Battery Panel is a system preference panel which displays the current battery settings. If your handheld supports user changeable batteries (Alkaline, NiCad), the battery type can be chosen. Also the warning and critical (shut off) voltages can be set. All settings will survive a soft reset. Battery Panel is an application and does not patch any system trap (unlike a hackmaster hack).
Versions lower than 1.00 must be considered beta releases!
The various PalmOS versions (2.0 to 3.5) behave quite different on battery
settings. I'm using PalmOS 3.5 on a Palm III and can verify that the
settings for the battery kind and critical voltage do work for myself
(NiCad 2.00 V). But I'm not sure about about the warning voltage. For this
reason I'm happy to get feedback per email with the information, which
settings do work for yourself and which OS are you using on what kind of
device.
Unzip the archiv into any directory and install
batterypanel_en.prc (or batterypanel_de.prc for
the german version) like any other palm
application with the Palm Install Tool provided with your Palm
Desktop application.
To configure your battery settings, you have to open the Preferences application (called Prefs in the Launcher). With the popup menu in the top right corner of the screen, you can switch to the configuration screen by selecting Battery from this menu.
The kind of battery used can't be changed, if your handheld has a fixed build in battery (e.g. Palm V and Palm IIIc devices).
Thanks to the following people for supporting the development of this program:
Peter Fornaro Roberto Maffiolini
You can get listed here and in the programs credits dialog by donating some money for the development of this and other free palm software. The top 10 donators (who donated the biggest sum) will be listed in the credit dialog of the next updated revision of Battery Panel. The top 30 donators will be listed here in the documentation. How to donate money with a credit card will be described on the web page of Battery Panel or can be arranged by email.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPL) as published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. See the GPL (COPYING.TXT) for more details.
I've installed the program on my Palm, but can't find its icon
anywhere?
Battery Panel is a preference panel and therefore it is not shown in
the Launcher. To see the program, you have to start the Preference
application (called Prefs in the Launcher). It will be shown in the
popup menu in the top right corner of the screen.
How can I delete Battery Panel?
Like any other installed Program: Go to the Launcher and select
Delete... from the App menu. In this dialog you can delete
it by selecting Battery (resp. Batterie for the german
version) from the list.
Are the preferences preserved across soft resets? Are they restored
after a hard reset?
Yes, it does preserve preferences across soft resets, and I'm quiet
positiv, they are restored after a hard reset with the next HotSync. But
to be save than sorry, check the setup after a restore.
When I set the default values with the menu, the warning and critical
voltages are not the same as after a hard reset. Why?
Battery Panel has it's own default values for these voltages. They
are the same as the values in PalmOS version 3.5. But they can be
different, if your handheld is running another version of PalmOS.
What is the timeout value?
Whenever this value passes zero, the voltage is checked against the warning
level and the warning alert is displayed if needed. So it's basicaly the
time between two warning dialogs. I will probably take this display out,
when I've better understood the warning mechanism.
You say, this program is free software, but at the same time you ask for
money. I'm confused, is it free or not?
Battery Panel is distributed under the GNU General Public License as
free software. Therefore, you get even the source code to adapt it for
your own needs. To quote the FSF: Free software is a matter of
liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free
speech, not free beer. So, you are encouraged to donate any amount
of money to the development of this program. As a bonus, you get the chance
to be credited in the documentation and in the credit dialog.
I've unzipped the archive but it is incomprehensible! There are a lot of
files and some are duplicated. Do I need all of these?
If all went right unzipping, you should have only a few files in the main
directory and all of the rest in a subdirectory called
source.
batterypanel_en.prc is the english version of the program.
batterypanel_de.prc is the german version of the program.
README.HTM is the english documentation (in HTML format).
LIESMICH.HTM is the german documentation (in HTML format).
COPYING.TXT is the full text of the GNU General Public
License.
KOPIEREN.TXT is the german translation of the GNU General
Public License.
source is the directory in which all the rest of the files
should be. These are the sources and can be ignored, if you aren't a
developer.
I can't find a database called Battery (or Batterie) on my Palm. Where
is this program stored?
For all languages the program is stored in a database called
Bttr-Panel.
0.02
- first public beta release
Remo Hofer cocos.nucifera@gmx.net
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Cable/5206/