: What if I don’t like the App Store, old 0.31 version is not enough and I don’t know how to build it?
  • A: Building Pomodoro is now as easy as it could be, but it’s not for everyone. Just ask a friend to build it for you! Or make a donation >= to the App Store price and I’ll send you a binary.

• Q: If it is open source, why Twitter is available only on the Mac App Store℠ version?
  • A: The code is all free, but I can’t share the keys that Twitter assigned exclusively to Pomodoro. So there are two empty #defines in the file TwitterSecrets.h. You can use your own secrets if you want to tweet your Pomodoros, or simply continue to use Pomodoro without the Twitter integration. That would have happened in any case, it is a direct consequence of Twitter API changing and is not related with the fact of Pomodoro being published on the Mac App Store℠.

• Q: So if I really need Twitter and don’t own dev.twitter secrets my only choice is to get the App store version?
  • A: Yes, 0.31 is pre oauth/xauth Twitter, so Twitter integration in 0.31 is broken, and building your own version won’t work without the twitter secret keys.

• Q: How do you build the project from source?
  • A: See the README.

• Q: What are the variables you can bind in Pomodoro notifications?
  • A: In all kind of notifications textfields (Growl, Calendar, Speech, Twitter and Applescript) you can use $pomodoroName, $duration, $dailyPomodoroDone and $globalPomodoroDone placeholders to indicate current name, current duration and daily/global pomodoros done respectively. In Interrupt notifications text, you can also use $secs placeholder to indicate the interrupt duration. In “Every” notification text, you can also use $mins, $passed and $time placeholders to indicate respectively interval time, total time passed and how much time is left. In “Mood Message” chat integration text, you can use $dueTime and $startedAt to indicate when the Pomodoro will finish and when it started, respectively.