Laptop battery monitor script I'd like to share (with tray icon)

(zenity:14058): GdkPixbuf-CRITICAL **: gdk_pixbuf_new_from_file_at_scale: assertion `width > 0 || width == -1' failed
I had this problem :-(

Yes it did. But aborted in ten secs.
I have Zenity version 2.26

I'm using Zenity 2.30 on a Unity Linux base.

I can confirm that this error message exists, however, on my system it can be ignored - the applet works regardless!

I'm not sure what is causing the error but it must be a bug in zenity or gtk+. If anyone has come across this before I'd be grateful for some advice.

What is strange is that if you call zenity from the command line like this, using one of the same icons:
zenity --notification --window-icon="/usr/local/share/battmon/icons/battery_charging_0-5.png" there is no error

Perhaps it does require a rewrite in python, but I don't understand why it is quitting on you. Perhaps you could update zenity and see what happens..?

Well thanks for trying Istvan, I do appreciate it and I'll continue to look into a solution. Not much has turned up by Googling yet though...

In case this is of any use, currently I am running:

• zenity version 2.30

• gtk+2.0 version 2.20

• libgdk_pixbuf2.0 version 2.20

• bash version 4.1

On my system, the icon sits happily in the system tray using LXPanel, tint2 or XFCE Panel.

Last edited by richjack (2010-09-10 20:08:28)

Phew, so glad it works... I will put the versions on the website that are required and at some point update the configure script to try and check for version numbers.

To hack the script as you mentioned, go to line 265 and change "pm-hibernate" for whatever command you normally use to shutdown the system (I'm not sure which one you use in Crunchbang):

sudo shutdown -h now
gdm-control --shutdown && openbox --exit
pm-shutdown

Again, I could add that as a command line parameter in future versions.

Thanks for persevering and feeding back

Great, glad it works

If you look in /usr/local/share/battmon/icons you'll see all the icons and importantly the icon names.

You can also type battmon -f to print all the filenames in a terminal.

What you will need to do is to make sure you have an icon matching every icon name in the original icon set. I'm afraid because I wanted a gradual change in the icon, there's a lot of icon names matching some pretty random charge levels! Anyway, you can create your own icon folder anywhere you want eg at ~/battmon if you want. Copy some icons from an icon set that you like - you will want the 22x22 icons. Then create copies matching all the original filenames. It doesn't matter if you want to use the same icon more than once - just copy it and change the filename accordingly (or create a symlink).

Then invoke battmon with the command:

battmon -d $HOME/path/to/icons

And it should use your new icons!

In future versions I plan to add support for using icons from your current icon set or to use any icons using the more conventional Gnome icon specs.

I see what you mean - the notification keeps recurring because there's a loop in the script to check whether the battery is inserted at all and there is a function that reset the loops after each sleep (just in case you reinsert the battery). The best thing to do for now is to edit out lines 148-151 inclusive in /usr/local/bin/battmon by adding a # symbol at the start of the line. You should still get the change in icon.

Also if you want the icon there on start-up whether or not you have a battery, edit out lines 118-122 inclusive otherwise the applet will close if you start it and no battery is present (this is so that it doesn't waste unnecessary resources on a desktop PC).

It's useful feedback for improvements to the next version, thanks