Release Notes

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BatteryBar 3.6.2

3.6.2 - September 13, 2013

FIX: Unexpected error when retrieving the list of power schemes

FIX: Power scheme didn't change on startup

FIX: Rare crash due to a background process taking longer than expected

FIX: Logging battery status (in Prefs->Tools) now works as expected

CHG: Improve logging to help diagnose issues with battery profiles

3.6.1 - June 8, 2013

NEW: Theme can have a maximum height. Margins are relative to MaxHeight

FIX: New theme is squished in vertical taskbars

FIX: New theme is squished in small taskbars (< 40px high)

FIX: Battery status logging was broken

3.6.0 - June 6, 2013

NEW: Changed the default theme to a style that looks better in Windows 7/8

FIX: Improve Elapsed Time to not reset when resuming from sleep

3.5.7 - June 1, 2013

NEW: Elapsed Time since the last power change or since BatteryBar started

CHG: Updated all language translations to use new website http://batterybarpro.com

FIX: Bug where the battery status wouldn't always update (from 3.5.6)

FIX: A rare crash due to battery state changing and being updated at the same time

3.5.6 - April 29, 2013

CHG: Ignore data if battery reports unexpected jumps in capacity

FIX: Issue with taskbar locking up

3.5.5 - October 30, 2012

FIX: Fixed an issue with Windows 8

3.5.4 - November 28, 2011

FIX: Battery profiles weren't being saved for new users

FIX: Time remaining estimates were wrong for new users without previous profile data

FIX: Time remaining could show as "0:00" in the status popup when first started

3.5.3 - November 8, 2011

CHG: "Full Lifetime" has been renamed to "Full Runtime"

FIX: Battery Profile Graph would only list profiles that existed when the software started and would not list new profiles. This basically affected new users or people with new batteries.

FIX: Under certain circumstances, some battery information will be displayed incorrectly in the status popup

FIX: Several minor fixes

3.5.2 - June 6, 2011

NEW: Added in-memory debug log to improve ability to diagnose errors

NEW: Added more information to error dialog when license key validation fails

NEW: Improved support for offline validation by adding a "Get offline activation code" option in the upgrade window (Note: Offline activations are completed manually)

NEW: Under certain circumstances, time remaining values may now report "Unknown" instead of "0:00" or nothing (blank)

NEW: About/Settings/Feedback/Upgrade and other forms can be closed with the ESC key

CHG: Improved time remaining estimates in certain circumstances, including when the battery is below the Soft Minimum level.

CHG: Reduced the frequency of saving battery profile data and settings to the disk

FIX: Improved the "Hide BatteryBar when battery is full" feature

FIX: Don't delete the battery status log when sending a feedback report if the user has the Log Battery Data option turned on

FIX (Pro): Fixed an issue when "Use Statistical Time Remaining" option is disabled

3.5.1 - March 21, 2011

CHG (Pro): The status popup now shows "BatteryBar 3.5.1" like it used to in previous versions. A new setting allows you to show the battery ID in the status popup. This change is due to the fact that the battery ID is really only useful for dual-battery systems.

FIX: (Dis)charge Rate estimation is working again (It was broken in 3.5.0) for those with batteries that don't report the rate (like HP).

FIX: The setting to remember the last shown text on the toolbar (percent, time remaining, etc) is now saved properly.

FIX: A few fixes for rare defects

3.5.0 - February 24, 2011

NEW (Pro): Battery Status popup will now show individual status for both batteries in dual battery systems. Can be disabled in Preferences.

NEW (Pro): Low battery notifications now automatically update with the current battery status

NEW (Pro): Added option to close notification popups after a certain amount of time

NEW (Pro): When the Battery Profile Graph is open, the graph will update with real-time data if the selected profile is active

NEW (Pro): Added a Thinkpad theme, submitted by a BatteryBar user

FIX (Pro): Fixed a bug closing the Battery Profile Graph

3.4.4 - November 25, 2010

NEW (Pro): Added option in Tools to log battery status data to BatteryStatus.log

CHG: When looking at battery charging profile, the legend will say "Time to full charge"

FIX: Added error handling when checking the current power scheme

FIX: Added error handling when checking the size and location of the taskbar

FIX: Fixed error with floating toolbar refreshing

Updated language: et.xml

3.4.3 - October 8, 2010

NEW (Pro): Added new settings: "Information to Display on the Toolbar" to allow for any of the following to be displayed: Time Remaining, Percent Remaining, Discharge Rate, Capacity Remaining.

CHG: The "Alternate Time and Percent" setting now rotates the display through all the selected display options.

CHG: Removed "Show Time Remaining on Startup" due to change in information display setting. The software will now resume showing the last shown information.

FIX: If the taskbar is set to auto-hide, the popup status will popup above or next to the taskbar

FIX: When a power state change is detected (new battery, add/remove external power), the battery status is immediately queried. This fixes a regression introduced in 3.4.2.

FIX: Improved error handling when saving settings and profile XML files

FIX (Pro): Fixed a few minor issues with the Battery Profile Graph feature

FIX: Installer now waits for the taskbar restart to complete before attempting to turn on the toolbar

Discuss in the support forum

3.4.2 - September 20, 2010

NEW: Clicking on BatteryBar now also shows the Discharge Rate in addition to Time Remaining and Percent Remaining

NEW: The installer is now unicode and includes translations for numerous languages. The installer will detect the current system language and display the text in that language if available

CHG: Battery Profile Graph now uses default system font to display the graph labels. Some systems had problems displaying Arial Regular font.

FIX: Resolved error in Preferences window when trying to select a custom sound if .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 wasn't installed

FIX (Pro): A licensing error could occur behind a firewall with selective domain blocking

FIX (Pro): Preferences - When selecting a custom font, only TrueType fonts can be used. An error message is displayed if a non-TrueType font is selected.

Translation Updates: Danish, Polish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Portuguese, Hungarian

3.4.1 - July 2, 2010

FIX (Pro): Fixed a problem with the feature "Hide BatteryBar when battery is fully charged"

FIX (Pro): Fixed "Alternate time and percent" feature that got broken in 3.4.0

FIX (Pro): Fixed an issue with the Power Saving features to switch power scheme switching to the wrong power scheme

3.4.0 - June 14, 2010

NEW (Pro): Battery Profile Graph feature displays a graph of your battery profile data. This allows you to see exactly how your battery discharges and recharges. To access, right-click on BatteryBar and choose "Battery Profile Graph..."

NEW (Pro): Added option to automatically change power scheme when connecting or disconnecting external power.

NEW (Pro): Added option to disable Aero when on battery power or below a certain percentage level.

NEW (Pro): Added option to force battery discharge and recharge rate estimation.

NEW: Added a check to make sure that the floating toolbar and taskbar toolbar versions don't run at the same time.

NEW: Added a Windows 7 Small theme

NEW: FullLifetime and Time Remaining will now use a simple calcuation based on the current discharge rate if no profile data is available

NEW: Installer checks if the taskbar or floating toolbar is installed and removes it if you're installing the other version

NEW: About window now shows the serial number and expiration for Pro users

CHG: Edited most themes to allow the use of the default font specified in the Preferences window. Certain themes override that preference.

CHG: For dual battery systems, BatteryBar will report the raw time remaining value for batteries that don't have any profile data

CHG: Installer now restarts explorer during upgrades so that reboots aren't required after an upgrade.

CHG: Adjusted the default theme to add more space between the top and bottom of the theme and the taskbar.

FIX: Status popup will show simple time remaining if no profile data is available

FIX: BatteryBar toolbar will no longer cause the XP classic taskbar to be bigger than normal

FIX: Adjustments to the installer to fix installation hangs

FIX: Prefereces - Low Minutes would always show 30 even if you set a lower value

FIX: Fixed an issue where the Trial Expired message would appear more than once.

FIX: Time remaining will now show 0 minutes remaining when below the Soft Minimum value.

3.3.3 - February 18, 2010

NEW: Estimate the discharge/charge rate for batteries that don't provide that information. The Popup Status will show "(Estimated)" next to the rate.

NEW (Pro): For time limited licenses, the About screen now shows the date your license will expire.

CHG (Pro): If there was an error changing the current power scheme, you'll see an error message.

FIX (Pro): The option to disable Statistical Time Remaining now works properly. When the option is disabled, the simple time remaining will be shown on the bar while the statistical time remaining will show in the status popup (for easy comparison).

FIX (Pro): Better error checking in the theming engine.

FIX (Pro): Better error handling when enumerating power schemes.

FIX: A few other minor fixes

3.3.2 - December 30, 2009

NEW: Custom sound files (PCM WAV) can be used for audio notification alerts

NEW: Beep the PC Speaker open for low, critical, and full battery states (each state beeps a different number of times)

NEW (Pro): If you try to activate a license key that was previously activated, you are now prompted to transfer the license key automatically

NEW: Added a log filesize limiter

CHG: Disabled accuracy correction when the battery drops below 15%. This fixes an issue with dual battery configurations where one battery stops at 10% while the other battery discharges.

CHG: Removed the height limit in BatteryBar; it will now fill the entire taskbar (e.g., in Windows 7)

FIX: When upgrading from v3.2 or older, the licensing system now properly validates the existing license key

FIX: An unexpected error in BatteryBar Solo/Floating Toolbar

FIX: A bug in the error logging that would cause a loop when logging certain errors

3.3.1 - November 19, 2009

CHG: The About window will now close after clicking the Upgrade button to bring up the Upgrade to Pro window.

CHG: Small translation changes for licensing errors

FIX: After an upgrade from a previous version, your existing Pro license key will now automatically activate with the new licensing system.

3.3.0 beta - November 11, 2009

NEW: BatteryBar 3.3.0 features a completely new licensing system. This system is designed to be as user-friendly as possible and eliminate licensing errors for real customers.

CHG: Changed the version numbers to a more sane/typical style that makes it more obvious when minor revisions are made. The next build release would be 3.3.1, etc.

CHG: Added more padding to top and bottom of the default Vista-style theme

CHG: Translations of "BatteryBar" that change to "BatteryBar Pro" for the Pro version are now separately translatable. This makes it possible for certain translations to properly translate "BatteryBar Pro" in those circumstances.

FIX: The Preferences window now properly resizes for each supported translation

FIX: The theme would sometimes revert to the default theme on startup

FIX: Pro users could sometimes lose their custom settings on startup

3.2 build 63 - August 3, 2009

NEW: Option to always use alternate battery ID

NEW: Full battery audio alert (currently only SystemSounds.Beep)

NEW: Added settings ShowPercentRemainingWhenCharged and UseAlternateBatteryUniqueID

CHG: SettingsForm rearranged

CHG: SettingsForm automatically resizes to fit contents

FIX: AboutForm: Added IsBusy check before running background worker

FIX: CustomTabControl image display caused crash

FIX: Hide/Show Explorer Bar is checked on every status change

FIX: SettingsForm would crash when changing to RTL language

3.2 build 62 - June 19, 2009

NEW: floating toolbar version of BatteryBar available during installation.

NEW: Notification popup when the battery is finished charging (enable in Preferences window)

NEW: Battery profile data can now be stored individually per power scheme (enable in Preferences window)

NEW: Redesigned Preferences window

NEW: Automatic bug report submission to developers. When an unexpected error occurs, you have the option to submit the bug report directly to Osiris Development.

FIX: Fixed default theme to reduce the minimum toolbar size

FIX: If no estimated time remaining value is available, show the raw time remaining (same as Windows)

FIX: Experimental change to licensing system to fix issue where a license is reported as already having been registered on another computer

FIX: PopupStatus window is closed when right-clicking on BatteryBar

3.1 build 60 - April 23, 2009

FIX: AutoUpdate only asks to update once for each update

FIX: On some computers, an error would occur during startup

FIX: (Apr24) Made some adjustments to the installer to improve upgrade experience

FIX: (May 3) Improved the installer to allow the installer to work on Eee PCs.

3.1 build 59 - April 13, 2009

NEW: Several themes are included in the installer

NEW: Installer updated to ask whether or not to delete settings and themes

3.1 build 58 - March 22, 2009

FIX: A crash in build 57. Please update.

FIX: "100.0%" text overflow issue

3.1 build 57 - March 19, 2009

NEW: Added support for Right-to-Left languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic

NEW: Low/Critical battery warning popups will now close when the battery state changes to charging

NEW: All notification popups can be closed by clicking anywhere on the popup

NEW: Improved time estimation for systems with dual batteries, especially where only one battery charges or discharges at a time

NEW: (Pro) Online license validation now only occurs as needed and not every login

NEW: (Pro) Improved the licensing mechanism so that the license can be used on any copy of Windows used on the computer (for example, dual booting XP and Windows 7, or upgrading from XP to 7)

NEW: (Themes) Improved readability of text on transparent backgrounds

NEW: (Themes) Added "Clipping" and "BorderIsOutside" properties to the ProgressBar to allow for decorations outside the progressbar area (e.g., a shadow)

FIX: "No batteries detected" text is now properly localized

FIX: Resuming from sleep/hibernate will now immediately re-check the status of the batteries

3.1 build 56 - March 1, 2009

FIX: Fixed popup status display when the taskbar is set to autohide

FIX: The location of notification popups is now determined by the location of the taskbar and works on multiple monitors

FIX: Fixed a bug where the battery wasn't detected after resuming from hibernate

FIX: (Themes) Fixed an bug that would cause a red X to be drawn instead of the BatteryBar

FIX: (Themes) Theme image files are no longer locked while BatteryBar is running

FIX: (Preferences) Themes are now changed in the Preferences window rather than the context menu

FIX: (Battery) Time left to charge is now calculated properly for multiple batteries

FIX: About and Preferences windows can no longer be opened more than once

3.1 build 55 - February 10, 2009

NEW: Added option to transfer your Pro license from one PC to another

NEW: Added option to change the precision of percentages (0-4 digits of precision)

FIX: Fixed a few issues with the default theme, including ability to change the font using the Preferences window

FIX: The last used theme is now remembered correctly upon restart

FIX: Fixed visual styles on Windows XP

FIX: Experimental code added for computers with multiple batteries that report the same Unique ID.

FIX: Notification popups will now always display on the same side of the screen as BatteryBar/taskbar.

3.1 build 54

NEW: Added support for custom themes

3.1 build 51 - January 18, 2009

NEW: Added ability to change the currently active Power Scheme by right-clicking on BatteryBar

NEW: Added a 30 free trial. Right click on BatteryBar and select "Activate 30 day trial..."

NEW: Replaced MessageBoxes with new notification popups. Auto-Update and Licensing errors are now show with the new popups

NEW: Added a lot of new translations (thanks to those that helped!) and split each translation into a separate file

NEW: Added setting (BatteryWarningType) for low battery notifications to appear based on percent remaining or on time remaining

NEW: Improved AutoUpdate. Notification popup now displays a description of the upgrade and provides a button to open the website

FIX: Changed close button on Popups to the Vista style balloon close button

FIX: Fixed bug where notification popups could not be closed

FIX: Fixed an AutoUpdate bug

FIX: Improved error handling if BatteryBar couldn't be registered during installation

FIX: Improved installer handling of upgrade situations (user is prompted to close explorer or reboot)

3.0 build 48 - December 31, 2008

NEW: BatteryBar now comes in a FREE version and a PRO version. The FREE version provides the base BatteryBar functionality. It can be upgraded at anytime to the PRO version.

NEW: (Pro) Added a new Preferences window that allows you to change 20 settings for BatteryBar

FIX: (Pro) Low and Critical Battery Notifications are now a PRO feature

2.3 build 42 - December 11, 2008

NEW: Added support for multiple batteries. Each battery is stored in a separate profile, so you are able to swap batteries, or use more than one battery, and BatteryBar will reflect the stats for the current battery/batteries.

NEW: Added a context menu (when you right-click on BatteryBar) with two functions: "About BatteryBar", and "Preferences..."

NEW: Added an About form to give information about BatteryBar and links to the websites

NEW: Added a Settings form to allow you to change your preferecences without editing the XML file

NEW: If no batteries are found, the popup status window will show "No batteries detected"

NEW: Vertical bar in popup status changes color based on the battery status: Charging (Blue), Discharging (Green), and Critical (Red)NEW: Improved support for vertical taskbars

NEW: AutoUpdate is now optional.

NEW: Added separate prompt for beta updates. Updating to beta versions is disabled by default.

NEW: Installer changed to close Explorer when upgrading BatteryBar. This allows you to upgrade without rebooting.

FIX: Fixed AlternateTimeRemainingAndPercent setting for batteries that invoke StatusChanged regularly

2.2 build 35 - November 12, 2008

NEW: Added a Low Battery and Critical Battery popup notification. When your battery reaches a certain percentage, a popup will appear indicating the number of minutes percentage left on your battery. You can customize the notifications by editing BatteryBar.Settings.Xml in %APPDATA%\BatteryBar

NEW: Added a Low battery and Critical Battery audio alert. BatteryBar plays the sounds as defined in Control Panel -> Sound.

NEW: Added detection when the computer goes into suspend mode or resumes, which helps make sure that the data recorded about your battery usage is accurate

NEW: Added an option to change the default display on the bar between "Time Remaining" or "Percent Remaining"

NEW: Added time remaining to the status popup in the "Battery" line

FIX: Changed the order of the items in the status popup

FIX: Fixed support for multiple batteries. Charge/Discharge statistics are aggregate, so the "Time Remaining" will only be accurate if you always use your computer with the same number of batteries.

FIX: Fixed "Capacity" line in status popup to show "mWh" instead of "mW" and added a space between the number and the unit

FIX: Fixed percentages to display with or without a space between the number and the % symbol based on culture

FIX: Fixed vertical status bar in the status popup for some users

FIX: Fixed the sizing of the status popup for non-English languages

FIX: Fixed an error if no batteries were found on startup

FIX: Updated the status popup to be different if no batteries are installed

2.1 build 23 - September 20, 2008

NEW: Added a check to try to refresh battery info when resuming from Standy/Hibernate

NEW: Added logic to handle when the battery drops more than one percentage point suddenly. Example: My battery drops from 100% to 96% when unplugged. It never shows 99%, 98%, or 97%. The same happens on recharge. Actual time elapsed is compared to estimate time elapsed.

NEW: Unexpected errors are reported to the user and always logged

NEW: Added progress bar and icon to tooltip

FIX: Improved Time Remaining algorithm to adjust better due to current battery drain rate (e.g., if you're watching a DVD your time remaining will be less than if it's just sitting idle)

FIX: Tooltip changed so that information lines up nicely in all languages

FIX: ShowTooltip setting now works for new tooltip

FIX: Changed "Rate" to "Charge Rate" and "Discharge Rate" depending on battery status

2.0 build 16 - August 24, 2008

NEW: Time Remaining is calculated based on statistical history of your battery usage, making it significantly more accurate than Windows time remaining estimation.

NEW: Added "Full Lifetime" to Tooltip, which indicates how long your battery will last on a full charge

NEW: Added support for translations via BatteryBar.Translation.xml

NEW: Added support for user settings via BatteryBar.Settings.xml

NEW: Installer now supports installing on 64-bit versions of XP and Vista

NEW: Changed BatteryBar to look like a Vista-style button

NEW: Clicking on BatteryBar will toggle between time remaining and percentage view

NEW: Clicking on BatteryBar will reload user settings and translations, so they can be changed without closing and opening the toolbar

NEW: More detailed information is collected about your battery.

1.1 - July 23, 2008

FIX: BatteryBar is now persistent between reboots (you don't need to manually enable the toolbar after rebooting)

FIX: Quick Launch bar should no longer disappear when you reboot

FIX: Recharge time estimation improved

1.0.1.0 - July 20, 2008

Initial Release