Battray

What is Battray ¶

Battray is a python program that displays a tray icon to inform you of the battery status of your notebook. It is also able to take certain actions depending on battery status.
I searched for a simple and easy application which did exactly that, all I found were large applications which need a ton of dependencies, or applications that didn’t work for me.

Screenshots ¶

Here are two screenshots of Battray 1.2 being used with pekwm and stalonetray.

Download ¶

Latest version:
22 October 2009 – battray-1.2.tar.gz

Previous versions:
6 September 2009 – battray-1.1.tar.gz
16 August 2009 – battray-1.0.tar.gz

Fast start ¶

Extract the files, move battrayrc.py.example to ~/.battray/battrayrc.py, and run battray.py.
The usual way to start it is putting it in your ~/.xinitrc or ~/.xsession, i.e.:

xsetroot -grey
~/bin/battray.py &
exec twm

For more documentation, see the manpage: battray(1)

Requirements ¶

Python – Tested with version 2.5.
PyGTK 2.10 or newer.

Since every OS has slightly different ways of getting the battery status, each one will have to be configured. See the platforms/ folder for a list of supported OS’s. At the moment we have OpenBSD and FreeBSD. I know this is not a lot, but these are the only two (desktop) operating systems I use…

Changelog ¶

v1.2 (20091022) ¶

New configuration file syntax, which is much more flexible.
Add simple Makefile for easier installation & deinstallation.
Add manpage.
As usual various minor improvements

v1.1 (20090906) ¶

Battery icon is now green/yellow/red depending on battery life remaining.
Battray will now warn you if battery level is below a certain percentage (See warn and warnMethod options in config.py).
Reload configuration on SIGHUP.
Added instructions on how to add platform.
Add new icon to indicate error (Instead of no icon loaded at all).
Fix FreeBSD platform, thanks to Eponasoft @ FreeBSD forums for reporting & testing.
Some improvements on the OpenBSD platform.

v1.0 (20090816) ¶

Initial release.

Notes ¶

Keep in mind that Battray was and is mainly written for personal purposes, which means that features I use have high priority, and other features I don’t use have a low priority. This doesn’t mean I won’t accept patches and/or will try my best to help people out if they have a problem.

To do ¶

Add more platforms (Linux, Windows, and MacOS mainly).

Better icons (battery.png and ac.png are OK now, but charging.png and error.png are pretty ugly IMO).

Bugs

The configuration could be a bit easier, the fact that it's imported in Python makes configuration pretty flexible, but also makes it more difficult for non-python programmers.

Also note that if you have a battrayrc.py file in the same path as battray or battray.py then python will import that file, as far as Python is concerned this is not a bug but a feature, but due to my (mis)use of import it is a bug.

Multiple batteries are not supported.

Authors ¶

Martin Tournoij <carpetsmoker@rwxrwxrwx.net>

Battray is licensed under the <INSERT OSI APPROVED LICENSE OF CHOICE HERE> license.