PunishPad

PunishPad LogoPunishPad uses negative reinforcement to help you to reach your writing goals. Set how many words you’d like to write in a time period, and the program will “punish” you if you stop writing. Inspired by Dr. Wicked’s popular web-based Write Or Die.

Features:

  • “Danger Level” shows how much time you have
  • Escalating punishments
  • Calculates WPM when you’re finished
  • Limit how often you can pause
  • Full screen “no distraction” mode
  • Load an existing document and it will only count new words
  • Toggle between time elapsed/remaining
  • Toggle between new words/total words/words per minute
  • Keep going after time runs out, without punishments

Download PunishPad v1.0.0.1 Setup [116k EXE]

Download PunishPad v1.0.0.1 Source [101k VS2008 Project]

Note: PunishPad requires .NET v2.0 or higher.

Update (11/01/09): Work to port PunishPad from .NET to wxPython has been halted while I focus on writing for NaNoWriMo. But if you’re running Windows, you can install the original .NET version above. Otherwise, follow the wxPython progress of PunishPad on Launchpad.net.

9 Responses leave one →
  1. November 8, 2009
    Zack Hardy permalink

    Everytime I click on one of the links to install this software, it says that the connection has been reset and no matter how many time I press try again, it will not get to where it is supposed to go.

    • November 8, 2009

      It should work now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

  2. November 15, 2009
    mel permalink

    Hey Jon congrats on breaking 30k! I am using Punish Pad a lot these days, and I am over 30k on my NaNo novel too.

    Question: I have PP set to use Annoying Buzz as my punishment. Turns out the sound is my good old Windows alert sound. Is that the expected behavior?

    Thanks,
    Mel

    • November 15, 2009

      Yes, the current version of PunishPad only uses the windows alert sound because I couldn’t find an easy way in .NET to play/pause arbitrary sound clips. Hopefully that’ll be fixed in the next version.

      • November 15, 2009
        mel permalink

        Okay, good to know. :) I’ll look forward to that next version!

        I wonder if it could use a more obscure windows sound scheme item? I could set a rarer item in my Windows sound scheme to a really annoying .wav file, but I really don’t want that really annoying .wav to play as often as I get a windows alert sound. Hmm…

  3. December 14, 2009
    Nightmaren permalink

    Works under linux by compiling under MonoDevelop and executing thru Mono!

    • January 7, 2010

      Does the timer work properly? Last time I tried running it under Mono (using the exe compiled from Visual Studio) the Stopwatch class didn’t behave properly, which broke the program.

  4. January 22, 2010
    Nina permalink

    Thank you, this is really a very helpful software.
    I wonder if it is possible to add character count? (i.e. count characters, not words).

    • January 22, 2010

      I will look into implementing it in the next version when I resume development.

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