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Who is it for?

PhD candidates, master's students, university students, and office workers — in short, anyone whose working day begins by opening the same set of tools.

Why

Do you open dozens of files, programs and URLs every single morning just to get started? Do the minutes lost to hunting through the Start menu and your desktop add up, chip away at your focus, and cost you real time?

If the answer is yes, this tool is for you. One click opens everything at once, so you are ready to work instead of gathering your tools — and you stop losing time to the start of every day.

It is a small, honest tool: no account, no cloud, no telemetry, no background network traffic. Your list lives in one JSON file on your own machine.

Features

• Tray menu — every item listed, plus Open all for one-click mornings
• Four item types — program, folder, document, web address
• Five languages — English, Türkçe, 中文, Deutsch, Italiano; switchable at any time
• Settings that stick — stored in %APPDATA%\ReadytoWork\config.json, written atomically so a crash or a full disk can never corrupt them
• Reorder and rename — move items up and down, edit inline
• Browser choice — open web addresses in the system default, Chrome, Firefox or Edge
• Single instance — launching twice does nothing; it never stacks up
• Native installer — Start Menu and desktop shortcuts, optional start-with-Windows, clean uninstaller

Install

Download the installer from the releases page, run ReadytoWork-Setup-1.0.1.exe, and pick your options.

The installer is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn you on first run. Choose More info → Run anyway.

Usage

1. Start ReadytoWork. On first launch the settings window opens automatically.
2. Press Add, choose a type, give it a name, and pick a path (or paste a URL).
3. Press Save. The item is now in your tray menu.
4. Right-click the tray icon → Open all to launch everything at once.

Settings are removed when you uninstall the application.

Building from source

Requires Python 3.10+ on Windows.

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install -r requirements.txt

# run from source
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe readytowork.py

# tests
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pytest tests -v

# single-file executable -> dist\ReadytoWork.exe
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m PyInstaller --clean --noconfirm ReadytoWork.spec

# installer -> dist\ReadytoWork-Setup-1.0.1.exe   (needs Inno Setup 6)
& "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe" installer.iss

Translating

Every user-visible string lives in lang/<code>.json. To add a language:

1. Copy lang/en.json to lang/<code>.json.
2. Translate the values. Keep the keys identical.
3. Add the display name to LANG_NAMES in i18n.py.
4. Run the tests — tests/test_i18n.py fails if a key is missing or empty.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide.

Architecture

readytowork.py   entry point, single-instance mutex
app.py           tray icon, dynamic menu, settings thread
gui.py           settings window (tkinter)
config.py        atomic JSON persistence in %APPDATA%
actions.py       opening programs, folders, documents, URLs
i18n.py          translation loading and lookup
lang/*.json      the five catalogs

Settings are saved atomically: the new file is written to config.json.tmp and then renamed over config.json, so the file on disk is always complete. A corrupt file is moved to config.json.bak and the app starts with an empty list instead of overwriting anything.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — bug reports, translations, and small features all help. This is a Windows-only tool with no runtime dependencies beyond pystray and Pillow, and that is a line we try to hold.

• Bugs and ideas: open an issue. Before you do, check the open ones.
• Small fixes and translations: look for issues labelled good first issue — these are scoped so a first contribution stays small.
• Bigger changes: open an issue first so we can agree on the approach before you write the code.

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for the setup steps, the ground rules, and how to add a language. Everyone participating is expected to follow the Code of Conduct.

Privacy

No analytics, no network calls, no user tracking. The only file written outside the install directory is %APPDATA%\ReadytoWork\config.json, which holds the items you created. The test suite includes an automated check that no personal paths, usernames or email addresses end up in the repository.

License

MIT © 2026 ilkeryigit