Indicator Applet vs Indicator Applet Complete

Support & Help Requests
1

Hello,

  • Running the 18.04 release -

Can someone tell me the difference between “Indicator Applet” and “Indicator Applet Complete”?

It seems like they are exactly the same thing.

Also, is it possible to separate the individual icons on the indicator applet?

And finally, is it possible to reduce the panel height to 24 px like it is on 16.04? I can change the value, but it stops getting smaller after 27 px. It seems like it might be limited by the size of the icons or something, but changing those settings via mate-tweak didn’t make any difference.

The three extra pixels of panel thickness are a complete show-stopper for me. /s

Thanks,
Jake

1 Like
2

I've wondered this too!

Not as far as I know, unfortunately.

I think the icons do play a role. I seem to remember the minimum height varying with the icon theme.

3

See the readme here:

Doesn’t really tell you much though!. :smiley:

4

Even looking at the source code I can barely see any difference, aside from one hotkey mapping.
To be honest, I don’t think there is any point of having both around.
Maybe there used to be a meaningful difference back then before it was forked from Gnome 2, but not anymore.

Edit: maybe I was wrong and “indicator applet complete” is “indicator applet appmenu” + “indicator applet”… in any case, it should be documented.

1 Like
5

Hi all, I know it's an old topic but I'm unable to find a satisfactory answer. It is really bothering me. I checked in Arch wiki as well; nil joy. Not sure if my websearch skills suck.

Can somebody please explain the difference between 'Indicator Applet' and 'Indicator Applet Complete'? Also, what is 'Indicator Applet Appmenu'? What items go in these applets, eg. in Appmenu applet? How these (if) are different from 'mate-indicator-applet'?

I created an empty panel and tried to add them one by one,

  1. Indicator Applet Appmenu - says 'No Indicators'
  2. Indicator Applet Complete - exactly same as one we have on top panel (I'm using traditional layout), with icons for notification, bluetooth, network, battery, volume, date, ubuntu-gear (session?)
  3. Indicator Applet - almost same as indicator-applet-complete except (as I noticed) it does not have date/calendar icon
  4. Notification Area - shows only 3 dots and nothing else
  5. I did not see any option called 'MATE Indicator Applet'

Groovy does not have indicator-applet-complete package (from apt search). It has only indicator-applet. We also have mate-indicator-applet. The control files of the three packages are as follows

  1. indicator-applet-complete (indicator-applet-complete_12.10.2+17.10.20170425-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb)

     Package: indicator-applet-complete
 Source: indicator-applet
 Version: 12.10.2+17.10.20170425-0ubuntu1
 Architecture: amd64
 Maintainer: Ubuntu Desktop Team <[email protected]>
 Installed-Size: 69
 Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.4), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.41.1), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.5.12), libido3-0.1-0 (>= 13.10.0daily13.06.19), libindicator3-7 (>= 0.4.90), libpanel-applet3 (>= 3.2.1), libx11-6
 Recommends: indicator-application, indicator-bluetooth, indicator-datetime, indicator-keyboard, indicator-messages, indicator-power, indicator-printers, indicator-session, indicator-sound
 Provides: indicator-renderer
 Section: gnome
 Priority: optional
 Homepage: https://launchpad.net/indicator-applet
 Description: Clone of the GNOME panel indicator applet
  Indicator-applet is an applet to display information from
  various applications consistently in the GNOME panel.
  .
  This instance will load all indicators in a single panel
  applet.

  2. indicator-applet (indicator-applet_12.10.2+20.10.20200822.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb)

     Package: indicator-applet
 Version: 12.10.2+20.10.20200822.1-0ubuntu1
 Architecture: amd64
 Maintainer: Ubuntu Desktop Team <[email protected]>
 Installed-Size: 616
 Depends: libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.4), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.55.2), libgnome-panel0 (>= 3.35.1), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.0.0), libido3-0.1-0 (>= 13.10.0daily13.06.19), libindicator3-7 (>= 0.4.90), libx11-6, python3-xdg
 Recommends: indicator-application, indicator-appmenu, indicator-bluetooth, indicator-datetime, indicator-keyboard, indicator-messages, indicator-power, indicator-printers, indicator-session, indicator-sound
 Provides: indicator-renderer
 Section: gnome
 Priority: optional
 Homepage: https://launchpad.net/indicator-applet
 Description: GNOME panel indicator applet
  indicator-applet is an applet to display information from
  various applications consistently in the GNOME panel.
  .
  Currently this includes support for messaging applications in the
  indicator-messages package.

  3. mate-indicator-applet (mate-indicator-applet_1.24.0-2_amd64.deb)

     Package: mate-indicator-applet
 Version: 1.24.0-2
 Architecture: amd64
 Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <[email protected]>
 Original-Maintainer: Debian+Ubuntu MATE Packaging Team <[email protected]>
 Installed-Size: 191
 Depends: mate-indicator-applet-common (= 1.24.0-2), mate-panel, libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libayatana-ido3-0.4-0 (>= 0.4.0), libayatana-indicator3-7 (>= 0.6.0), libc6 (>= 2.4), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.0.0), libmate-panel-applet-4-1 (>= 1.18), libx11-6
 Provides: indicator-renderer
 Section: x11
 Priority: optional
 Homepage: http://www.mate-desktop.org
 Description: MATE panel indicator applet
  A small applet to display information from various applications
  consistently in the panel.
  .
  The indicator applet exposes Ayatana Indicators in the MATE Panel.
  Ayatana Indicators are an initiative by Canonical to provide crisp and
  clean system and application status indication. They take the form of an
  icon and associated menu, displayed (usually) in the desktop panel.
  Existing indicators include the Message Menu, Battery Menu and Sound
  menu.

From what I understand,
a) indicator-applet is newer than indicator-applet-complete(?!) by looking at binary versions. And mate-indicator-applet is most recent.
b) indicator-applet was a GNOME2 project (by Canonical), but still available in UM (in 20.10 as well). Not installed as I could see.
c) mate-indicator-applet is a fork of indicator-applet. It is installed on my system. Seems this is the one that provides indicator-applet, indicator-applet-complete and indicator-applet-appmenu.
d) I still do not know where indicator-applet-complete fits in all this.