About Notification Area and Indicator Applet Complete

Development Discussion
#1

I’ve been trying to sort this all out. There’s been some minor discussion and I summarize like this:

Indicator Applet Complete
Complete as opposed to individual categories like Application, Messages, Power, Session and Sound found in can’t-permanently-disable-them Startup Apps. Or a plain applet vs Appmenu as listed in Add-to-Panel.

Notification Area
I sense this is being deprecated. I’m guessing some older programs use this and may not be compatible with indicators?

At this point, my old staple Parcellite (clipboard manager) always shows twice in panel layouts Familiar and Traditional (and likely others). It’s obvious one appears from each. Operation is different for right-clicks. I removed Notification Area and all seems well so far.

I tried the opposite (only Notification Area) but I get one reboot to turn off the startup apps that screws this up. Looks like it also works, however.

Have I got this summarized correctly?
Why are both of these in the default Traditional and Familiar panel layouts?
What’s the consequences of removing Notification Area?
Why can’t Indicator startups be permanently disabled (just for testing)?

#2

This indicator/notification area stuff is all borked. I found some files that if removed will stop the automatic replacement of the startup program entries. Five .desktop files:

indicator-application.desktop
indicator-messages.desktop
indicator-power.desktop
indicator-session.desktop
indicator-sound.desktop

Unfortunately I don’t recall the folder they lived in (somewhere under /usr I think) and I’m back on a fresh install of 16.04. However I discovered that even with those startup entries disabled trying to use the notification area under 17.10 and 18.04 resulted in disappearing or missing notification area icons and panel weirdness in general.

Finally decided I would go back to 16.04 which has served me faithfully these last 2 years and wait to try 18.04.1 or later releases to come.

#3

Thanks for the reply, @quonsar, Yes I found those .desktop files and edited them internally disabled as a test: /usr/share/mate/autostart.

In a nutshell, I’m trying to find out why these are so borked. There’s likely a reason.

#4

What I find interesting is that the Notification Area seems to work perfectly in other distros. I’ve tried it on Debian Sid, Fedora 27, Solus and Antergos (I was bored over the weekend and abused my poor laptop).

OTOH, the box that I’ve upgraded from UM17.04 to 17.10 to 18.04 has it all borked, even though it was fine in 17.10, as are my other 17.10 boxes. Not sure what to think.

#5

Well, with three days until release, I don’t see how they are going to get this out the door in reasonable shape! :worried:

#6

One thing for sure is Not. Area does not work by itself with those startup indicators running. When not running, I concluded the problem was like a startup time race because mate-panel --replace seemed to straighten out Not. Area. That’s where I left it and put everything back like it was.

For sure. Updates have been trickling already so it’s pretty much at release state.

#7

Indicators are default now, but the notification area is retained as a fall back for applets that don’t have Indicator compatibility. I’d like you to elaborate on “borked”, I can’t debug that :slight_smile: I’ve been using the current setup for months without issue.

As for Parcellite, it does seem odd that it registers with both interfaces, that feels like a bug. I’ll have a peek at their code.

#8

Wimpy, quick question: is the indicator applet themeable? I’ve not seen them in anything but the black.

#9

I'd like you to elaborate on "borked"

well, i have described the various issues in other posts. nothing is consistent. applets added to panel disappear or get duplicated after reboot or logging back in. Or simply won’t show in the Notification Area at all. You say you have been using the current setup without issues? Try disabling the indicator and using only the notification area. :slight_smile:

If indicator were more configurable and could be made something other than black that would be cool. If the arrangement of icons showed only the actual programs icons rather than hiding them under “category” icons (for instance, my IM client in the notification area requires one click to raise Pidgin to the top. Indicator hides my IM icon under an envelope icon, i have to click on two things if i want my IM client.)

Forcing users to run unconfigurable programs and inflexible interfaces is a Microsoft trope.

1 Like
#10

Hi @Wimpy. Thanks for looking at Parcellite.

In general, panels have been flakey on my native install test of 18.04 beta 2. Much started when I placed “Weather Report” left of clock and right of Notification/Indicators area of “Traditional”. A typical symptom is lacking audio or network icons and incomplete panels, including blank.

Mate-Tweak switching panels is slow for some reason and slow often means incomplete. It’s not really a slow system.

I eventually did this Live session on this hardware that’s been running 16.04 since day 1. Still is - I’m dual booting 18.04 at the moment.

EDIT: I’ve already ruled out things like Compiz, Marco, nVidia and Nouveau. The Live boot runs Marco and Nouveau.

#11

Add me to the Notification Area not working correctly group.

Didnt like the spacing that the indicators had so I changed to the old Notification Area applet. I only see the volume applet, network and bluetooth icons disappeared to the abyss. It also moves the applet from the locked placed by the clock. Tried removing the indicators on the startup applications menu, but they appear if I restart or log off/log in.

https://i.imgur.com/3b710O8.png

I did noticed that if I changed on mate-tweak from my custom panel to one of the default options like cupertino, and then back to my custom layout, I get the network and bluetooth applets visible.

cMnL8ln.jpg1920×1080 507 KB

This is using the minimal install option on an SSD using an nvidia graphics card(proprietary) and the marco compositor. Not on a virtual machine.

1 Like
#12

My issues are much the same as @quonsar is having: applets disappearing or moving as if they have minds of their own. One time, I logged in and three of everything. Resetting the panels helps, but is annoying to do at each login.

#13

this morning, after the usual updates, I got this screen ... the network icon is missing as well as the !M icon (red, nomachine) which I use to remote on that machine. Even when I try to load the Nomachine service manually, I keep getting Notification area quit unexpectedly.

Screenshot at 2018-04-24 07-46-39.png1280×1024 47.8 KB

#14

OK, so you disabled something and broke it :slight_smile:

If you remove mate-indicator-applet from the panel then you need to set enable-sni-support to True in org/mate/panel/general using dconf-editor.

3 Likes
18.04 has no network icon!
I want to use Notification Area instead of Indicator Complete
#15

Of course. That should have been obvious.
::eye roll::

#16

Exactly the same issue as @Cold. How can this be fixed out ? Personally I don’t wan’t to use indicators-applet as its appearance does not behave like the rest of my theme…

1 Like
#17

I just removed the files and the icons missing reappeared again in the notification area. However I am still facing the problem of having some icon smaller and not clickable with a left-click (still clickable with a right-click)

#18

These applications do not show in the indicator panel by default:

  • Skype
  • Shutter
  • pCloud
  • Signal

Some of them have display artifacts in the notifications area : https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-panel/issues/793

It can be solved by adding a environment variable in their desktop files, tricking them into thinking there are running under Unity: env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity

For instance:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=pcloud
Comment=pCloud Drive Client built using electron and node.js. Distributed with A
ppImage.
Exec=env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity "/opt/pcloud" %U

It worked very nicely for all applications in my list, except Signal.

I am now working without the notification area.