"Laptop battery (estimating...)" -estimating what?

How about ommiting it completely if there's no data present?

I would rather want it to stay. In this way, the user knows that the
computer is doing something.
It's a good principle to let the user know when the system is doing
something. Especially in this case, the user has actively sought to
get some information (by holding the mouse still over the icon), so we
shouldn't let them down by giving nothing.

Im assuming that when theres no data present, the system is working on
getting some data (ie some estimation algorithm is running in the
background and will soon deliver information)

On 03/09/2010, Tobias Jost <email address hidden> wrote:
> How about ommiting it completely if there's no data present?
>
> --
> "Laptop battery (estimating...)" (estimating what?)
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/629257
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts: New
>
> Bug description:
> The mouse over text for the battery icon says "Laptop battery
> (estimating...)"
> Could this not be extended to "Laptop battery (estimating battery life...)"
> without any loss?
> It will leave less options for being confused/in doubt.
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/629257/+subscribe
>

--
med venlig hilsen
Jon Loldrup

The new battery menu (which you should have if you are running Ubuntu Lucid or later) does not have tooltips / mouse over text anymore. Instead it has a menu item directly showing »Laptop battery X hours X minutes left«.

It does not need to estimate anymore, so I’m going to mark this bug as invalid.

On 4 September 2010 12:09, Jan-Christoph Borchardt
<email address hidden>wrote:

> The new battery menu (which you should have if you are running Ubuntu
> Lucid or later) does not have tooltips / mouse over text anymore.
>

ups, youre right. Its a menu, not a tooltip. But the problem is still the
same. It says "(estimating...)" when it could have said "(estimating battery
life...)"
Would you not say that the latter would be better?

> Instead it has a menu item directly showing »Laptop battery X hours X
> minutes left«.
>

Well, not as long as it hasn't comed up with an estimate. It takes several
minutes to estimate. I agree that the text is fine, once the estimate has
arrived.

It does not need to estimate anymore

I dont follow you here - its very central to estimate battery life. Why do
you say it doesn't need to estimate?

> , so I’m going to mark this bug as
> invalid.
>

I didn't follow your argument there :)

Jon

For me, it directly comes up with an estimate (even if it might be totally wrong, like 17 hours …) – it even gives me that via Notify-OSD. Please post a screenshot of the situation to clarify the problem.

What I meant with »it does not need to estimate anymore« is that it directly shows the value (for me at least). Sorry for the weird phrasing.

On 4 September 2010 13:19, Jan-Christoph Borchardt
<email address hidden>wrote:

> For me, it directly comes up with an estimate (even if it might be
> totally wrong, like 17 hours …) – it even gives me that via Notify-OSD.
> Please post a screenshot of the situation to clarify the problem.
>

Screenshot? well..
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gpe-screenshot/+bug/630181

Missing a screenshot, I will try to explain what I do:
1. I left-click the battery icon
2. A menu pops up. It has two entries: "Laptop battery (estimating...)" and
"Preferences"

An estimate never appears (but thats another problem). The fact is that it
can happen that there is a time when no estimate exists and in that period
the text "Laptop battery (estimating...)" will appear whereby the user is
subjected to, what I think, is a papercut. This bug is about the usability
of just writing "estimating..." which I think should rather be "estimating
battery life".
Does this bug not categorize as a papercut? Its small and it relates to
usability

Jon

Sorry, that would indeed qualify as a paper cut.

I can not reproduce it though: until there is an estimate it just shows »Battery discharging ([percentage left]%)«.

And if the »(estimating...)« is how it is in fact done now, it should be changed to how Tobias was proposing in comment #1 and how I described above. If it’s estimating, it could mean anything; like you said it takes several minutes to estimate and therefore this meta-info is not helpful at all.

I cannot reproduce problem either. You might be facing a bug causing the delay.

Screenshots of the menu can be taken from: Applications > Accessories > Take Screenshot
Set the time delay and once you select 'take screenshot' , open the menu and wait for the screenshot to be taken ;-)

On 4 September 2010 15:11, Jan-Christoph Borchardt
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Sorry, that would indeed qualify as a paper cut.
>
> And if the »(estimating...)« is how it is in fact done now, it should be
> changed to how Tobias was proposing in comment #1

If we remove the "(estimating.."-part then that menu entry just says "Laptop
battery". When clicking it, one is taken to a window named "Power
statistics".
Then "Laptop battery" should be changed to "Power statistics" to reflect
what it actually refers to. Maybe this is actually a papercut also in its
current form.

> and how I described
> above. If it’s estimating, it could mean anything; like you said it
> takes several minutes to estimate and therefore this meta-info is not
> helpful at all.
>

I don't agree here. I think "(estimating battery life...)" does convey
meaningful information (while "(estimating...)" doesn't really).

If you remove it completely, a user might be confused that the estimate is
completely lacking when he knows that it is usually there (from all the
times he looked up there and saw a real estimate). With the text
"(estimating battery life...)" he can rest assured that the anomaly is
currently being worked upon behind the scenes.

By the way, I'm using ubuntu 10.00 daily build from 2. september 2010. Sorry
I forgot to mention that..

On 4 September 2010 15:38, Vish <email address hidden> wrote:

> I cannot reproduce problem either. You might be facing a bug causing the
> delay.
>
> Screenshots of the menu can be taken from: Applications > Accessories >
> Take Screenshot
> Set the time delay and once you select 'take screenshot' , open the menu
> and wait for the screenshot to be taken ;-)
>

There we go :)

Jon

ups - ubuntu 10.10 daily build

The text of the items is specified here: <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BatteryStatusMenu#Items>

"(estimating battery life...)" would be misleading. As far as I know, there's nothing in Ubuntu that estimates battery life at all. The life of my MacBook's battery is measured in years.

Why is this bug marked as incomplete?

Right, its invalid, as the text is according specification as mentioned in comment #12.

If its taking too long to estimate it is a bug.

Invalid? Please read comment no 9 by jancborchardt again. He classifies it as a papercut.

Iups, I meant comment no. 7

Jon, have you read comment 12 by Matthew Paul Thomas ? he wrote those design specs.

Yes, I have read comment 7 too, but dropping the "(estimating...)" is not the right option here.

Clearly it should *not* be taking so long to estimate whether the battery is charging or discharging.
And if we do not show it, we are hiding a bug in either the battery or gnome-power-manager there.

One alternative could be displaying it as "( -- : -- )" instead of "(estimating...)" , but i'm not sure it is any better.

mpt, thoughts?

@Matthew Paul Thomas: What do you think about:
"estimating time till discharged"
"estimating remaining time on battery"
"estimating time till battery is discharged"
"estimating remaining time until battery is discharged"

Anyways, I'm perfectly fine with however you guys chose to deal with the issue. As long as awareness is there I'm good :)

Jon
ps. doesn't "incomplete" means that the bug reporter has to deliver more information? What do I need to deliver?

There you go.. Better now? ;-)

Several days in and the indicator-applet battery menu still shows, on left-click menu:

  [===]
  * Laptop battery (estimating...)
  * Preferences

and in on right-click->About:

  Indicator 0.4.6

Brand new laptop install. I think the secret here is that the battery has not yet been discharged to zero/near zero /whilst the computer has been turned on and able to take samples.

Ideally whilst the battery *time* is being estimated, the reported percentage should just be shown (the percentage is already used to drive the icon...).

What any particular menu says has nothing at all to do with indicator-applet.

*None* of the bug reports that have been marked as duplicates of this one are actually duplicates. This bug report is about the choice of text. All the other bug reports are about Gnome Power Manager failing to provide an estimate when it should.

Fair enough, wholesale move dups over to bug #629258.

I have just revised the battery status menu specification. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BatteryStatusMenu?action=diff&rev2=10&rev1=9>

One common complaint I tackled was that the menu items were annoyingly long. For example, I have shortened "Battery 0:20 until charged" to "Battery (0:20 to charge)". Meanwhile, I specified an option to show the time estimate in the menu title as well.

For those two reasons, I would rather not change "Battery (estimating…)" to "Battery (estimating time…)", if we can avoid it. It's longer, especially in a menu title.

"(estimating...)" should appear for only a few minutes. If for some reason bug 629258 cannot be fixed, so it would unavoidably appear for longer than a few minutes, then please reopen this bug and we'll tackle it some other way.

If we're talking about it saying;

Time to full
Time to empty

Mine both say 0 Seconds

We still have a bug here in Natty Narwhal too with all this battery stuff...

THANKS

I'm out of the office until 1st August.

On 2 May 2011, at 21:57, SAR <email address hidden> wrote:

> If we're talking about it saying;
>
> Time to full
> Time to empty
>
> Mine both say 0 Seconds
>
> We still have a bug here in Natty Narwhal too with all this battery
> stuff...
>
> THANKS
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of
> Papercutters, which is subscribed to One Hundred Paper Cuts.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/629257
>
> Title:
>  "Laptop battery (estimating...)" -estimating what?
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts:
>  Opinion
> Status in Indicator Applet:
>  Invalid
> Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu:
>  Won't Fix
>
> Bug description:
>  The drop-down menu for the gnome-power-manager battery status menu
>  says "Laptop battery (estimating...)"
>
>  At a minimum this be fixed to read "Laptop batter (estimating
>  time...)" or "Laptop battery (estimating battery life...)".
>
>  Ideally if the remaining battery *time* is not known (because less
>  than sufficient datapoints have been collected to enable estimation)
>  then the percentage should be displayed in-lieu.  The percentage is
>  already available and is used to drive the indicator-applet icon
>  itself.
>
>  The current implementation is specified by:
>
>    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BatteryStatusMenu#Items
>
>  but because the "estimating..." text can exist for days-on-end
> (nearly
>  a week in the case of this computer) it probably needs a slight tweak
>  or design addition to take account of the time estimation not being
>  available for long periods of time.
>
>  See bug #629258 for previous (lukewarm) discussions on the lower-
> stack
>  issues.  This two bugs might want re-splitting/sorting again based on
>  those that relate to the chrono estimate not being known, and those
>  that relate to the pointless display of that unknown data for long
>  periods of time.