GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 701216
Classic: [RFE] Do not hide classic systray icons in the message-tray
Last modified: 2015-03-07 05:36:21 UTC
There are many classic (arguably legacy but well-used) applications that use systray icons to present useful information to end-users. One such example is the Pidgin instant messenger application. It will change color and shape to indicate that the connection of one or more services has been interrupted or that you have unanswered messages waiting. The current behavior on GNOME Classic is to hide these icons in the message-tray, where such visual changes are impossible to detect. In order to have a compatible interface with GNOME 2, it would be preferable to have these system tray applications appear persistently.
I also suffer this problem with standard Gnome shell: there are a lot of apps still relying on old way of handling notification icons, I would opt for incorporating topicons extension to the "upstream" maintained gnome-shell-extensions: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/495/topicons/ For example, I am needing it currently for pidgin, deluge and dropbox notifications, otherwise they are hidden and hard to use (try to right-click on deluge notification icon and you will see how it behaves in Gnome Shell by default)
So I have been trying out the topicons extension today and I agree. This one should absolutely be part of the default under GNOME Classic. Hear our pleas, GNOME developers :)
(In reply to comment #2) > So I have been trying out the topicons extension today and I agree. This one > should absolutely be part of the default under GNOME Classic. > > Hear our pleas, GNOME developers :) That's more of a design rather than a development issue (adding it is easy) ... lets get some designer input.
So designer answer was no ... so you'd have to install the extension by yourself if you want this.
How about some (In reply to comment #4) > So designer answer was no ... Maybe some explanation? Where did designers respond? What are basis for their decision?
(In reply to comment #5) > How about some (In reply to comment #4) > > So designer answer was no ... > > Maybe some explanation? Where did designers respond? What are basis for their > decision? On IRC. Nothing specific really so lets keep this open until we get at designer to respond here instead of me playing proxy.
One thing to consider is that many systray icons behave much like the new panel icons. Dropbox for example: The systray icon is a status indicator and a tool to change the behaviour of Dropbox (like pause sync for example). This can be compared to the NetworkManager panel indicator that shows the network status and can be used to change connections. As Dropbox uses proper notifications they go to the notification area like they should. Of course there are other applications that just use the systray for notifications. So probably a extension that can propagate systray icons on a whitelist basis to the panel would be a good idea.
*** Bug 702353 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Previously I had mentioned how difficult it acquiring non-GNOME (Bug 702353) applications the new behavior of the message box, however, I've noticed using the extension "topicons" that you still have GNOME applications using a message box to display basic controls (example: Rhythmbox or when mounts a new flash drive or HHD, etc..) For me the problem is not that these applications have basic controls in the system tray, but differ from the notifications are not displayed as "unread notifications" in the bottom panel of the classic session. It would be very helpful if the only indicator appeared to notifications, and you can always access the application controls by dragging on the bottom panel.
The message tray is gone in 3.16, and legacy tray icons are no longer mixed with notifications but got their dedicated panel that can be slid out.