Big Battery Status Icon

[angelolev]

I am using elementary os luna and when i installed this theme, i got a huge battery icon, how can i fix it? thanks

[jpmacedosilva]

I am using Xubuntu 14.04 (Xfce 4.10) and install Numix Circle icon set, and the found a battery icon issue too! When battery is charged the icon as a normal look, but battery is low and plug-in the energy cable the icon changes to a huge size. Pictures attached,

[Foggalong]

That mail notification and font look gorgeous. What are they from?

[rickpalmeira]

I just realized that everyone elses battery icon has these 'check', 'charging', 'etc' markings and mine only shows the battery...

[jpmacedosilva]

Foggalong the mas, the mail notification icons are the indicator-messages.svg and new-messages.svg from Numix icon theme. The font is Droid Sans Bold (I had to tweak the gtkrc file because the font is not bold as default).

[HarrisonPace]

This is a issue that really makes using this theme on elementary OS not really feasible. Really would love to see this fixed... Its still apparent and is a visual eye sore.

[fselem]

I also have encountered the same issue on elementary os.

[srid99]

Seems like no one really interested in fixing this issue. It's been open for so long. Like many mentioned here, it is really annoying to see the huge battery icon where everything else looks pretty cool.

For now (until a proper fix available) I am using the below temporary workaround to get rid of this issue. Skip using the battery icons provided by Numix and use the one provided by elementary OS (in case if you are not using elementary OS then you can choose other default themes).

Rename the extension of all battery related icons:

find /usr/share/icons/Numix/ -name '*battery*.svg' -exec sh -c 'mv "$1" "${1%.svg}.bck"' -- {} \;

Undo the renaming (in case if you didn't like this solution/workaround):

find /usr/share/icons/Numix/ -name '*battery*.bck' -exec sh -c 'mv "$1" "${1%.bck}.svg"' -- {} \;

Once after executing the above command, edit the index.theme file which is located in /usr/share/icons/Numix/ folder. Edit the line which presents Inherits=gnome,hicolor to Inherits=elementary This needs a reboot.

I hope this issue will be fixed quickly and I am looking forward to use the Numix battery icons again.

Note: You need root access to execute the above commands

[dirtydancing]

Hi there, I would like to share a possible approach to this longstanding battery icon situation. I have been looking into the "big battery icon" issue in Xubuntu 14.04/Xfce in a virtual machine, and this has solved the issue for my present needs.

Before I share my findings, please be aware: as far as I can tell (not being a developer), the battery indicator icons are a rather complex issue, and I figure there is a reason why this has remained unaddressed for a while. I have been diving into this issue in Ubuntu 14.04/Unity (no "big battery icon" in Numix base there, but other details). If you are interested, just do a search for "battery" in numix-icon-theme :-)

I have only checked this for the battery icon when the battery is plugged-in and fully charged, only for the panel itself, and only in Xubuntu, so it stands to further testing if this approach works with the other battery icons (discharging, charging), if it works with the power dropdown menu, and if it works with elementary OS at all.

Moreover, it might well be possible that this kind of approach is only possible manually from case to case and not as a general "fix", as other desktops/shells might have conflicting requirements.

Here we go: Present situation for the battery icon in Xubuntu 14.04/Xcfe, "big battery" showing:

The relevant icon here apparently is battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg in /usr/share/icons/Numix/scalable/status. When I rename/delete this icon, I get this result with a regular battery icon size:

This is because now, with scalable out of the equation, the relevant icon here is still battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg, but this time in /usr/share/icons/Numix/22x22/status. This is a symlink, and if you prefer the symbol with the green check mark, one possible way to get there would be to save the original symlink file, then to copy battery-100.svg and then to rename this copy into battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg. That is what I did. The result is this:

Actually, I am referencing one battery icon issue from Ubuntu/Unity here, because this might be of relevance in determining whether you prefer the "flash" or the "green check mark" icon in this situation. Again, be warned, many cross-links to other battery issues there, the battery is quite the icon :-)

https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/161

Anyways, with his approach, you get to keep the Numix battery icons. Maybe this exploration can be of help to someone here, or even trigger further solutions. Cheers!

[dirtydancing]

Just for the sake of completeness and to possibly facilitate solutions: in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, although the "big battery icon" is presently not an issue in Numix base, it is an issue in Numix-Bevel (merger of legacy circle an legacy base). I am referencing that already reported issue here, and I will cross-reference from there to here as well: https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme-bevel/issues/3

[dirtydancing]

One more observation: in Xubuntu14.04/Xfce, I also get the regular-sized battery icon when the icon named battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg in /usr/share/icons/Numix/scalable/status does not have the size 16x16 but rather the size 22x22. Possibly this further detail is of help. Screenshot:

[dirtydancing]

Actually, with this additional observation, I arrive at this preliminary conclusion regarding the battery icon in the panels (and the panels only) of Ubuntu 14.04/Unity and Xubuntu 14.04/Xfce (at least for the status of fully charged and plugged-in). Open for further thoughts, of course:

Ubuntu looks into the directory 22x22 first, then in the directory scalable. This is why on the Ubuntu panel, the icon with the flash is showing (from 22x22). This is also why in Numix-Bevel, the icon is "big": there happen to be no battery icons in Numix-Bevel in the directory 22x22, so Ubuntu is taking the icon from scalable.

Xubuntu, in contrast, looks into the directory scalable first, then into 22x22. And apparently both Ubuntu and Xubuntu have difficulties when scaling an icon that is supposed to be of the size "22x22" from an icon that is only sized "16x16", so both come up with this "big battery icon".

Further on, the power dropdown menu is making things even somewhat more complicated, as this one seems to look into the directory 16x16, and if there is also a scalable directory present, things might diverge again.

What I figure from this is: if there is no need for battery icons in the scalable directory in other desktops/shells, it might streamline things if the scalable directory is kept free of battery icons. At the same time, all the other fixed size directories (with this I mean those relevant for the battery icons) should contain the same battery icons, just in different sizes. This could actually clean up all of the battery issues once and for all. Does this make sense?

[jpmacedosilva]

Excellent observations. For me it all makes sense. Let me just add that this is not a problem related to the type of graphical environment, but to the type of distribution. In Linux Mint 17 Xfce (the one I am currently using) does not exist the same problem encountered in Xubuntu 14.04, because in this distribution all the battery icons are displayed correctly.

[dirtydancing]

Update: I have fixed the "battery icon situation" on my machine by now. I figure that quite a few other users of the Numix-Circle/Numix base icon theme are running Ubuntu, so I might as well share my approach here. This might work for other distributions/desktops/shells/power managers, too.

Anyways, the "battery icon situation" is a battlefield and a moving target, so I can only provide a snapshot, and possibly a foundation for cleaning this up without too many casualties :-)

My approach went like this: start with as few icons as possible, then add more as needed.

I had a look into the source of the present indicator-power package in trusty, cf. http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/trusty/indicator-power

In /src/device.c the following two passages caught my attention, and I took it from there:

I deleted all the battery icons in all directories except for 22x22/status. In 22x22, I deleted all gpm-battery-..., gpm-primary-..., gpm-ups-..., xfpm-primary-... and xfpm-ups-... icons as well (these are mostly symlinks themselves, rather easily to be re-added). I then made a list of the relevant icons and put them into 22x22: 12 icons and 24 symlinks (12 symlinks for "symbolic" and 12 symlinks for "percentage"):

These are all 36 files showing:

The result in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity is: all is running fine, no confusion anymore, and the icons in the power dropdown menu are even scaled correctly from size 22x22 to apparently size 16x16 (of course, corresponding icons could be added in the directory 16x16, and also in 24x24). Moreover, in continuation of my other comment, I even made peace with the green check mark now that it is only showing when battery-full-charged :-), cf. https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/161#issuecomment-52419302

Screenshots of battery-full-charging, battery-full-charged and battery-full:

There might be better approaches, and I probably have overlooked s.th. in the heat of the battle, so please feel free to chime in here. To me, Numix-Circle/Numix base is a way too fantastic icon theme to not get the battery icon sorted. On laptops and mobile devices in general, the power indicator and thus this "trivial" battery icon is essential.

Actually, so far I have not come across any icon theme that gets this completely right on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. So which one if not Numix should be the first? :-)

[dirtydancing]

Follow-up: Presently, the battery icons in scalable/status are of the size 16x16, so I added them to the folder 16x16/status (with no battery icon files in scalable), again creating the 36 files (12 icon files, 24 symlinks pointing to those icon files) as described above. This will give an impression of what will be displayed on screen with battery icons in both the 22x22 and 16x16 folders.

The size of the actual battery is the same in the different file sizes. The difference with the present battery icons in scalable/status when compared to those presently in 22x22/status is twofold: First, they do not have a drop shadow. which I figure is due to the smaller file size, and the drop shadow at the bottom would be cut off in size 16x16 anyways. Second, they (or at least some of them) are somewhat "darker", I do not really know why (?). Comparative screenshots of two enlarged icons, sizes 22x22 and 16x16:

22x22

16x16

The result in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity (running the default Ambiance GTK theme) is displayed accordingly: you can see the now larger (unscaled) and somewhat darker battery icon in the power dropdown menu. Again, battery-full-charging, battery-full-charged, and battery-full:

One more observation: actually, for battery-empty, the red colour in size 22x22 is hardly visible, whereas the warning signal is obvious in size 16x16. Screenshots of the icons in 22x22 and 16x16 as well as the actual difference on screen:

22x22

16x16

difference on screen

I am checking this with Ubuntu, but I am hopeful that this take on the battery icon will be of general help and will work in several, if not all other distributions, too.

[dirtydancing]

To come back to the starting point of this thread, the "big battery icon": I can reproduce this "big battery icon" now by simply deleting the battery icons in the 22x22/status directory. This leaves my machine with size 16x16 only, and when these battery icons get "scaled" to size 22x22, they get "big". Apparently, this is not some kind of "scaling bug", but simply the fact that there is no 22x22 icon, so a 16x16 icon gets scaled.

Screenshots for battery-empty, battery-caution-charging and battery-full-charged:

Actually, I have been wondering: if the actual battery size stays the same throughout 16x16, 22x22 (and 24x24), and only the "frame" around the battery varies, this means that the actual battery itself is not supposed to be "scaled" - so why have panel battery icons in the scalable directory at all?

I can only speculate that for some distributions (or possibly for GNOME) the power "indicator" icons (16x16) are in scalable, but even then, if those distributions look into fixed size directories (16x16 directory) after they have not found anything in scalable, there might be a universal approach that works for everyone.

I can say that for me it is fun to actually see "correct" battery icons displayed on my screen again. For the first time since ages, I can simply look at the (well-designed) battery icon(s) and pretty much see what is going on at any time.

Probably the next thing I will look into is whether the "battery-full/good/...-..." icons (without "-symbolic") actually should be in the "dirty three dozen" of the "foundation" icon names, or if a "dirty two dozen" will be better :-)

However this all may be, a - very crude - temporary workaround for those currently seeing a "big battery icon" might be to 1) make a backup of Numix (base) icon theme folder, just in case, 2) move all battery icons (one dozen) from scalable/status to 16x16/status 3) change the icon theme back and forth, or restart, and see what happens :-)

Presumably now, if your distribution has a 22x22 sized power indicator icon, with scalable out of the way, the 22x22 directory should be looked into before the 16x16 directory, and the battery should be displayed in the regular size.

[dirtydancing]

In continuation of the above: Indeed, 24 files (12 icon files and 12 symlinks) are a more efficient and actually a more consistent "foundation".

Updated list:

Updated files:

I figure that this smaller "foundation" keeps things simpler. Moreover, the "battery-empty/caution/..." icons apparently are also used outside of the panel, and Numix base presently seems to be relying on the fallback gnome icon theme for those (?) (one exception appears to be battery-good-charging.svg in the devices directories?). The new smaller "foundation" thus avoids icon conflicts.

To demonstrate, here are two comparative screenshots with the energy statistics window which shows up when clicking on the battery line in the power dropdown menu:

With the former 36 icons:

With the current 24 icons (and also with current Numix base):

Deciding on which "foundation" to go with is of relevance. There is a whole array of further symlinks sets which seem to be needed as a kind of catch-all (?) (also listed on the updated list). Here is a visualisation of what the battery icon entails (symlinks are yellow):

Creating this kind of "chained symlinks" has the advantage that in case the "foundation" icons are changed, at least the symlinks further back in the chain can remain the same. E.g., cf. this scenario when the basic icon files are the "battery percentage files":

Wow, quite the rabbit hole, this battery icon :-)

Summing up, on Ubuntu, all is working smoothly in the panel and in the power dropdown menu, with only this "foundation" of 12 icon files and 12 symlinks in the 22x22/status and 16x16/status directories respectively.

[dirtydancing]

I came across this post by Jessie James Aton from a couple of days ago in the Numix Google+ Community: https://plus.google.com/103721645999623151788/posts/gWRpUj977n5

Problem there was that the battery icon was still displaying "full" while the battery power percentage was already down to 60 %. This was on Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS/GNOME Shell 3.10.4.

In my view, this is not necessarily a bug, well, at least this can possibly be readily explained. To explain, I will make use of this opportunity to also explain why I included the 12 "percentage" symlinks in the 24 battery icons "foundation".

These "foundation" symlinks are useful for a better distribution of the threshold percentage values at which the battery icon changes. To elaborate, I come back to this passage of the source of indicator-power:

As you can see, for charging, the first go-to icons are the "...-symbolic" icons, whereas for discharging the first go-to icons are the "percentage" icons. This (for discharging) is where the symlinks of the "foundation" icons come into play. They make quite a difference, as you can see in this overview:

I have checked column 1 and 2, and in my view column 2 works much better for discharging (charging is the same in all columns). Colums 3 and 4 are for the further scenarios of 3) a symlink of "080" to "good" instead of to "full", and 4) an extra "080" icon file (not a symlink).

I have not checked 3) and 4), but I went with 2) because of three reasons: First, that is closer to the percentages of "...-symbolic" for the "full" section (more below). Second, that fits the current design of the battery icons for full/good/low/caution (100/69/49/29), if you take the respective starting point of each section and compare it to the height of the lighter part of the battery icons. Third, in contrast to column 4), it makes things simpler if all of the "percentage" icons are kept as symlinks.

All of this is only an approximation anyways, supposed to work on as many distributions as possible, so I figured the present "foundation" with the 24 icons (12 icon files + 12 symlinks) would be agreeable. btw, this is also why the colour of "080" in the overview(s) is blue, to stand out, and of course this is open to a different setting.

This being said, now back to the initial post of Jessie's: Again, the other passage of the source of indicator-power already referred to earlier, determines what the respective threshold percentage values are for the "full/good..." icons ("suffix" in the screenshot) and the "percentage" icons ("index" in the screenshot).

Here you can see that for "full", the thresholds are 100 % - 60 %. To me, this indicates that Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/GNOME Shell 3.10.4 somehow only draws on the "symbolic" ("suffix") icons, and that means that the "battery-full" icon is shown from 100 % down to 60 % , and 60 % is just what Jessie's screenshot from above shows.

I would guess that the reason why others running the exact same version GNOME Shell 3.10.4 cannot replicate this is that they are not running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, but rather a different distribution, maybe even Ubuntu GNOME (above, we have already seen differences e.g. between Ubuntu and Xubuntu). Is this the case? In a different distribution, e.g. the threshold percentage values for the "symbolic" icons might be different, so "battery-full-symbolic" might not be displayed all the way down to 60 % when discharging.

One additional (hypothetical) question to Jessie then would be, as he says that this has not happened "before": did you use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/GNOME Shell 3.10.4 "before", or was it another combination, because in another combination the battery "percentage" icons might have come into play again.

To demonstrate the difference between 12 icon files (full-symbolic...) on the one hand and 12 icon files (full-symbolic...) plus 12 symlinks (100...) on the other hand, here are screenshots from my machine while discharging at 30 % and at 29 %:

12 icon files ("symbolic") at 30 % and at 29 %:

In contrast, 12 icon files ("symbolic") plus 12 symlinks ("percentage"), present "foundation", at 30 %: and at 29 %:

Again, this is coming from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, but this might just as well be of universal relevance to other distributions or, more specifically, to other combinations of distributions/desktops/shells.

[dirtydancing]

Quick info: I was able to replicate the "full battery" icon displaying when discharging with only 60 % left, with Ubuntu GNOME 14.04.1 LTS/GNOME Shell 3.10.4 (VM, no extensions, battery icon only showing when discharging):

The screenshot shows Ubuntu GNOME with current Numix-Circle/Numix base via PPA (guest, below) and Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS/Unity 7.2.2 with Numix-Circle/Test-Numix base with the 24 icons "foundation" (host, above).

As was to be expected, the battery icon in Ubuntu GNOME below turned into the "good battery" icon which is already displaying in Ubuntu above, when Ubuntu GNOME below reached 59 % left.

[dirtydancing]

One more thought on how to handle the current "battery icon situation": create a new icon theme (folder) that inherits Numix-Circle. That way, there is (temporarily) no need to touch either Numix-Circle or Numix base, and this might also allow for more far-reaching solutions beyond the battery icon.

As I see it, presently there are two problems with the battery icon(s) in Numix base: 1) wrong battery icon sizes displayed ("big battery icon") and 2) wrong battery icons displayed (icon names).

As to 2): This problem might just evaporate once consistent icons and icon names are used in the different Numix base status directories. Possibly the naming convention and symlinking so far suggested in order to kind of "integrate" the only partly corresponding "symbolic/suffix" and "percentage/index" battery icons needs to be revised/improved; well, you need to start somewhere :-)

As to 1): As seen, apparently Xubuntu (and possibly also elementary OS) takes icons of size 16 and scales them to size 22, in a scenario when a scalable directory is present with size 16 icons. On the other hand, Ubuntu GNOME apparently looks into the scalable directory to get the battery icon for its status area. And Ubuntu takes size 22 battery icons for the panel indicator and size 16 battery icons for the power dropdown menu.

As far as I can tell, Ubuntu GNOME is not stuck with the scalable directory, but also can make use of a fixed size 16 directory (I am not absolutely sure, though, esp. if there is a scalable directory around). If there is a need for a scalable directory for some reason and for some distributions, and if at the same time such a scalable directory causes difficulties for other distributions, then it will be difficult to satisfy all distributions/desktops/shells within one single icon theme (presently Numix base).

Moreover, with these massive amounts of battery icons around, there is a chance of some more subtle incompatibilities that have not even surfaced so far.

And this is exactly a scenario when an "additional" theme comes into play. This would not actually have to contain different icons at all, but rather only a different structure/selection. E.g., I have gone ahead and created "Numix-Battery-Circle". For that, I have simply copied the present Numix base folder, renamed the copy to Numix-Battery-Circle, and in index.theme changed the "Name" line from "Numix" to "Numix-Battery-Circle" and the "Inherits" line from "gnome,hicolor" to "Numix-Circle". Then, in Numix-Battery-Circle, I deleted all directories and all icons except for 16x16/status and 22x22/status, each containing the 24 (12 + 12) "foundation" icons only, as discussed above. Finally, I selected "Numix-Battery-Circle" as icon theme.

In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, this works just fine. This should also take care the "big battery" in Xubuntu (and possibly also in elementary OS). And this should not cause any trouble with Ubuntu GNOME either. Plus, this way the same battery icons are displayed consistently. So it should take care of both problems 1) and 2) mentioned above.

This approach is adaptable and open to new insights, it is not invasive, it "survives" future updates of Numix-Circle and Numix base, and it may also serve as a temporary quick fix, and may be integrated back into Numix base at a later point.

[Lumpenhund]

Hello!

Thank you for this battery workaround! Well done! Yes, this looks complicated, at least for me, but I followed this workaround on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity and it works. Imho it would be nice to get a shorter and more beginner-friendly version of this workaround?! :-) Greetings Lumpenhund

[dirtydancing]

Hi there, thank you for your feedback! Anyone else, esp. with a "big battery icon", want to join in the fun at this battery party? :-)

I am not sure if a "beginner-friendly" summary makes sense or is even possible at this point, but if more folks are interested, just add a comment here, and I might look into it.

[dirtydancing]

To further clarify the "battery icon situation": I would suggest to first correct the problem of "wrong battery icon" and then, second, to correct the problem of "big battery icon". The first problem is related to Numix only, whereas the second problem might be distribution-related and might only be solvable at Numix's end at the price of an "additional" icon theme (cf. discussion above).

This thread started out with the problem of "big battery icon", and yet, in order to be able to solve that problem without unnecessary complications, beforehand the "wrong battery icon" needs to be resolved. In this way, all the battery icon issues are interrelated. And if presently the "big battery icon" issue was tackled first in an isolated way, those previously affected by the "big battery icon" might then end up with the "wrong battery icon" situation.

So, in addition to my suggestions above about an efficient and universally applicable way to resolve the "wrong battery icon" issues, which basically come down to this marked area ("foundation"),

I am adding an overview graphic here which summarises all the current "wrong battery icon" issues (in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity). In this overview, the left column shows the current icons displayed with Numix base (and with Numix-Circle inheriting it), whereas the right column shows the icons with the extra icon theme "Numix-Battery-Circle" as described above (personal preference: with a monochrome instead of a green check mark). Top row is "full charged" (100 %), bottom row is "full (discharging)" (90 %).

And here are the corresponding "wrong battery icon" issues, all already reported over here at Numix base:

1: https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/161, https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/162 2: https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/169 (optional) 3: https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/155 4: https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/154

[jpmacedosilva]

I can confirm that the second problem is a distribution-related problem. I usually run Xfce distros on my machine. And I only get the big icon problem when using Xubuntu. Lately I installed Mint 17 Xfce and Linux Lite 2.0 (both Ubuntu derivated) and that problem doesn't occur.

[dirtydancing]

And I can confirm that on Xubuntu, the "additional" icon theme ("Numix-Battery-Circle") as described above solves (presently) not only the "wrong battery icon", but also (and esp.) the "big battery icon".

Screenshot with current Numix base on the left and with "Numix-Battery-Circle" on the right (including a Xubuntu/Xfce-specific quick fix for the wired network icon, no need to be concerned with that in this battery icon thread). This is on Xubuntu 14.04.1 LTS/default Xfce 4.10/4.11 (VM, Numix GTK theme):

[dirtydancing]

Follow-up concerning the battery icon naming: as discussed above, there is also the possibility to include the "080" 80 % battery icon (as presently in Numix base). In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, this makes use of the possibilities and gives you an even more finely granulated set of battery icons when discharging, cf. the marked column in this (already shown) screenshot:

Now, when adding the "080" percentage battery icon, to keep the "foundation" as clear as possible, it makes sense to have the "percentage" icons as icon files and the "symbolic" icons as symlinks. This means going from this (already shown) "foundation"

to this one:

resulting in these 24 (14 + 10) files in the file manager (marked: those icon files without a symlink pointing to them in the "foundation):

I have checked this in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, and it works just fine (checked with "Numix-Battery-Circle" put in front) . As already explained above, this does not have any impact on the further symlinks chains listed in the lower right. And also this approach should be universally applicable to all kinds of distributions. In addition, of course all of this allows for adding further "special" symlinks in case that other distributions follow (partly) different naming schemes - if needed at all.

In general, though, this "foundation" should cover as many bases as possible, and the battery icon thresholds in detail will then depend on which percentage thresholds a distribution has defined and on whether a distribution makes use of "symbolic" (in general GNOME) or of "percentage" battery icons ("old school"?), or of a "mix" of both, as seen presently in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity, with first "percentage/index" for discharging and first "symbolic/suffix" for charging.

Actually, and in the hope not to cause any further confusion: a quick look into the current indicator-power source of the upcoming Ubuntu 14.10, indicator-power (12.10.6+14.10.20140822-0ubuntu1), indicates that Ubuntu 14.10 will be looking first into "percentage/index" for discharging as well as for charging. Well, again, this is a moving target :-). This should make it more consistent in Ubuntu, fair enough. And if anything, this is an additional argument for including a separate battery icon for "080" and for "080-charging" (as presently in Numix base) in the 24 files "foundation".

To illustrate this last point, here are comparative screenshots of the indicator-power package /src/device.c:

indicator-power Ubuntu 14.04 LTS trusty (as already shown):

indicator-power Ubuntu 14.10 utopic (12.10.6+14.10.20140822-0ubuntu1):

[dirtydancing]

Continuing the journey through the Ubuntu indicator-power packages, here is a look at the version in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS precise, /src/indicator-power.c in indicator-power (2.0-0ubuntu1):

This shows that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is looking at "symbolic/suffix" battery icons first when discharging. And this might be the reason why in the initial screenshot of this thread, there is a "big battery icon" when apparently discharging (elementary OS Luna, based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS):

In contrast, e.g. in Xubuntu 14.04 LTS/Xfce, the "big battery icon" only shows when charging (and when fully charged and plugged-in), which is in line with the indicator-power package of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS trusty, as shown above.

The point of all this for Numix base icon theme is that no matter whether a distribution uses primarily "percentage/index" battery icons or "symbolic/suffix" battery icons, there will always be a potential problem with the most prominent battery icon of them all: battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg.

This is because there is no corresponding battery icon in the "percentage/index" name range that could take precedence over it; battery-charged.svg for the "state_fully_charged" might have been an attempt at that in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but this icon name is inconsistent and does not even come up anymore in the indicator-power packages of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or of the developing Ubuntu 14.10 (cf. screenshots above, at the top of the respective excerpts).

battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg is among the 12 "symbolic/suffix" battery icons currently in the Numix/scalable/status directory (size 16), and as explained above, these might well be the reason for the difficulties of some distributions with the "big battery icon". Here is a screenshot of these 12 battery icons currently in Numix/scalable/status:

So, to me, the question remains: does any distribution, esp. running GNOME/GNOME Shell, actually need these "symbolic/suffix" battery icons in Numix/scalable/status? Or would it be just as fine to have them in the fixed size 16 directory Numix/16x16/status only? These are all .svg icons, so they should be "scalable" anyways.

Within the current 24 icons "foundation", I am talking about these icons/symlinks:

A rudimentary test for this could be to simply move these 12 battery icons from Numix/scalable/status to Numix/16x16/status (at present, there are no "symbolic/suffix" battery icons in Numix/16x16/status). Possibly someone who is actually running GNOME/GNOME Shell could jump in here?

As demonstrated above, even at present, there are solutions/workarounds, but of course it would be very useful for all Numix users if the Numix battery icons are simply working "out of the box". :-)

[Lumpenhund]

Edit: sorry, I did not intend to reply here... my mistake :-)

[dirtydancing]

Talking about GNOME/GNOME Shell: let me illustrate what I meant when I stated earlier that I am not entirely sure what is going on with GNOME Shell and the scalable directory. Here is a list summing up a rudimentary check of mine with 6 different screnarios:

If this can indeed be replicated, this would mean: GNOME Shell is doing fine with current Numix base, as seen in scenario 1) (of course). And apparently it would be doing fine as well if there was no scalable directory at all, as seen in scenario 4). I do not know if that is an option at all. But these findings indicate that deleting only parts of the scalable directory will cause problems for GNOME Shell, as seen in scenarios 2) and 3).

At least, on the bright side, this list also indicates that it would be no problem to include "symbolic" battery icon files in 16x16/status next to scalable/status, as seen in scenarios 5) and 6) ("copied").

Well, I am afraid that the "battery icon situation" has not really been simplified with this :-)

Still, all that has been said in this thread remains relevant. And once the "wrong battery icon" issues will be cleared up on Numix's end, the "big battery icon" issues will become clearer as well, and it will be easier to distinguish whether a certain "big battery icon" should/can only be dealt with from a certain distributions's end rather than from Numix's end. And even then, there will be "workarounds".

[dirtydancing]

Important follow-up on GNOME/GNOME Shell: as reported before, there is a "Context="-line missing for the scalable folders in Numix base index.theme.

https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/165

So far, adding this context line has shown an effect in the infamous "Shutter Edit-Bug", cf. also

https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme-circle/issues/661

So this time around, again with the scalable directory involved, I added the missing "Context="-lines back in for scenario 2) from the last comment, and: the correct Numix battery icon is showing! I am not sure what exactly is happening here, but I can share this observation.

I double-checked: in scenario 2), with the added "Context="-lines in index.theme, the correct Numix battery icon is showing in the GNOME Shell top panel. This shines a new light on possible solutions for the "big battery icon".

[Foggalong]

I have a lot of reading to do.

[dirtydancing]

OK, I see :-) I will put further battery icon input on hold then, until interest is signaled.

[Foggalong]

Not at all! Keep typing :D

[dirtydancing]

OK, here we go: upon futher reflection, I believe that the "big" battery issue is just signaling an even "bigger" issue, or, rather, an even bigger opportunity.

To start off: I shortly checked in Xubuntu 14.04 LTS/Xfce (VM) what happens when the 12 "symbolic" battery icons are moved from scalable/status to 16x16/status, and I noticed that Xubuntu was then not showing the regular-sized battery icon for full-charged, but rather the "image-missing" icon. Only when I deleted the entire scalable directory once more, did Xubuntu show the regular-sized battery icon. Again, the scalable directory appears to be GNOME-related, but at the same time causes issues with other distributions/desktops.

In this regard, I would like to suggest a change of perspective: it might actually be just a coincidence that only Xubuntu (and/or elementary OS) is having a "big battery icon" issue and only a big "battery" issue at that. This could be much worse, because putting all these icons for all distributions/desktops in one single icon theme (Numix base) might potentially cause many more conflicts and "icon collisions".

This leads me to the conclusion that it is not necessarily recommendable to try and place all these icons/directories in one single icon theme, i.e. currently Numix base.

So, coming back to the more modular approach already discussed above with "Numix-Battery-Circle", which has worked so far for the battery icon: I figure it would make sense to split up the Numix base (not Numix-Circle) icons into two camps: 1) GNOME and general base and 2) desktop environments with panels/AppIndicators.

For GNOME and general base, and as the general "default", you could have Numix-Circle and Numix (Numix-Circle inheriting Numix inheriting gnome,hicolor). The user selects Numix-Circle as icon theme and is done.

For DE/Shells with a panel (Unity, Xfce, whatnot), you could have s.th. like "Numix-Mono-Circle" as a special, panel-specific addition to Numix-Circle and Numix ("Numix-Mono-Circle" inheriting Numix-Circle inheriting Numix inheriting gnome,hicolor). The user selects "Numix-Mono-Circle" as icon theme and is done.

More precisely as to the "Inherits="-line: "Numix-Mono-Circle" would inherit "Numix-Circle,Numix,gnome,hicolor", whereas Numix-Circle would keep on inheriting "Numix" and Numix would keep on inheriting "gnome,hicolor".

This way, it would stay possible to e.g. use the entire Numix "base" icons without the Numix-Circle icons (e.g. to keep the default "App" icons), by simply not installing Numix-Circle. This is because "Numix-Mono-Circle" then would not need Numix-Circle in order to inherit Numix. Moreover, even a use case would then be possible where a user just wants to install "Numix-Mono-Circle" without Numix-Circle and even without Numix, for the panel exclusively (?).

On the other hand, Numix-Circle would, just as presently, inherit Numix only, as there does not seem to be a use case where a user wants to use Numix-Circle only, without Numix and only together with the fallback gnome,hicolor (?). And Numix would, just as presently, inherit gnome,hicolor.

Visualising screenhot:

"Numix-Mono-Circle" here actually belongs to the Numix (base) category, not to the Numix-Circle category. I called this icon theme "Numix-Mono-Circle", because e.g. for Numix-Square, there would have to be a corresponding "Numix-Mono-Square". Immediately, this shows that such a re-arrangement of icon themes must be carefully considered, because of maintenance etc., although "Numix-Mono-Square" could simply be a possibly automated duplicate of "Numix-Mono-Circle", just with a different "Inherits"-line. Still, judging from what I have seen in this example of the battery icon, to me this more modular way seems to be the way to go.

In these modules, in Numix you would have the general base and all the "symbolic" name space icons that populate the scalable directory. GNOME will use them and be fine. In "Numix-Mono-Circle", you would NOT have a scalable/status directory, but e.g. for the battery icons you would have all the battery icons discussed above in different fixed size directories (e.g. 16x16, 22x22, and 24x24). Other DE/Shells with a panel will put these into the panel without being "irritated" by the scalable/status directory futher back in the inheritance line (in Numix).

Moreover, this more modular approach could actually be an opportunity to set up a clearer structure overall. E.g., currently there is a 22x22/status directory in Numix-Circle containing several panel icons. All of these could go into "Numix-Mono-Circle"; not into Numix, because GNOME/GNOME Shell would not display them anyways (?), and not as presently into Numix-Circle, because they are not "Circle-App-Icons", which is basically what the Numix-Circle icon theme module is for exclusively in this kind of modular structure.

I will stop here, because this has quite far reaching implications, and because this might well have been considered before and not been done intentionally (?). The icons are already designed and present, though, so this would "only" be a re-structuring of the Numix icon themes. And at the same time, this would create the kind of solid and flexible structure to readily allow for future modular additions such as e.g. s.th. like "Numix-Mono-Dark-Circle" with dark icons for light-coloured panels/GTK themes.

Alright then, so much for the time being :-)

[dirtydancing]

Quick update concerning the new Numix-Light icon theme and the "big battery" issue. It is great to have an alternative icon theme for light panels now, but unfortunately, with Numix-Light the "big battery" icon now is also showing in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity. I checked with Radiance GTK theme, and this is what it looks like:

The battery icons are structured differently from Numix base in Numix-Light base. Numix-Light has a battery-full-charged-symbolic icon (size 16x16) in scalable/status, but not in 22x22/status. E.g., adding a battery-full-charged-symbolic icon (size 22x22) to 22x22/status leads to the correct icon size being displayed:

[rickpalmeira]

are you adding it to your 22x22/status as a .svg or as .png?

On 19 September 2014 11:10, dirtydancing notifications@github.com wrote:

Quick update concerning the new Numix-Light icon theme and the "big battery" issue. It is great to have an alternative icon theme for light panels now, but unfortunately, with Numix-Light the "big battery" icon now is also showing in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity. I checked with Radiance GTK theme, and this is what it looks like:

[image: screenshot1] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4336272/1ac227a8-4005-11e4-9603-936dde29affc.png

The battery icons are structured differently from Numix base in Numix-Light base. Numix-Light has a battery-full-charged-symbolic icon (size 16x16) in scalable/status, but not in 22x22/status. E.g., adding a battery-full-charged-symbolic icon (size 22x22) to 22x22/status leads to the correct icon size being displayed:

[image: screenshot2] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4336279/1f73f98e-4005-11e4-9c35-81ffaaf6b4bd.png

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/107#issuecomment-56181896 .

Cordially:

• Pedro Palmeira

[dirtydancing]

as .svg

As a quick fix and only for the plugged-in and fully charged battery status, in Numix-Light/22x22/status I simply copied the current battery-100.svg (incorrect icon as battery-100.svg should be for discharging, but that is another issue) and renamed the copy to battery-full-charged-symbolic.svg, cf. screenshot

[dirtydancing]

Good news! With the new developments discussed in https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/195 and https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/193 and with the latest Numix updates, the "big battery" issue in the panel is fixed for UBUNTU 14.04 LTS with Numix-Light (cf. latest comments above).

Screenshot:

Please note: this comment is ONLY relating to the "big battery" issue in UBUNTU 14.04 LTS with Numix-Light, NOT to the "big battery" issues in elementary OS/XUBUNTU 14.04 LTS that have started this thread.

[dirtydancing]

Ok, these new developments prompted me to create a test/workaround for the "big battery" issue for myself. It has been asked in this thread before if there can be a "beginner-friendly" approach to this matter. I am sharing my approach here, so you can judge for yourself. Anyways, this should only take a couple of minutes, no root access is needed for this, and Numix-Circle/Numix icon themes are left untouched.

This might be especially useful for users of Xubuntu 14.04 LTS or elementary OS. Again, all of this is a work in progress, but of course feedback from s.o. running these (or other) distributions on bare metal (i.e. not in a virtual machine) would be most welcome and helpful here.

Here we go:

1) Go to the hidden folder ~/.icons in your home directory. If you do not have such a folder, create one.

2) Create a new folder in your ~/.icons directory, named No-Big-Battery.

3) In ~/.icons/No-Big-Battery, create a new file and name it index.theme.

4) Open the new index.theme file and copy & paste the following text into it. This is basically a stripped down index.theme of Numix icon theme. Of course, feel free to create your own index.theme if you feel like it.

[Icon Theme]
Name=No-Big-Battery

Comment=Test icon theme for a normal battery icon size in the panel

Inherits=Numix-Circle,Numix,gnome,hicolor

Example=folder

Directories=16x16/status,22x22/status,24x24/status

[16x16/status]
Size=16
Context=Status
Type=Fixed

[22x22/status]
Size=22
Context=Status
Type=Fixed

[24x24/status]
Size=24
Context=Status
Type=Fixed

5) In ~/.icons/No-Big-Battery, create the new folders 16x16, 22x22 and 24x24. After that, in each of these folders, create the folder status.

6) Copy the battery icons (for the time being, all the icons starting with "battery..."), from the three respective Numix status folders into your three new status folders.

7) Select "No-Big-Battery" as your icon theme and see what happens. You might have to reboot your machine.

[dirtydancing]

I just checked this with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS/Unity. Now, normally there is no "big battery" issue with Ubuntu. But, once the display gets scaled, battery icon size issues start to arise. This has e.g. been reported here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/numix-icon-theme-circle/+bug/1314403

So I went ahead and compared the current Numix-Circle (inheriting Numix) and No-Big-Battery.

Numix-Circle, no scaling (all fine)

Numix-Circle, 0.75 ("big battery")

Numix-Circle, 1.25 ("big battery")

And in comparison:

No-Big-Battery, no scaling (all fine)

No-Big-Battery, 0.75 (all fine)

No-Big-Battery, 1.25 (all fine)

So in this case, the No-Big-Battery "icon theme" worked and fixed the "big battery" icon in the panel.

[dirtydancing]

Follow-up, this time with Xubuntu 14.04.1 LTS/Xfce 4.10/4.11 (VM, virtual machine), Numix GTK theme, battery status plugged-in and fully charged:

Numix-Circle icon theme (inheriting Numix): "big battery"

No-Big-Battery icon theme: all fine, no big battery indeed

So also in this case, the No-Big-Battery icon theme fixes the "big battery" icon in the panel.

[dirtydancing]

To have this readily available in this continuing thread, I am adding the updated "foundation" battery icons for the fixed sized directories 16, 22 and 24. This update goes back to https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/200, which is of interest for those who are currently running elementary OS Luna.

Before:

Current:

[dirtydancing]

Update concerning elementary OS Luna: I have had a look into Luna (VM), and I have to say that probably the "No-Big-Battery" icon theme will not be of much help with Luna (based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). This might be due to various reasons and packages, and I am surely not "blaming" the elementary OS team. And after all, things might clear up in this rather specific regard with the upcoming elementary OS Freya (based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS).

Of course, I might have overlooked s.th., and I would be happy to stand corrected. I am sharing here what I have learned so far, and the battery icon has turned out to be of a special kind of complexity.

The good thing is: arguably the most prominent battery status, plugged-in and fully charged, is just fine with Numix base. Currently, the panel in Luna looks like this, and the battery icon with the check mark symbol is on the way, https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/200. It is the same with No-Big-Battery icon theme:

To demonstrate the difficulties I ran into, here are a couple of screenshots of Luna when discharging:

Numix icon theme, default elementary GTK theme ("big battery", white):

Numix icon theme, Numix GTK theme ("big battery"):

No-Big-Battery icon theme, default elementary GTK theme above and Numix GTK theme below (new category of "distorted battery"):

Apparently, the default elementary icon theme on Luna is adjusted to suit the specific requirements. E.g., I was able to approach a better result with the No-Big-Battery icon theme by placing a specific 16x16 battery icon into the 22x22 directory. The result looked like this:

For the battery charging status, for some reason the red charging icon (with a flash) was displayed even when the battery was almost fully charged, both with Numix icon theme as well as with No-Big-Battery icon theme:

So for the time being I will leave it at that. Personally, I am not a user of elementary OS Luna, and if s.o. who is actually running Luna would like to pick it up from here, please be invited to do so. In any event, from an individual user's perspective, there is probably a way to tweak Numix icon theme in a way to match the specific requirements for the battery icon in the panel. Good luck! :-)

This being said, as demonstrated above, the No-Big-Battery icon theme approach, https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/107#issuecomment-59015839, is still valid e.g. for Xubuntu 14.04 LTS and for the display scaling scenario in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

[Lumpenhund]

Hello, thanks for the beginner-friendly approach :-) Worked for me on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Is it possible to have an automated process which adapts the battery icon size to the respective environment? To me, this would seem to be easier and more efficient for both developers and users.

[fselem]

I'm not quite sure if this specific issue will be fixed in elementary OS Freya, as I've ran the developer beta and the issue still consists. Obviously, it's still in beta, but I wouldn't have my hopes too high.

Thank all of you for your input on this issue! On Oct 16, 2014 9:25 AM, "dirtydancing" notifications@github.com wrote:

Update concerning elementary OS Luna: I have had a look into Luna (VM), and I have to say that probably the "No-Big-Battery" icon theme will not be of much help with Luna (based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS). This might be due to various reasons and packages, and I am surely not "blaming" the elementary OS team. And after all, things might clear up in this rather specific regard with the upcoming elementary OS Freya (based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS).

Of course, I might have overlooked s.th., and I would be happy to stand corrected. I am sharing here what I have learned so far, and the battery icon has turned out to be of a special kind of complexity.

The good thing is: arguably the most prominent battery status, plugged-in and fully charged, is just fine with Numix base. Currently, the panel in Luna looks like this, and the battery icon with the check mark symbol is on the way, #200 https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/200. It is the same with No-Big-Battery icon theme:

[image: 1_numix-full] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662726/e543c042-5534-11e4-93cf-0a7a74b2e872.png

To demonstrate the difficulties I ran into, here are a couple of screenshots of Luna when discharging:

Numix icon theme, default elementary GTK theme ("big battery", white):

[image: 2_numix-discharging] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662730/f424e744-5534-11e4-828e-c2c556b97307.png

Numix icon theme, Numix GTK theme ("big battery"):

[image: 3_numix-discharging-numixgtk] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662735/fafa5630-5534-11e4-9441-3a3acb8dee04.png

No-Big-Battery icon theme, default elementary GTK theme above and Numix GTK theme below (new category of "distorted battery"):

[image: 4_no-big-battery-distorted] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662742/094d1f88-5535-11e4-849e-66349a4c6a6a.png

[image: 5_no-big-battery-distorted-numixgtk] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662746/0d9f3670-5535-11e4-8199-8fc2e7cf576e.png

Apparently, the default elementary icon theme on Luna is adjusted to suit the specific requirements. E.g., I was able to approach a better result with the No-Big-Battery icon theme by placing a specific 16x16 battery icon into the 22x22 directory. The result looked like this:

[image: 6_no-big-battery-16x16] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662756/218c0f64-5535-11e4-8355-1bb848036fe7.png

For the battery charging status, for some reason the red charging icon (with a flash) was displayed even when the battery was almost fully charged, both with Numix icon theme as well as with No-Big-Battery icon theme:

[image: 7_both-charging] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/7164227/4662782/4dc933a4-5535-11e4-9f66-f9d5cce429f1.png

So for the time being I will leave it at that. Personally, I am not a user of elementary OS Luna, and if s.o. who is actually running Luna would like to pick it up from here, please be invited to do so. In any event, from an individual user's perspective, there is probably a way to tweak Numix icon theme in a way to match the specific requirements for the battery icon in the panel. Good luck! :-)

This being said, as demonstrated above, the No-Big-Battery icon theme approach, #107 (comment) https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/107#issuecomment-59015839, is still valid e.g. for Xubuntu 14.04 LTS and for the display scaling scenario in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/107#issuecomment-59360084 .

[Foggalong]

Ahhh shoot. I was really hoping they'd have fixed it by now :(

[dirtydancing]

I did not want to get into elementary OS Freya just yet, exactly because it is currently beta. But anyways, I just checked it (VM), and I believe the situation with Freya currently looks manageable, actually similar to Xubuntu 14.04 LTS/Xfce, and although currently not all set ootb, this would be an easy breakfast e.g. for the No-Big-Battery icon theme approach, https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/107#issuecomment-59015839 :-)

Some current screenshots, with Numix GTK theme:

First, battery plugged-in and fully charged: battery icon all fine (looking exclusively at the battery icon here), same thing for Numix icon theme and for No-Big-Battery icon theme:

Second, discharging: battery icon all fine, same thing for Numix icon theme and for No-Big-Battery icon theme:

Third, charging: Numix icon theme above ("big battery", please note that in contrast to this, as demonstrated above Luna is displaying the "big battery" when discharging), No-Big-Battery icon theme below (battery icon all fine, details tbd):

[dirtydancing]

PS: Not sure why the battery icon in the last screenshot above does not look quite as "clear" as the other regular-sized battery icons, that is why I wrote tbd (=to be determined). I had a similar situation with Luna, but the next time I booted, all was crisp (in Luna). This might also be related to the fact that not all battery icons are in place in the fixed size directories yet, work in progress.

@fselem If you are still running elementary OS Freya beta, could you try and replicate this?

[fselem]

@dirtydancing Oh man I'm sorry, but unfortunately I removed the Freya partition I was running.

[dirtydancing]

No problem. I was just asking because now you actually got me interested in Freya beta :-)

[dirtydancing]

Quick follow-up concerning Freya beta: Actually, the most recent issue I filed relating to the battery icon, https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/203, might also solve the remaining "big battery" icon problems for Freya beta. I will spare you the details, but one deviation from Xubuntu 14.04 LTS that I could not quite place yesterday is that for Freya beta, the battery status plugged-in and fully charged works ootb, in contrast to Xubuntu 14.04 LTS. It might be the case that Freya beta is using 16x16 icons in the panel and not 22x22, as so far "everyone else" is (which might also be the reason why the other icons in the panel in the screenshots above look different, they might be 16x16 icons as well).

Bottom line: once https://github.com/numixproject/numix-icon-theme/issues/203 gets pushed out, there may be no "big battery" problem for Freya beta anymore. We wil see...