politimer

Politimer is a lightweight countdown display designed for outdoor speaking events. It manages speaker time limits with a loopable schedule and minimal visual clutter, ideal for public forums, debates, and protests.

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🚀 Features

• ✅ Simple, fullscreen timer display for speaker queue
• ✅ JSON-based schedule with speaker names and durations
• ✅ Navigation via keyboard (next/previous speaker)
• ✅ Pause/resume functionality
• ✅ Countdown with visual alert when time expires
• ✅ Kiosk-mode friendly (no terminal or mouse interaction required)

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📦 Setup

1. Install Requirements

Install Requirements

pip install -r requirements.txt

You may need tkinter installed system-wide (usually comes preinstalled with Python). On Raspberry Pi OS:

sudo apt install python3-tk

2. Prepare a Schedule

Your JSON file should follow this format:

[
  {"speaker": "Alice", "time": "00:05:00"},
  {"speaker": "Bob", "time": "00:07:00"},
  {"speaker": "Charlie", "time": "00:04:30"}
]

3. Run It

python -m politimer data/schedule.json

🖥 GUI Controls

Key	Action
right arrow	Next speaker
left arrow	Previous speaker
space	Pause/resume countdown
Esc	Exit program

🔧 Run at Boot (Linux / Raspberry Pi)

This is windowmanager specific, but here is one approach

~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

Add this line:

@/usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/politimer -m politimer /home/pi/politimer/data/schedule.json

Option 2: Systemd Service

Create /etc/systemd/system/politimer.service:

[Unit]
Description=Politimer Speaker Timer
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 -m politimer /home/pi/politimer/data/schedule.json
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/politimer
Restart=always
User=pi
Environment=DISPLAY=:0

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Enable and start:

sudo systemctl enable politimer
sudo systemctl start politimer

📜 License

AGPL