# MATE Sensors Applet Manual V2.1

## Introduction

### MATE Sensors Applet

MATE Sensors Applet with 3 sensors enabled.

MATE 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 MATE 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 MATE 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 MATE 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 sensors-applet-preferences).

## Preferences

To configure MATE Sensors Applet, right-click on the applet, then choose Preferences from the pop-up menu.

The Preferences window contains the following tabbed sections:

- sensors-applet-general-options

- sensors-applet-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, MATE 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 sensors-applet-sensor-config-dialog)

### 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 MATE 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 following 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 colour

- The colour 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.

## About MATE Sensors Applet

The origin sensor applet was written by Alex Murray (murray.alex@gmail.com). MATE Sensors Applet is further develop by MATE Dev team. To find more information about MATE Sensors Applet, please visit the MATE Sensors Applet Project Homepage.

To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding MATE Sensors Applet or this manual, follow the directions at the project homepage.

This program is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public licence as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the Licence, or (at your option) any later version. A copy of this licence can be found at this link, or in the file COPYING included with the source code of this program.