{"id":761,"date":"2026-10-22T08:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stigern.net\/blog\/?p=761"},"modified":"2026-10-22T08:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T07:48:19","slug":"wattbar-1-5-a-battery-you-can-see-cpu-bars-and-a-lighter-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stigern.net\/blog\/wattbar-1-5-a-battery-you-can-see-cpu-bars-and-a-lighter-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Wattbar 1.5 \u2013 a battery you can see, CPU bars and a lighter panel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A week after Wattbar 1.4<\/a>, version 1.5 is out. This one is about looks and about bugs: a few new touches in the panel, a round of bug hunting through the whole app, and a panel that uses about a third less processor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The battery helping the charger: its card fills with orange to the battery level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A battery you can see<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The battery card now fills up like a glass to the battery’s level: blue while it charges, orange while it helps a charger that can’t keep up, and clear glass while it rests. The surface stands still, so it costs nothing to draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bars for the CPU and the apps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With CPU frequency switched on, each group of cores gets a glass bar in its own colour, showing how close it runs to its own top speed. And the list of apps using the most power or memory shows each app’s share with a bar, so you see the differences at a glance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The whole panel in 1.5.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A third less processor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The soft glow around the cards breathes slowly. That small animation turned out to make the whole panel redraw itself on every frame. It is now animated by macOS itself (Core Animation), which looks the same and costs Wattbar nothing. On my Mac the panel went from about 15 % of one processor core to about 9 % while it is open. With the panel closed, Wattbar uses about 0.2 %.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a round of bug hunting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n