Shrimple puts a 16×16 shrimp in its own little patch of sea in your Windows
system tray. When it's time to check your posture, the shrimp starts
slouching, probably the way you are. If you ignore it, it curls up like a
shrimp and gets steadily angrier. Sit up, click it, and it calms down.
- Calm: the shrimp stands up straight while the timer counts down.
- Posture check due: it cranes its head forward with a question mark over
its head, as if it doesn't quite believe you're sitting up straight. After 20
seconds it slumps, its back rounding out behind it.
- Ignored: after a minute it hunches over and starts turning red, and by
two and a half minutes it has curled right up and the seaweed wilts. A few
minutes later it leaps back up, the seaweed bursts into flames and the water
boils orange. By about nine minutes it's bright red, has an anger vein, and
is hopping in place.
- Popped out: so you can't miss it, once the seaweed catches fire (about
four minutes in) a bigger shrimp climbs out of the tray and sits in the
bottom-right corner of your screen, growing as it gets angrier. It never steals focus,
and it stays in the tray while a full-screen app, game or presentation is
running. Click it (or the tray icon) once you've sat up straight, or
right-click it for the menu.
- Click the shrimp once you've sat up straight. It sparkles briefly and
starts the countdown over.
Using it
Hover over the shrimp to see how long until the next check.
Left-click it when you've sat up straight. Right-click for the menu:
| Menu item | What it does |
|---|
| I sat up straight | Same as left-clicking the shrimp. |
| Remind me every | 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 or 45 minutes, or 1 or 1½ hours (default 30 minutes). Choosing one restarts the countdown. |
| Pause reminders | The shrimp stays calm until you unpause. |
| Pop out when ignored | Let the shrimp climb out onto your screen once the seaweed catches fire (on by default). Untick it to keep it in the tray. |
| Always show on screen | Keep the big shrimp in the corner of your screen all the time, calm or not (off by default). |
| Start with Windows | Launch Shrimple when you sign in. |
| Quit | Bye, shrimp. |
It won't nag an empty chair
The countdown restarts on its own when you've clearly stepped away: after 5
minutes with no keyboard or mouse input, when you unlock your PC, and when it
wakes from sleep.
Get the shrimp
Download: grab shrimple.exe from the
latest release.
Every v* tag is built and published automatically.
No EXE? Use Shrimple in your browser: the
same shrimp as a web page, with optional notifications and an always-on-top
floating window (Chrome/Edge). It needs the tab to stay open.
Build it yourself: install Rust, then on Windows:
cargo build --release
Run target\release\shrimple.exe and look for the shrimp in the tray. You may
need to drag it out of the overflow area (^) so it's always visible.
To cross-compile from Linux, install mingw-w64, then:
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
Settings live in the registry under HKCU\Software\Shrimple. "Start with
Windows" uses the standard HKCU\...\CurrentVersion\Run entry.
Shrimple collects nothing: the app never goes online, and the website has no
analytics or cookies. See the privacy policy
and terms of use.
Hacking on the shrimp
| File | What's in it |
|---|
src/sprite.rs | The 16×16 pixel art as ASCII, plus the calm and furious palettes. The water, seabed and flames are drawn behind the shrimp. |
src/shrimp.rs | Timing for when it slumps and how fast it gets angry (constants at the top). |
src/tray.rs | The Win32 tray icon, menu and timer. |
cargo run --example preview renders every mood, on light and dark taskbars,
to shrimp-preview.png on any OS. cargo test runs the mood and sprite tests.
Cutting a release
Push a version tag from main:
git tag v0.1.1
git push origin v0.1.1
The build workflow tests and builds on Windows,
then publishes a GitHub release for the tag with shrimple.exe attached and
auto-generated notes. A tag only publishes a release if the workflow file at
that tagged commit already has the release job, so tag after merging it. Builds
from ordinary pushes are still available as the shrimple artifact on the
Actions page.
License
MIT
