--- title: Refining the battery status menu description: As part of the notification area transition, we’re adapting the Gnome Power Manager item to be a system status menu. We’re interested in your feedback on the design and any improvements we can make. […] url: https://canonical.com/blog/battery?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Matthew Paul Thomas](https://canonical.com/blog/author/matthew-paul-thomas "More about Matthew Paul Thomas") 23 April 2010 # Refining the battery status menu [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) --- Share the article As I explained on Wednesday, [we’re replacing Ubuntu’s notification area with a consistent set of menus](https://canonical.com/2010/04/notification-area/). As part of that transition, we need to adapt system components that have previously been using the notification area. One of the simplest of these belongs to [Gnome Power Manager](http://projects.gnome.org/gnome-power-manager/), and displays the charge status for the batteries in devices connected to your computer — the computer itself, any wireless mouse, phone, and so on. In Ubuntu 10.04, Gnome Power Manager has already been patched to use a custom status menu (“application indicator”). So, probably, not much will change when it shuffles over to the system area. But we’re still interested in feedback on the design and any improvements we can make. Once you’ve checked out the full [battery status menu specification](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BatteryStatusMenu), we’d be glad to have your comments either here or on [the Ayatana mailing list](https://launchpad.net/~ayatana). [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### Canonical’s recipe for High Performance Computing](https://canonical.com/blog/canonicals-recipe-for-high-performance-computing) In essence, High Performance Computing (HPC) is quite simple. Speed and scale. In practice, the concept is quite complex and hard to achieve. It is not dissimilar to what... [Igor Ljubuncic](https://canonical.com/blog/author/igorljubuncic) 24 January 2024 [### Web team – hack week 2023](https://canonical.com/blog/web-team-hack-week-2023) Today, around 96% of software projects utilize open source in some way. The web team here at Canonical is passionate about Open source. We lead with an open-by-default approach... [Anthony Dillon](https://canonical.com/blog/author/ya-bo-ng) 25 October 2023