The nice thing about the KDE panel is that there are widgets you can add that show information at a glance, like CPU and network activity, but I have to click on the battery icon to see the time remaining. If there is room for the number 100%, there is room for time in hours and minutes up to 10 hours. Times longer than 9:59 could be displayed as 12h, 3d (three days, for the future when laptops are powered by dilithium crystals), etc., if it seems wrong to shrink the font. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Right click on the battery icon. 2. Select Battery Monitor Settings. 3. No option to display time remaining on the icon! The last time I remember having the option to display the remaining time on the battery icon was KDE 3. I have gotten tired of waiting for the option to return, so I am making noise now. The information is there, because I see it when I click on the icon. I just want to see it when I glance at the icon. I have been waiting four years for this option to return (4yr, as it could be displayed on the battery icon).
Regression and there is some discussion about this one on the mailinglist if you're interested. http://www.mail-archive.com/plasma-devel@kde.org/msg19313.html
I have been spending more time that I can afford reading current and previous discussions about whether the user should have the option to see the battery time remaining estimate, and although many users find this feature useful, it seems really tenuous as to whether the information will even still be available in a pop up window, much less likely on the icon itself. There have been highly questionable arguments like, "When my laptop is idle it says 4 hours, and then when I start a compile it says 1 hour," which is really the desired behavior, and, "The computer can't predict what the user will do in the future, so it can't possibly predict how long the battery will last." At the same time, obvious statements like, "Browsers show download time remaining, which varies depending on network traffic, and no one is complaining," are ignored. This discussion is incomprehensible. If *anyone* finds a feature useful, especially if it is a significant number of anyones, the *option* should be available. It appears I will have to make a copy of plasma_applet_battery and add this feature myself. Before I invest the time in that, which I will no doubt have to maintain every time plasma is updated, can someone tell me whether that is the only way I will get this information on the battery icon?
Regardless of what one might think of the decision, the decision has been made by the developers. So if everyone who disagrees teams up and create a power users widget on kde-look.org, we can have the best of both worlds. Within the KDE SC however, this won't be worked in the foreseeable future - so marked as a wontfix.
(In reply to comment #3) > Regardless of what one might think of the decision, the decision has been > made by the developers. So if everyone who disagrees teams up and create a > power users widget on kde-look.org, we can have the best of both worlds. > Within the KDE SC however, this won't be worked in the foreseeable future - > so marked as a wontfix. I'm not going to challenge the decision but i do think it's a mistake.