Mike
McBride
2002-02-12
3.00.00
KDE
KControl
Battery
level

# The Battery Monitor Panel

The laptop modules require the correct installation of the apm modules. For more information see the section entitled Laptop Information.

## Introduction

This panel controls whether or not a battery state icon appears in &kde;'s panel.

Once enabled a battery will appear in your docking bar as one of 3 icons - a battery with a red X through it indicates that APM has not been installed (in particular `/proc/apm` can't be read).

The other two icons indicate the battery state - a small plug with a bar beside it indictes your batteries are charging - the height of the blue portion of the bar indicate how full your batteries are. A small battery in the dock indicates you are running on batteries, the amount of blue in the battery indicates how full your batteries are.

If you left click on the docked icon a pop-up will tell you how much time you have left in minutes.

If you right click you get a pop-up that lets you put your laptop into suspend or standby modes - or to bring up the laptop configuration widget.

All features of Battery are configured from the Setup dialog.

## Use

The configuration window can be divided into 3 parts.

Show Battery Monitor

  This controls whether or not the battery icon appears. This is disabled by default.

Poll

  This setting controls how often, in seconds, the battery is updated.

  The default is 20 seconds.

Icons

  The battery monitor uses three icons to represent the three states: No APM, Charging, and Not Charging. The icons shown are the large icons. To select new ones, click on the buttons and a icon loader dialog will pop up.

  If you create your own icons - they will work with the battery monitor - but be carefull.

  All the exactly white pixels in the icon get filled by blue for the battery meter - if you want some white looking pixels to stay choose a slightly off-white or grey color for them.

  The author does not claim to be a graphic artist and would love for someone to donate some better looking icons to the cause.

## Section Author

This section written by Paul Campbell paul@taniwha.com

Converted to Docbook by Mike McBride mpmcbride7@yahoo.com