Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

Bug #498182 reported by Vish
272
This bug affects 55 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Indicator Applet
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Release Notes for Ubuntu
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
indicator-applet (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned
Lucid
Fix Released
Low
Unassigned
indicator-session (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned
Lucid
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: indicator-application

The indicator works only with horizontal panels and when vertical panel is used only the messaging menu is displayed . the rhythmbox icon is missing , it took me a while to realize that the icon was hidden out of the screen area.

Since there are plans to include several menus , the menus are just getting hidden out of the screen.
With the indicator-messages and the indicator-session , they were single menus and atleast a portion of the menu was visible and usable, which is not possible here.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CheckboxSubmission: 417990aadff2335cd485c57bb06c8968
CheckboxSystem: 5484a8dd99f006173bd2ac53fa4837c2
Date: Fri Dec 18 18:43:47 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20091209)
Package: indicator-application 0.0.6-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-8.12-generic
SourcePackage: indicator-application
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-8-generic i686

Related branches

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :
description: updated
Vish (vish)
tags: added: indicator-application
Vish (vish)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

Now the behavior has changed.
If the panel is Oriented to the Right ,
The new items are added to the left of the messaging menu
And when a new item is present the messaging menu is hidden.

The gnome-main-menu is able to switch the orientation probably from >
gnome-main-menu/main-menu/src/main-menu.c

reorient_panel_button (MainMenuUI *this)
{
 MainMenuUIPrivate *priv = PRIVATE (this);

 PanelAppletOrient orientation;

 GtkWidget *child;

 orientation = panel_applet_get_orient (priv->panel_applet);

 child = gtk_bin_get_child (GTK_BIN (priv->panel_applet));

 if (GTK_IS_WIDGET (child))
  gtk_container_remove (GTK_CONTAINER (priv->panel_applet), child);

 switch (orientation) {
  case PANEL_APPLET_ORIENT_LEFT:
   priv->panel_button = priv->panel_buttons [PANEL_BUTTON_ORIENT_RIGHT];
   break;

  case PANEL_APPLET_ORIENT_RIGHT:
   priv->panel_button = priv->panel_buttons [PANEL_BUTTON_ORIENT_LEFT];
   break;

  case PANEL_APPLET_ORIENT_UP:
   priv->panel_button = priv->panel_buttons [PANEL_BUTTON_ORIENT_BOTTOM];
   break;

  default:
   priv->panel_button = priv->panel_buttons [PANEL_BUTTON_ORIENT_TOP];
   break;
 }

 gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (priv->panel_applet), GTK_WIDGET (priv->panel_button));
}

Is there a way to make this work in indicator application too?

Changed in indicator-application (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

I initially thought of working on this , but didnt get very far.

I'm posting Comments from Cody Russell, so that it would be useful to anyone who is interested on fixing this >

 <bratsche> Does gnome-main-menu expose GtkOrientation somewhere?
 <bratsche> http://library.gnome.org/devel/panel-applet/stable/PanelApplet.html#PanelAppletOrient
 <bratsche> http://library.gnome.org/devel/panel-applet/stable/PanelApplet.html#panel-applet-get-orient
 <bratsche> That might be a good place to start from if this is something you're interested in hacking on.
 <bratsche> I don't have time to work on this right now, but if you're interested in it then I can try to help you out some.
 <bratsche> App indicators still live inside a panel applet ultimately. So that applet would need to know its orientation and then communicate that to the indicator.
 <bratsche> Oh, and lastly you'd need to listen to this signal: http://library.gnome.org/devel/panel-applet/stable/PanelApplet.html#PanelApplet-change-orient

Changed in indicator-application:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote :

Is this the right place to comment on the indicator-applet-session as well?

Indicator-applet-session was at least usable in karmic on a vetrical panel. You could access the shutdown/logout/lock-screen UI.

In lucid, the "shutdown/logout/lock" UI is hidden by the vertical panel, meaning that you can't even get out of a logged-in session. AND the system-menu doesn't have those elements, because the indicator-applet-session has them, even though they're not accessable.

Now we have a regression that causes people migrating from a working karmic setup to a lucid setup they can't log out of, suspend, lock, reboot, or shutdown...

I commented to that effect on #410254, but that's marked invalid/won't-fix, so i thought it might be more relevent here.

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote :

If non-horizontal panels really aren't going to be supported, they should be dropped from the configuration options of gnome-panel.

Revision history for this message
Sense Egbert Hofstede (sense) wrote :

I'm opening a separate task to keep track of this issue for indicator session. The fix for this probably will have to be added to libindicator, but it could be that changes are required in indicator-applet, indicator-session and indicator-application as well. At least they'll probably have to be rebuilt.

Changed in indicator-session (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote :

RAUGHhh. Just wasted a few days on this one.

Not only is the indicator-applet-session applet not usuable, but the indicator-applet as well, meaning icons that spill out are just hidden.

This totally broke the volume control, indicators for all applications in the messaging menu (empathy, evolution, xchat-gnome-indicator, etc), the display-size applet. The notification-area applet handles this fine, so things that used to live in there and have moved are now hit by this.

This is a nasty regression, that takes perfectly working karmic desktops, then breaks them, and doesn't even have any means of discovering what's broken, or how to fix it.

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote :

If vertical panels really can't be supported under Lucid, what about a warning message at least?

If the applet finds itself on a panel it's incompatible with, it could at least say "hey, this isn't going to do what you expect, move me to an appropriate panel, or it won't work", or something similar?

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote :

Pulling in ubuntu-release-notes here, since (according to #ubuntu-bugs), this regression isn't going to change for lucid.

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

Release notes has nothing to do with this.

This is a regression , but not something that needs to be mentioned in release notes.

Changed in ubuntu-release-notes:
status: New → Invalid
tags: added: regression-potential
removed: apport-bug i386
Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

Jeremy Nickurak , Also , something that needs mentioning is, that the devs have not said they wont fix this bug, probably not a priority for them[regarding the release notes] .
They mentioned they would fix it if someone takes a look at it and submits a merge/patch. If someone is willing to work on this , comments 2 and 3 are a start.

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote :

I'll try, as it bugs me :)

thanks for the pointers Vish, I'll try to address the indicator-applet rotation too

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote :

Hi,

well it looks to me as though the patch is ready, there's the question of whether it's time for a preferences window for indicator-applet[-session] generally, I've tentatively written one, although it's less than 100% essential :)

Branch linked

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@MarkieB , thanks for working on this bug.
But there is a bit of concern since you have fixed several bugs in the same branch, especially Bug #425552 , which is to add preferences to the applet , the concerned devs are opposed to adding such preferences.

This increases the chances of the branch not being merged. Could you kindly separate the fixes?
It would be preferable if you can add the branch with the fix for re-orienting alone to this bug and propose a merge. Thanks.

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote :

Hi Vish,

In fact I already cleared the properties aspect from the branch this afternoon, possibly the web interface takes its time to make the update visible :-)

From my point of view, I'd say that the properties aspect is kind of necessary to this branch specifically, to avoid further justified accusations of a jobsian approach, that is the reason I've linked additional bug reports that refer to properties generally, as it seemed worthwhile that people who see Ubuntu as an OS that gives more control to the customer, should be allowed to comment;

However I hear the voices raised in discord :-) so I'm happy that for this iteration the bug be fixed without a properties window for now; after all the code is in the commit history so it's reintroduceable whenever; Above all it seems to me the priority is to fix the bug in time [even though final freeze is gone] so that peoples' first update after installation [in case they've got vertical panel/s] at least gives them a power button :D

Best

Mark

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator-application does not support vertical panels

Since this breaks logout, shutdown, lock screen, is there any way to push
this into lucid 10.4 so people don't run into this non intuitive, non
obvious regression?

On Apr 18, 2010 11:25 AM, "MarkieB" <email address hidden> wrote:

Hi Vish,

In fact I already cleared the properties aspect from the branch this
afternoon, possibly the web interface takes its time to make the update
visible :-)

>From my point of view, I'd say that the properties aspect is kind of
necessary to this branch specifically, to avoid further justified
accusations of a jobsian approach, that is the reason I've linked
additional bug reports that refer to properties generally, as it seemed
worthwhile that people who see Ubuntu as an OS that gives more control
to the customer, should be allowed to comment;

However I hear the voices raised in discord :-) so I'm happy that for
this iteration the bug be fixed without a properties window for now;
after all the code is in the commit history so it's reintroduceable
whenever; Above all it seems to me the priority is to fix the bug in
time [even though final freeze is gone] so that peoples' first update
after installation [in case they've got vertical panel/s] at least gives
them a power button :D

Best

Mark

--
Indicator-application does not support vertical panels
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/498182
Y...

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote : Re: Indicator-application does not support vertical panels

Hi Jeremy,

I suppose at the very least review / approve hopefully :-) at https://code.launchpad.net/~ubunt-u-markbenjamin/indicator-applet/reorient/+merge/23524

whether no power button affecting an unknown number of people in a reasonably feasible configuration is a 'final freeze' special case - that I'd have to let more knowledgeable people say :-)

Best

Mark

Revision history for this message
Sense Egbert Hofstede (sense) wrote :

I'm changing this to affect indicator-applet, which is where the changes were needed and marking it as Fix Committed since the branch has been merged. Thank you, MarkB, for writing the fix!

Changed in indicator-session (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
affects: indicator-application (Ubuntu) → indicator-applet (Ubuntu)
affects: indicator-application → indicator-applet
Changed in indicator-applet:
status: Confirmed → Fix Committed
summary: - Indicator-application does not support vertical panels
+ Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels
Revision history for this message
Thawn (webmaster-korten-privat) wrote :

There is a workaround for the missing logout button:
Add the indicator applet session twice and make the menu bar 40 pixels wide.
the accessible logout button will always be on the second instance of the applet that gets initiated. Therefore removing the first instance once you have the button only works until you log out.

I hope this fix makes it into lucid because I find the limited support for vertical menus quite annoying especially since widescreen monitors are becoming the standard. On a widescreen monitor, vertical menus are IMHO much more space-efficient than horizontal ones.

Revision history for this message
Thawn (webmaster-korten-privat) wrote :

another workaround for those that are not using the user information part (displaying the username etc.) is to uninstall indicator-me (maybe you also need to uninstall indicator-messages and indicator-evolution I am not sure since I uninstalled all of them at once).

Revision history for this message
Dave H (dave-hills-2009) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

On Sun, 2010-05-02 at 19:15 +0000, Thawn wrote:

> another workaround for those that are not using the user information
> part (displaying the username etc.) is to uninstall indicator-me (maybe
> you also need to uninstall indicator-messages and indicator-evolution I
> am not sure since I uninstalled all of them at once).
>

Thawn,
Thanks, this worked for me, un-installed just indicator-me using
synaptic and rebooted. This made just the power icon visible in my right
24 pixel wide vertical panel.

Cheers

Dave

Revision history for this message
JoE (joehillen) wrote :

I downloaded and installed the fixed version and nothing seems to have changed.

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote :

"the fixed version" = 0.3.6-0ubuntu3 / 0.4.0 ?

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@JoE: What did you mean by fixed version? the fix hasnt been released yet

Revision history for this message
JoE (joehillen) wrote :

@Vish: I downloaded the latest branch, revno 356. Ran, autogen.sh, make, make install, and it still doesn't work. Is there another step to install it that I don't know?

Revision history for this message
MarkieB (ubunt-u-markbenjamin) wrote :

Hi Joe,

I suppose we should check that
- your install dir for the binaries is /usr/lib/indicator-applet not
[the default] /usr/local/libexec
- you restarted the panel?

Best

Mark

Revision history for this message
JoE (joehillen) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

>
> - your install dir for the binaries is /usr/lib/indicator-applet not
> [the default] /usr/local/libexec
>
Ah, that was the issue. Shouldn't this be a bug in the build system since
"make install" doesn't install it where it is supposed to?

On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 12:35 AM, MarkieB
<email address hidden>wrote:

> Hi Joe,
>
> I suppose we should check that
> - your install dir for the binaries is /usr/lib/indicator-applet not
> [the default] /usr/local/libexec
> - you restarted the panel?
>
> Best
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/498182
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in Indicator Applet: Fix Committed
> Status in Ubuntu Release Notes: Invalid
> Status in “indicator-applet” package in Ubuntu: Triaged
> Status in “indicator-session” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: indicator-application
>
> The indicator works only with horizontal panels and when vertical panel is
> used only the messaging menu is displayed . the rhythmbox icon is missing ,
> it took me a while to realize that the icon was hidden out of the screen
> area.
>
> Since there are plans to include several menus , the menus are just getting
> hidden out of the screen.
> With the indicator-messages and the indicator-session , they were single
> menus and atleast a portion of the menu was visible and usable, which is not
> possible here.
>
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> CheckboxSubmission: 417990aadff2335cd485c57bb06c8968
> CheckboxSystem: 5484a8dd99f006173bd2ac53fa4837c2
> Date: Fri Dec 18 18:43:47 2009
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20091209)
> Package: indicator-application 0.0.6-0ubuntu1
> ProcEnviron:
> LANG=en_US.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-8.12-generic
> SourcePackage: indicator-application
> Tags: lucid
> Uname: Linux 2.6.32-8-generic i686
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-applet/+bug/498182/+subscribe
>

Revision history for this message
A.Kromic (akromic) wrote :

This is quite annoying, first of all it drove me crazy where did the power and sound icons go after upgrading to Lucid. I've tried everything to fix it, took me a while to understand it only shows the first icon on the vertical panel. Now I've moved it to my horizontal panel, but I'm not quite glad for it, since it takes much panel real estate, and my horizontal panel was already fully used (especially because there are other stuff which don't work correctly on a vertical panel).

Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
Changed in indicator-session (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: New → Invalid
Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu Lucid):
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote : Please test proposed package

Accepted indicator-applet into lucid-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

tags: added: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Otus (jan-varho) wrote :

Works, but padding for the me-menu isn't quite right, as can be seen from the attached screenshot. Also, the text is vertical even if there is enough space to have it horizontally. This differs from how e.g. the clock applet works.

Revision history for this message
Thawn (webmaster-korten-privat) wrote :

Works fine for me - great work!
I don't mind the vertical text. It's on a vertical panel after all.

Martin Pitt (pitti)
tags: added: verification-done
removed: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

Love it!

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 07:30, Martin Pitt <email address hidden> wrote:

> ** Tags added: verification-done
> ** Tags removed: verification-needed
>
> --
> Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/498182
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Jeremy Nickurak -= Email/XMPP: <email address hidden> =-

Revision history for this message
Dave H (dave-hills-2009) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

On Sun, 2010-05-09 at 10:36 +0000, Martin Pitt wrote:

> Accepted indicator-applet into lucid-proposed, the package will build
> now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here.
> See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how
> to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!
>
> ** Tags added: verification-needed
>

Hi,
Worked fine for me. A 1 or 2 point padding either side would improve
appearance. similar to the Date in my screen dump.

Good work.

Cheers

Dave H

Revision history for this message
Andrew Aylett (andrew-aylett) wrote :

Like it. Personally, I'd prefer it if the session indicators were the other way around, as I keep that applet at the top of the panel and would like the system menu at the top, but it's fantastic to have it working at all :).

Thank you, everyone -- especially MarkieB -- for the effort you've put in.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package indicator-applet - 0.3.7-0ubuntu1

---------------
indicator-applet (0.3.7-0ubuntu1) lucid-proposed; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    * Fix shortcuts over remote connections (LP: #568401)
    * Compiler cleanups
    * Support for vertical panels (LP: #498182)
 -- Ted Gould <email address hidden> Tue, 04 May 2010 19:44:02 +0200

Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

Copied to maverick.

Changed in indicator-applet (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Ted Gould (ted)
Changed in indicator-applet:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Carey Underwood (cwillu) wrote :

Ugh, this fix breaks the indicator menus for people who use wide vertical panels (in order to intelligibly show lots and lots of windows in the window list; there are patches to fix the behavior of the window list upstream).

Revision history for this message
Jeremy Nickurak (nickurak) wrote : Re: [Bug 498182] Re: Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels

There's a question of whether people should be able to decide the
orientation of a panel item on the panel.... vertical applets on horizontal
panels, or horizontal applets on vertical panels.... but that's an argument
to take upstream I think.

The behavior of 99% of applets on a vertical panel is that they rotate to
fit the smaller width. The task list is an exception to that rule (I believe
an unfortunate one), but it's the only one there, afaik.

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 21:03, Carey Underwood <email address hidden> wrote:

> Ugh, this fix breaks the indicator menus for people who use wide
> vertical panels (in order to intelligibly show lots and lots of windows
> in the window list; there are patches to fix the behavior of the window
> list upstream).
>
> --
> Indicator Applet does not support vertical panels
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/498182
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--
Jeremy Nickurak -= Email/XMPP: <email address hidden> =-

Revision history for this message
Jaime R. Garza (garzaj) wrote :

I'm using Lubuntu 12.10 and I have the same problem with the indicator Applets that only shows horizontally, even on Vertical panels! Is there a way to correct this? All the comments here are from 2010 and the Bug is still there?

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.

Other bug subscribers

Related questions

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.