power: Add settings to disable low battery warnings for connected devices

[Lanchon]

hi,

this is a long requested feature for gnome shell and cinnamon. there are too many posts asking how to disable low battery notifications, and someone even made some scripts that patch and recompile upower for gnome (works for gnome only; cinnamon is too different in this regard).

the problem is that many devices report low battery when they will be able to work fine for a long time, spamming the user with notifications. this happens a lot when users replace alkaline (1.5V nominal) batteries with nickel-based batteries (1.2V nominal). the lower voltage of the rechargeable batteries trigger the warning, but the devices typically work fine with just 1V or less.

this is a quick fix for keyboards and mice, which represent 99+ % of the issue i guess, with a coarse fix for the outliers if any. a different implementation could filter individual devices based on their upower device ID, instead of classes of devices. but i'm not familiar with the dconf system and wouldn't know the best way to implement such "variable schema" on it. (a set of ID strings? who knows.)

something is better than nothing and this implementation is here now, and the problem has been unfixed for ages so i'm obviously pushing to get this in. as i said, this should take care of most users.

the UI will be pushed in a companion PR.

thanks!

[Lanchon]

if you merge this here, then i'll try pushing the same change to gnome-settings-daemon (without UI changes).

or should i first try to get it into gnome?

[Lanchon]

for gnome: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-settings-daemon/-/merge_requests/326

it is implemented differently on gnome. there upower handles the warning state changes, so i can't filter the warning signal before edge detection as i do in cinnamon. result is that on cinnamon, if you reenable a warning when its condition is met, a warning will soon be generated. while on gnome, when the event happens it is either shown or not; enabling the warning later will not trigger a warning.

[Lanchon]

hi @mtwebster, should i notify a reviewer or just wait? thanks!

[mtwebster]

Hi, I'm ok with this, but are three individual settings seems unnecessary. Both mouse and keyboard have typically long battery life in my experience (compared to something like a gamepad), and are treated similarly by upower already (reporting general battery status, not percentage) - maybe just have two settings, one for mouse/keyboard, and one for everything else?

[Lanchon]

@mtwebster hey thanks!

upower warn level is buggy and a mess. please note that csd-power ignores it and triggers its own warnings based on battery state, AFAICT.

maybe just have two settings, one for mouse/keyboard, and one for everything else?

this is the way i first implemented it, but then i backtracked and added the 3rd setting. i can absolutely go back to 2 settings, but first please allow me to tell you why i preferred 3:

• i had difficulty coming up with english text for the complete UI that was nice, concise and clear.
• then i thought of a setting for "input devices" and another for everything else, but the definition of input device is not clear to me.
  • should we add touchpads? game controllers? what about so named "tablet"? some gnome code thinks "tablet" is an ipad, and some other thinks it is a graphic tablet input device, and there is no canonical definition besides the word "tablet" for it.
• kbd and mice are the most important inputs, and some devices throw warnings that are useful.
  • someone's mouse might spam with low batts, while their keyboard might alert when needed. someone might have USB cable mice lying around but only one keyboard, and cannot afford to suddenly run out of keyboard alkaline batteries at 2am when they can't get replacements.

so because of UI clarity and better usability, i went with 3 settings. given that kbd and mice are by far the most important and common input devices, special treatment for them did not seem unwarranted.

that said, please keep in mind that each setting only shows up only if you have an applicable device connected.

for example. this is my control panel:

FYI, the UI works like this:

• if there are no batteries at all, the battery tab goes away.
• if all batteries are main or UPS, no devices are shown and the notifications section is also not shown.
• otherwise some battery-containing devices are connected. determine their types (keyboard/mouse/other), and show the notifications section with:
  • a toggle for keyboard if keyboard or other is present.
  • a toggle for mouse if mouse or other is present.
  • a toggle for other if other is present.

this is for UI clarity: if a toggle for "other" is needed (very unusual case, surely <1%) it will be clear and obvious what is not included in "other" (ie: keyboard and mouse) because these options will also be displayed. but 99% of users will only see the options they need for their setup. (full text of options here.)

---

that said, if you still think 2 settings are better than 3, then please confirm and i'll proceed with the changes.

and sorry for writing such a long message! :((

[Lanchon]

hi @clefebvre, maybe you got a minute for a review?

the related UI PR is https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon/pull/11599

thanks so much!

[Lanchon]

profound sadness... (╥﹏╥)

[Lanchon]

@mtwebster thank you!!!