Visually distinguish the "Not charging" battery state (when the firmware halts charging to prolong battery life) from other statuses
Since GNOME 41 / Fedora 35, my ThinkPad X220 finally seems to automagically honor a charge "stop threshold" and stops charging at 99% (and avoids recharging if the battery was above 90%, a.k.a. "start threshold"), which is great. It looks like this:
I'm just thinking it would be better if it was visually clear to users, at a glance, that the battery is purposedly not charging because it's already charged "enough", not that it's stuck, so distinguish between this state and the regular charging state. There are various ways I could imagine this being accomplished:
- Making the icon and label (if enabled) 50% transparent
- Having the battery icon encased within a circle to convey "fullness"
- Having the battery icon's internal rectangle a different color (like Tango's sky blue,
#3465a4
), vs the other states (white, green, red...)?
Here's a simulation with the blue colors approach (sky blue medium #3465a4
and sky blue light #729fcf
):
This would prevent people from thinking it's a bug (like in issue #3034 (closed)). Personally, I'm very happy that GNOME Shell gives me visual confirmation that my battery is not overcharging, I've been wanting this for years but had never had the time and inclination to set up TLP to protect my battery. I just think GNOME Shell's visual indication should be clearer so that this is properly understood as the feature it is.