XBATTBAR(1)

NAME
xbattbar - show battery status in X Window

SYNOPSIS
xbattbar [-a] [-t thickness] [-p interval] [-I color] [-O color] [-i color] [-o color] [-c] [-r] [-s script-name] [top | bottom | left | right]

DESCRIPTION
xbattbar shows the current (laptop) battery status in the X window environment. Battery status is obtained through the APM kernel module. The APM kernel module depends on your UNIX platform, therefore, consult your documentation for its detail.

xbattbar shows its battery status in a simple bar indicator. -a option makes the indicator window keep always on top of your screen. The thickness of the indicator is 3 pixels in default and you can set the thickness as a parameter of -t option. This indicator is appeared in the bottom of the display, as its default. The option top, left, or right forces the status indicator to be at the top, left, and right of the display, respectively. Though it's a default, you can also use buttom as the option.

In the case the AC line is on-line (plugged in), its color of the bar indicator consists of "green" and "olive drab" portions. The "green" portion shows its battery charging level. These colors can be changed by -I and -O options. In the other case (AC line is off-line), the "blue" portion of the bar indicator shows the percentage of its remaining battery level. The color conbination for the AC off-line case can be changed by -i and -o options.

xbattbar tries to know its battery status in every 10 seconds in default. This is achived by APM polling.

If it is used with option -c then ACPI polling will be used.

If it is used with option -r then sysfs polling will be used (thanks to Elena Grandi <elena.valhalla@gmail.com> for the script).

You can use your external script for check battery status. It must print two lines to STDOUT 'battery=value' and 'ac_line=on|off

-p option sets the polling interval in second.

If the mouse cursor enters in the status indicator, the diagnosis window appears in the center of the display, which shows both AC line status and battery remaining level. This diagnosis window disappears if the mouse cursor leaves from the status indicator.

AUTHOR
Suguru Yamaguchi <suguru@wide.ad.jp>, Akira Kato <kato@wide.ad.jp>, Noriyuki Shigechika <nazo@wide.ad.jp>, Dmitry E. Oboukhov <unera@debian.org>