xchat-gnome not visible in dock, unreachable when minimised

[Mathieu L BOUCHARD]

Starting xchat-gnome does not put an icon in the dock. If I switch to a different window, I can't reach it by Alt+tab : I have to minimise other windows until I reach the xchat window. However, if I ever minimise the xchat window itself, I can't ever reach it again, because it is not in the dock, it is not in Alt+tab, AND it is not in the letter-shaped indicator/applet, unlike what it looks like : when clicking on the "xchat" item in that menu, it starts a new xchat, over and over.

This problem happened to me with several other apps since the beginning of the gnome3/unity era (even OOCalc, a very important app). It never ever happened in gnome2 days (or before) : it was essentially impossible to lose an app window this way. Therefore I think that the best way to fix this bug is most certainly in the gnome infrastructure itself, though in the meantime, fixing this bug at the level of xchat-gnome would make it less unusable (I would not attempt to use it in that state).

The app named just "xchat" does appear in the dock and Alt+tab.

This is on a fresh install of 12.04 immediately upgraded to 14.04 before trying the above (if it matters at all).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: xchat-gnome 1:0.30.0~git20131003.d20b8d+really20110821-0.2ubuntu12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.47-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Mon May 19 21:43:41 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-05-18 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20130820.1)
SourcePackage: xchat-gnome
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-05-18 (1 days ago)