[new release] One more taskbar battery meter

levenum · Sep 22, 2006

Hello.

I recently decided that the i-mate tray battery meter was not good enough for my needs and wanted to find a better one. After a few hours of looking and not finding one that was perfect for me I wondered: how hard is it to write one?
Well, apparently its very easy.

I decided to share the result with the community. There are much better ones out there, but perhaps someone will find this one suitable as well.

Whats so special about it?
Its tiny! Only 8.5k. Downside of this - it doesn't have any options, nor do I intend to add any in the future to keep current size. Also it receives notifications on battery as they come in, so its very accurate without having to constantly check the battery and generate unnecessary CPU load.

It takes its behavior from the device driver which is why it will act differently on different devices when battery is charging. (Some devices report battery full, others report accurate percentage, yet others "slide" it in a loop).

View attachment priview.bmp

Also it starts just after MS logo (as you can see from the screen shot I have that space occupied) and doesn't fill the whole screen (14 pixels are left so the units could be evenly sized).

Well here it is, enjoy View attachment LvmTopBat.cab

For those who wish to learn how this program works, or to create another using it as a base, here is the entire project:
View attachment LVMTopBat.zip
The project compiles under eVC 4 with Windows Mobile 2003 SDK.
This program is now released under GNU/GPL v3.0
(See License.txt for more info)

Hope you will find it useful.

JNGold · Sep 22, 2006

Levenum,

Great little app. I wonder how it differs from the Sbp meter used in PocketPlus.

malatesta · Sep 22, 2006

I like it!

Yeah, don't add any options to it, I like the idea of an 8.5k program. That was my problem with Batti, it just grew and grew and I don't care about that info.

thanks!

Marx2 · Sep 22, 2006

look nice, i will try it

Tyr · Sep 22, 2006

Does it change colour? If not could you make a gradiated texture?

1-10% Red
11-30% Yellow
31-100% Green

malatesta · Sep 23, 2006

levenum and others,

FYI, I decided 8.5 kb was just too big :lol: (I'm toally kidding) so just to let you guys know, you can UPX the file down to 6.5kb with no issues. :wink:

levenum · Sep 24, 2006

JNGold said:
I wonder how it differs from the SPB meter used in PocketPlus.

Never tried SPB PocketPlus so not sure. Maybe just the fact that it's not full screen.

Tyr said:
Does it change colour?

Actually, it does but only according to what the device reports. I found that on my Jamin for example, it reports 'low' (yellow) at 10% and 'critical' (red) at 5%.
It goes blue when charging, and I would really like to know if anyone got purple. According to MSDN documentation, there can be an 'undetermined' state reported by the system, but I doubt it can be encountered while device actually functions.

malatesta:Nice 8)

Lurker0 · Sep 27, 2006

When I resume TyTN from the power saving mode, the indicator becomes purple for a second. So I can confirm that it works

It is better than SPB Pocket indicator because SPB is always grey, does not indicate charging, and its segments are of fixed length in both portrait and landscape and therefore have no a real relationship to the charge level.

It is better than IndiLite because it loads from the Startup folder (IndiLite from registry) and does not affect SafeMode of SPB.

Also it does only battery indication and this is good as well - there are too many apps and plug-ins that duplicate each other but not fully. For instance, before I used IndiLite only for the battery indicator, and SPB Pocket for task management.

raymonds · Sep 27, 2006

is there a way to deactivate the spb pocket plus taskbar battery indicator (without removing spb pp), and have it replaced with this one?

levenum · Sep 27, 2006

Lurker0: Thanks for the test and the compliments.

Also it does only battery indication and this is good as well - there are too many apps and plug-ins that duplicate each other but not fully.

This is exactly why I wrote it - small and to the point. No sharing small (yet precious) today space with memory indicators or other stuff.

malatesta · Sep 27, 2006

Now someone needs to make a fully WM5 compatible Today screen plugin that just says this:

Battery: XX%

No fancy graphics, no graphs, no storage card memory monitors. Just something (maybe) with a configurable font (like TodayAgenda).

I know there are a couple out there but some have issues with refresh on WM5 and most others are just giant graphs that tell me nothing :lol:

Marx2 · Sep 27, 2006

try this
http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=55782&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

malatesta · Sep 27, 2006

Marx2 said:
try this
http://xdaforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=55782&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Wow, thanks Marx2!

I used this app awhile back and completely forgot about it :lol:

Tyr · Sep 27, 2006

malatesta said:
Now someone needs to make a fully WM5 compatible Today screen plugin that just says this:

Battery: XX%

No fancy graphics, no graphs, no storage card memory monitors. Just something (maybe) with a configurable font (like TodayAgenda).

I know there are a couple out there but some have issues with refresh on WM5 and most others are just giant graphs that tell me nothing :lol:

Someone extracted the O2 battery monitor from their software package version 3. It has a very simple bar for the main and backup batteries and a percentage.

Lurker0 · Sep 28, 2006

levenum, I have one suggestion

Currently the indicator is divided into 20 segments. As I understand, there are devices that are able to provide battery information with 5% granularity (mine is 10%), and that's why you made it this way. But IMHO it is much easier to count 5 (from the middle) than 10.

So I'd suggest you to draw only 10 segments, and color a half of the segment, if required to display the odd 5%.

levenum · Sep 29, 2006

Actually, 5% granularity just seemed like a good compromise between accuracy an visibility. Like I said in the above post I made this for my self.
From every device I've seen and MSDN documentation it appears that all WM devices report battery status with 1% granularity so that should not be an issue.

As for your suggestion I currently have to arguments against it:
1) Having different graphics and handling for two halves of the segment (even though there will be half the segments) will mean a slight increase in processing power and size of file - something I am trying to avoid.

2) I don't think that half painted segment will look good.

I am considering releasing a full screen version soon though, so if I hear from more people in support of your suggestion I may implement it there.

malatesta · Sep 29, 2006

levenum said:
I am considering releasing a full screen version soon though, so if I hear from more people in support of your suggestion I may implement it there.

Personally, I like 5% (my treo does 1%) so this is just fine.

What do you mean by "full screen version"? You mean edge to edge, I assume?

machmandp · Sep 29, 2006

first thanks for a great little App.

Personally i think that functionality wise it's fine as it is but i would ask for 2 improvements if possible,

1. Full screen , and as you have already mentioned this you can count it as a vote for it .

2. Would it be possible to change the colours ?
For me the green & blue would be better switched around (green charging & blue normal)

As i'm not sure how much this would add to the code and i agree that smaller is better , so is it possible for a couple of releases in the zip of different colour schemes ?

Thanks

levenum · Sep 29, 2006

Ok, first - yes, by full screen I meant edge to edge.

Changing the color scheme wouldn't add to the code, and is really a miner change. So yes I will release a zip with several versions, but there is something I have to do on the LVMTime project first.

I am also thinking of the following: without adding to much to the app it is possible to make it read some settings from the registry, like color change threshold, color scheme and whether it is full screen or not.

I just wonder if it will be to much to tell people to use a reg editor to change settings. (I am really not feeling up to implementing an XML parser)

machmandp · Sep 29, 2006

well i for one have no problems with reg editing at all

[new release] One more taskbar battery meter

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