The latest version of Caffeine, a system-sleep inhibitor for GNOME, is buzzing with improvements.

Older versions of the utility give you with a simple toolbar icon that you click on to enable Caffeine (to prevent your system from sleeping, or a screensaver from kicking in), and click on again to disable.

But the latest version integrates with the Quick Settings menu introduced in GNOME 43. It adds a “Caffeine” pod option that, like other Quick Settings pods, you can click on to enable/disable instantly.

There’s also a new sub-menu with one-click timers for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 30 mins, plus ‘infinite’ (which is default option):

Caffeine GNOME Extension Adds Support for Quick Settings, Timers
Timers in Caffeine (v44)

When Caffeine is active you see a (full) coffee mug icon in the status area. You can mouse over the coffee cup icon and scroll on it to instantly turn Caffeine off.

Plus, there’s an option to always show an icon (even when not running) that makes it easy to se Caffeine without opening the Quick Settings menu at all.

The new version also swaps obtrusive GTK notification toasts for subtler OSD bubbles. These appear in the lower-half of the screen where GNOME shows similar OSDs for volume change, screen brightness, etc:

Caffeine GNOME Extension Adds Support for Quick Settings, Timers
Less obtrusive notifications

There’s also a redesigned settings panel that offers an array of advanced configuration options, including:

  • Automatically enable Caffeine when using full-screen apps
  • How/when to show/hide status icon
  • Remember state
  • Enable/disable Night Light with Caffeine
  • Enable/disable Caffeine using a custom keyboard shortcut
  • Display the timer (when set) in the top bar
  • Adjust position of Caffeine icon sits in the status tray
  • Add apps that automatically trigger Caffeine

In all, a mug-nificent update to an evergreen tool.

You can get Caffeine on GNOME Extensions, though to benefit from most of the changes mentioned in this post you will need to install the latest version (v44) which requires GNOME 43.


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