I’ve already talked about KDialog and DCOP which are two magic KDE tools that could use more promotion. Today I came across another nice examlpe in this post.
#!/bin/bash
PROGRESS=$(kdialog --icon kalarm --title "Short rest" \
    --progressbar "Take a break..." 30)
if [ $PROGRESS ]; then
  for (( i=0; i<30; i++ )); do
    dcop $PROGRESS setProgress $i
    sleep 1
  done
  dcop $PROGRESS close
fi
This simple shell script will remind you to have timed 30 second breaks when executed at predefined intervals from KAlarm. You'll see a nice progress bar while having a break.