GNOME Sensors Applet Manual V2.0
GNOME Sensors Applet displays readings from temperature, voltage and fan sensors within the panel.

Introduction

GNOME Sensors Applet
GNOME Sensors Applet with 3 sensors enabled.
GNOME Sensors Applet provides a convenient way to monitor the health of your computer in a simple display on your desktop.
A number of sensor interfaces are supported, which should be configured before adding GNOME Sensors Applet to the panel:
ACPI thermal zones, via the Linux kernel ACPI modules
Linux kernel i2c modules
Via the sysfs filesystem and i2c modules distributed directly with the kernel (kernel 2.6)
Via the proc filesystem and i2c modules from the lm_sensors and i2c packages (kernel 2.4)
Via the libsensors library provided with the lm_sensors package
Linux kernel i8k module (for Dell Inspiron Laptops).
Linux kernel ibm-acpi module (for IBM Laptops).
Linux kernel PowerPC modules therm_adt746x and therm_windtunnel.
Linux kernel iMac G5 Windfarm module.
hddtemp daemon for reading temperatures from S.M.A.R.T. equipped disks.
Linux kernel Omnibook module. (for HP and Toshiba Satellite Laptops)
NVIDIA graphics cards via libNVCtrl (provided with nvidia-settings ).
To add GNOME Sensors Applet to a panel right-click on the panel to open the panel pop-up menu, then choose Add to Panel Hardware Sensors Monitor .

Usage
When you add GNOME Sensors Applet to a panel for the first time, the applet will search for any available sensors to monitor, and will display a sensible default sensor if found (such as the temperature of the CPU).
Most users will then want to customize the display to their liking, which can be done via the Preferences menu item (see Preferences).

Preferences
To configure GNOME Sensors Applet, right-click on the applet, then choose Preferences from the pop-up menu.
The Preferences window contains the following tabbed sections:
General Options
Sensors

General Options
Display sensors in panel as 	 This option selects whether to display sensors in the panel with either their label or icon and their value, or to have no identifier for each sensor and just display their values, or simply to display the icon for each sensor. A graph can also be displayed for each sensor, showing the progression of the sensor value over time.
Default: icon with value.
Preferred position of sensor values 	 Sensors can be display with either their value beside their icon / label, or with the value shown below the icon / label.
Default: beside labels / icons.
If there is not enough room in the panel to use the requested position, the best position to ensure all sensor elements are visible will be used instead.
Graph size (pixels) 	 When displaying sensors as graphs, the size of the graph sets either the width of the graph (when displayed on either the top or bottom panel) or the height of the graph (when displayed on the left or right panel).
Default: 42 pixels.
Temperature scale 	 Which scale to use for temperature sensors (Kelvin, Fahrenheit or Celsius are supported).
Default: Celsius.
Update interval 	 How often to update the values of each sensor shown within the panel.
Default: 2 seconds.
Display notifications 	 If enabled, GNOME Sensors Applet will display notifications to the user when alarm conditions occur.
Default: Enabled.
Alarms for individual sensors must also be enabled.

Sensors
The Sensors tab within the preferences window provides the options for configuring each individual sensor. Each sensor is listed under its specific interface, along with:
A fixed ID to identify the sensor within its interface.
A user selectable icon to identify the sensor within the panel.
A user editable label to identify the sensor within the panel.
A check-box to allow the user to enable / disable monitoring and display of the sensor within the panel.
The Properties button allows a specific sensor to be more finely configured, providing a separate window box for this purpose. (see Sensor Properties)

Sensor Properties
Each sensor can be configured with a number of options, including the possibility to scale the sensor value, and to execute an alarm if a certain low or high value is reached. The sensor icon can also be selected if required. The high and low values are used to scale the graph display, as well as set the color for the thermometer displayed within the icons of temperature sensors.
The sensor value can be scaled in a linear fashion by allowing the user to specify a multiplier and offset for each sensor. As each sensor value is read, it is first multiplied by the 'multiplier' and summed with the 'offset' to produce the final value.
Sensor value multiplier 	 This option allows the user to specify the multiplier of the sensor value.
Default: 1.0
Sensor value offset 	 This option allows the user to specify the offset for the sensor value.
Default: 0.0
Sensor low value 	 The value at which to trigger an alarm if the sensor drops below this value. This value is also used to scale the display of the graph and temperature icons.
Default: dependent on sensor type
Sensor high value 	 The value at which to trigger an alarm if the sensor rises above this value. This value is also used to scale the display of the graph and temperature icons.
Default: dependent on sensor type
Enable alarm 	 This option allows the user to enable alarm monitoring for this sensor. When the sensor value rises above, or drops below it's high or low values, the alarm condition will occur. This will display a notification to the user (if enabled), and execute the appropriate Alarm Command every Alarm repeat interval seconds.
Default: disabled
Alarms will only execute for active sensors
Alarm repeat interval (secs) 	 How often to execute the alarm command while the alarm condition is met. A value of 0 specifies to execute the alarm once only when the alarm condition occurs.
Default: 0 seconds
If notifications are also enabled, a notification will be displayed each time the alarm is executed as well to notify the user that the alarm condition has occurred.
High alarm command 	 The command to be executed at each repeat interval when the sensor value is equal to or above the upper limit.
Default: none
Low alarm command 	 The command to be executed at each repeat interval when the sensor value is equal to or below the lower limit.
Default: none
Play a sound when the alarm occurs 	 You can play a sound when the alarm occurs by using the command esdplay which should be available as part of the standard GNOME installation. (Note: If this does not work, you could also try aplay which is the default ALSA sound player).

esdplay /usr/share/sounds/gnibbles/gobble.wav

Pop-up a window to notify that the alarm has occurred 	 The program zenity can be used to create dialog boxes to be displayed on the users current display, and can thus be used to create pop-up style notifications that the alarm has occurred.

zenity --warning --title="Sensor Alarm" --text="Sensor Alarm occurred"

For more information regarding Zenity please consult the Zenity documentation.
Combine multiple commands into one alarm command 	 Multiple commands can be executed one after the other using the "&&" construct to separate them. To play a sound and pop-up a dialog via Zenity the follow command can be used:

esdplay /usr/share/sounds/gnibbles/gobble.wav && zenity --warning --title="Sensor Alarm" --text="Sensor Alarm occurred"

Sensor icon 	 Provides a list of available icons to allow the user to select one to represent this sensor.
Graph color 	 The color to use to display the graph for the sensor.
To accurately display graphs both the high and low values for the sensor need to be set correctly.

Advanced Options
There are a number of advanced options which can be set to customize the display of sensors within the panel, which are set using the GConf system.
Font Size 	 The font size for labels and values is normally derived from the standard Application Font size of the GNOME Desktop, however this can be overridden. This is done by setting the value of the parameter /apps/sensors-applet/font-size within the user's GConf database. This can be achieved by the following command, where the font size is specified as the last parameter, and in this case is set to 10:

gconftool-2 -s /apps/sensors-applet/font-size -t int 10

To reset the value so that the default font size is not overridden, a font size of 0 should be set.
Hide Units 	 The units for sensor values can also be hidden if desired by setting the boolean value /apps/sensors-applet/hide-units within the user's GConf database. This can be achieved by the following command, where the value is specified as either true or false and is specified as the last parameter. In this case is the units will be hidden (the value is set to true):

gconftool-2 -s /apps/sensors-applet/hide-units -t bool true

These values can also be set using the Configuration Editor application.

About GNOME Sensors Applet
GNOME Sensors Applet was written by Alex Murray (murray.alex@gmail.com). To find more information about GNOME Sensors Applet, please visit the GNOME Sensors Applet Project Homepage.
To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding GNOME Sensors Applet or this manual, follow the directions at the project homepage.
This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public license as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. A copy of this license can be found at this link, or in the file COPYING included with the source code of this program.