wmbattery - dockable battery monitor
wmbattery is a battery monitor. It is used to visually
display the system's battery status.
wmbattery can get battery information using upower, HAL,
APM, ACPI, or the SPIC controller in some Sony laptops. wmbattery is
dockable using WindowMaker and AfterStep window managers; under other window
managers wmbattery appears as a nicely-sized 64x64 application.
wmbattery displays the status of your laptop's battery in a
small icon. This includes if it is plugged in, if the battery is charging,
how many minutes of battery life remain, battery life remaining (with both a
percentage and a graph), and battery status (high - green, low - yellow, or
critical - red).
The wmbattery display consists of these elements:
- dial
- The large dial at the top of the display shows battery life
remaining.
- time display
- The time display, right under and in the middle of the dial, shows how
many hours and minutes of battery life is estimated to remain at the
current rate of use.
If ACPI is used and battery is charging, the time display
will instead show a countdown (starting with a minus sign) of how many hours
and minutes it is estimated to take until the battery is fully charged.
- power cord
- The small icon of a power cord plug, in the bottom left, tells if the
laptop is plugged into wall power. If so, it will be lit.
- charging
indicator
- The lightning bolt icon, to the right of the plug, tells if the battery is
being charged. If so it will be lit and will connect the plug to the
battery.
- battery
icon
- The battery icon, to the right of the lighting bolt, shows the percentage
of battery time. If the battery is removed the icon will be dimmed. If the
computer is low on power the battery will turn yellow; if the computer is
critically low on power and about to die because of it, it will turn
red.
- -h
- Display list of command-line options.
- -w secs
- Pause this many seconds between updates.
- -d display
- Use the designated X display.
- -g {+-}x{+-}y
- Specify geometry. This specifies position, not size.
- -b battnum
- Display the given battery. Only of use with the HAL or ACPI interfaces on
systems with more than one battery. The default is to display the first
battery found.
- -l percent
- Set the percentage at which the battery is considered to be running low.
By default, this percentage is determined automatically, and you shouldn't
need to set it. If you set this, you should probably also set the -c
switch.
- -c percent
- Set the percentage at which the battery is considered to be critically
low. By default, this percentage is determined automatically, and you
shouldn't need to set it. If you set this, you should probably also set
the -l switch.
- -e
- wmbattery contains code for estimating the time remaining before
discharge, and until full charge, and this code is used if no other source
of this informaton is available. This switch makes wmbattery use its time
estimation code even if some other estimate is available.
- -s granularity
- Ignore fluctuations less than the specified granularity percent when
estimating time. (Implies -e)
- -a file.au
- Play the specified au file (by sending it to /dev/audio) when the battery
is low.
- -x command
- Execute the specified command when the battery is below critical. The
strings %percent%, %minutes% and %seconds% will be
translated into the appropriate values.
- -i
- Display as icon.
- -n
- Disable dial graphic.
Start at 10% battery to execute 'echo' including status
information:
wmbattery -c 10 -x "echo Status: %percent%% -
%minutes% minutes, %seconds% seconds left"
Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>