Ubuntu
gnome-shell package

Please restore battery time remaining to top bar!

Bug #1728045 reported by Jonathan Kamens
60
This bug affects 12 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GNOME Shell
Expired
Medium
gnome-shell (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

In Ubuntu 17.04 and earlier, I was able to display the amount of battery life remaining AS TIME in the top bar of my screen.

Now all I'm able to display, in 17.10, is the battery percentage.

Frankly, I don't give a flying fig about battery percentage, and I'm not sure most other people do either. What I care about is how much time I have left to work on my laptop before it's out of power.

If you want to display _both_ the percentage and the time remaining, or allow the user to choose which to display, that would be great. But just taking away the eminently useful time remaining and replacing it with the much less useful percentage is annoying and should be fixed.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.26.1-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-16.19-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Oct 27 09:13:40 2017
DisplayManager: gdm3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-05-19 (160 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" - Release amd64 (20170412)
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to artful on 2017-10-20 (6 days ago)

Revision history for this message
In , Jonathan Pritchard (jonathanr-pritchard+bugzilla) wrote :

The old batt-stat applet used to allow the user to show on the battery icon a more accurate representation of battery life remaining, either in percentage or estimated time remaining.

This functionality should also be configurable, if not the default, in gnome power manager. Just because Gnome's apparent philosophy is to be simplified for the user, does not mean we cannot expose extra configuration to more advanced users in the places where they traditionally look - the preferences.

Sorry if this is a dupe, I'm not used to Gnome's bugzilla installation.

Revision history for this message
In , Richard Hughes (richard-hughes) wrote :

What exactly do you want, clearer icons or a bigger bar thing?

Revision history for this message
In , Jonathan Pritchard (jonathanr-pritchard+bugzilla) wrote :

Ideally both.

Specifically an option for an overlay on the panel icon to either display battery remaining in time (hrs and mins) or a percentage of battery capacity.

For the purpose that it avoids having to mouseover the g-p-m icon.

Revision history for this message
In , Richard Hughes (richard-hughes) wrote :

We can't do this just yet. We need the new applet infrastructure work so we can add ourselves to a panel like g-p-m can do with GtkStatusIcon and also be resizable and appendable like an applet can be. Ryan Lortie is working on the new applet stuff, you'll have to ask him how it's progressing.

Revision history for this message
In , Jonathan Pritchard (jonathanr-pritchard+bugzilla) wrote :

Thank-you for the information, I'll look him up. Also thank-you for keeping the bug open and not making it a WONTFIX, I think it would improve the usefulness of g-p-m in the future, especially for laptop users.

Revision history for this message
In , Gervase Markham (gerv-mozilla) wrote :

Richard: will this new applet infrastructure work also allow more fine-grained icons for discharge? How is the work going?

Also, is there any chance of GNOME doing the colours based on time remaining rather than percentage remaining? The indicator on my 6-hour-life Thinkpad turns red when it has more usable time remaining than some laptops when fully charged!

Gerv

Revision history for this message
In , Richard Hughes (richard-hughes) wrote :

(In reply to comment #5)
> Also, is there any chance of GNOME doing the colours based on time remaining
> rather than percentage remaining? The indicator on my 6-hour-life Thinkpad
> turns red when it has more usable time remaining than some laptops when fully
> charged!

We're doing this since 2-24.

Richard.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Kamens (jik) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Jonathan, install the GNOME Tweaks app (gnome-tweak-tool).

Open Tweaks.
Switch to the Top Bar panel.
Turn on Battery Percentage.

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Oops, I didn't read your bug report carefully enough.

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Bícha (jbicha) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

This oldish bug might be talking about the same thing. I'm not sure since the architecture has changed over the years... https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=540373

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

It might be a design choice though, to keep the panel bar "clean".

I believe you can still see estimated battery time remaining if you click on the panel menu (top right?).

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
importance: Unknown → Medium
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Kamens (jik) wrote :

>It might be a design choice though, to keep the panel bar "clean".

I fail to see how displaying the percentage remaining -- which _is_ an option -- is any more "clean" than displaying the time remaining.

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Kamens (jik) wrote :

>I believe you can still see estimated battery time remaining if you click on the panel menu (top right?).

Yes. And this is _much_ less convenience. When I am racing against the clock trying to get something done before my battery runs out, the last thing I want to have to do is move my mouse up to the corner of the screen and click just to see how much time I have left. What I want to be able to do is glance quickly at the corner while continuing to work.

The new functionality -- percentage instead of time remaining -- is simply an inferior user experience.

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

I never said I agree with the Gnome design choices. Just historically the Gnome 3.x people have been particularly keen to keep things minimal. I agree with you and would prefer to see time remaining.

Anyway, the right place to continue this discussion is on bugzilla.gnome.org, either in #540373 or some new report as Jeremy requested in comment #4.

If the idea is rejected on bugzilla.gnome.org then we can continue the discussion here about doing something bespoke just for Ubuntu.

Sebastien Bacher (seb128)
Changed in gnome-shell (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Charles Beer (beer-charlesw) wrote :

Has there been any resolution to this? Or is one underway? When I go to the link for the bug link mentioned here (#540373), the last comment or update of any kind I see is from 2009...

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

I am unlinking https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=540373 because it seems like that's too old to be relevant (talking about Gnome 2.x).

no longer affects: gnome-shell
Revision history for this message
Jonathan Kamens (jik) wrote :

I don't understand why you unlinked the GNOME bug. This has been an issue since GNOME 2 and remains an issue in GNOME 3.

Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Because Gnome 2.x and Gnome 3.x are effectively different products with different designs. It may be unhelpful if the old discussion there no longer applies to the current design.

But actually on second thoughts, it wouldn't be the first time someone picked up an old gnome 2.x bug and fixed it in 3.x, so restoring the link...

Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: added: bionic cosmic
Revision history for this message
Jarrod Farrell (jarrodmaddy) wrote :

Resurrecting this bug report to mention that I also miss the time remaining but also provide a resolve.

It was extremely useful to know how much time I had before I had to seek a charger for my laptop and plan accordingly. Sure I can still check this, but having to trackpad my cursor over and get the time is just an annoying inconvenience.

However to quench the need for the few, there is a Gnome shell extension compatible with 3.28.2 that'll let you add back in the time remaining by editing the extentsion's setting to show it. It'll give you the practical remaining or percentage, but not both. However you can enable the native percentage assuming you can ignore the numbers getting too friendly with the percentage.
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/817/battery-status/

Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)
tags: removed: artful cosmic
Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
importance: Unknown → Medium
status: Unknown → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
In , Andre Klapper (a9016009) wrote :

bugzilla.gnome.org is being replaced by gitlab.gnome.org. We are closing all old bug reports in Bugzilla which have not seen updates for many years.

If you can still reproduce this issue in a currently supported version of GNOME (currently that would be 3.38), then please feel free to report it at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-power-manager/-/issues/

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry it could not be fixed.

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater)
Changed in gnome-shell:
status: Confirmed → Expired
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