man wmbattery () - dockable battery monitor

NAME

wmbattery - dockable battery monitor

SYNOPSIS

wmbattery [options]

DESCRIPTION

wmbattery is a battery monitor. It is used to visually display the system's battery status.

wmbattery can get battery information using APM, ACPI, or the SPIC controller in some Sony laptops. You need to build your kernel with support for at least one of these for the program to work. 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).

ELEMENTS OF THE DISPLAY

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.

OPTIONS

-h
Display list of command-line options.
-w secs
Pause this many seconds between updates. Defaults to 1 for APM and 3 for ACPI (since querying ACPI takes quite a bit more CPU power).
-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 ACPI on systems with more than one battery. The default is to display the first battery found.
-l percent
Set the percentaqge at which the battery is considered to be running low. By default, this percentage is determined by APM or ACPI, 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 by APM or ACPI, 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.
-a file.au
Play the specified au file (by sending it to /dev/audio) when the battery is low.

AUTHOR

Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net>