Re: Proposal for inclusion in Desktop: GNOME Power Manager

[Jaap Haitsma <jaap haitsma org>]

> Ideally, to my mind:
> - Battstat should display the battery power all the time, as it does now
> - Clicking on battstat should bring up a detailed view of every battery 
> known
> to the system (this may also be available in other ways). If GPM is 
> online, it
> uses that information, else it only returns the status of batteries 
> known to
> HAL.
> - Battstat will notify you when you're laptop is running low
> - GPM will notify you when any other battery is running low (perhaps via
> Battstat).
> - Battstat will be able to run without GPM
> - GPM will be able to run without battstat.
I agree with most of this. Only I find it strange that battstat will 
notify that my laptop is running low and gpm when keyboard or mouse 
power is low. A user should not have to run an applet to get a message 
that his/her laptop battery is dying. That message should always come.

In my opinion the ideal solution looks like this:

GPM provides the basic power management and battstat provides an 
optional visual indication of the current power situation. So GPM is 
always running and the battstat applet is optional.


GPM
---
* Always provides notifications to the user of possible "emergencies"
  - battery low on any device
* Provides a capplet to specify power settings and give an overview of 
batteries in the system

Battstat
--------
* An applet which gives visual feedback of the main battery status in 
the panel.
* Has a menu item to launch the gpm capplet
* Has a menu item to launch a dialog showing the status of every battery 
in the system
* Provides "non emergency" notifications such as batteries fully 
charged, AC adapter

I think this way there hardly needs to be any communication between 
battstat and GPM.

What do you think about this? (I'm not considering any practicallities 
yet like should we adapt battstat or gpm or write something new)

Jaap