Web apps (Chrome/Prism) should have individual icons in Docky

[Brian Guertin]

It should be possible to have web apps treated as seperate applications with their own icon in Docky. If I'm not mistaken, this could be done by taking the windows WM_CLASS into account when grouping and fetching icons. For example, I can have a desktop file with the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Gmail
Exec=chromium-browser --user-data-dir=~/.gmail --app=http://www.gmail.com --class=Gmail $*
Type=Application
StartupWMClass=Gmail

* the --user-data option is required to start a NEW instance of chrome, otherwise it will hijack any current chrome instance and the --class argument will be ignored

This would launch an instance of Chromium/Chrome running gmail in app mode. It's window class would appear as follows in xprop:
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "chromium-browser", "Gmail"

As opposed to a regular instance which is just:
WM_CLASS(STRING) = "chromium-browser", "Chromium-browser"

Is it possible to group windows like this, based on their class? It would provide some great web app integration. I filed a similar bug on the chromium tracker about properly identifying individual app instances, through their class/role or otherwise.

[Brian Guertin (beg1689)]

As a work around:

For each web app, you can create a symbolic link to /usr/lib/chromium-browser/chromium-browser with a unique name (like "gmail"). And another launcher (see script /usr/bin/chromium-browser) which launches it, as well as specifying --user-data-dir and so on. Then, create a desktop file which points to the new launcher.

This will cause Do to think its a whole seperate program and will use the .desktop's icon and will not group it with existing chromium windows.

I imagine something similar could be done with prism/wine/etc until a better solution comes around..

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Docky 1 (the Do theme version of Docky) has reached the end of its maintenance period and is no longer being supported. Docky 2 (the stand-alone application) is a complete rewrite and thus may or may not be affected by this bug.

Please feel free to install Docky 2 (PPA: https://edge.launchpad.net/~docky-core/+archive/ppa or souce: http://do.davebsd.com/wiki/Installing_Docky) and see if your bug still occurs. If it does, please file the bug against lp:docky (not lp:do!).

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

I confirm that this bug exists in Docky 2, version 2.0~bzr1067-0karmic1~dockycore1. I have added docky to this bug.

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

Brian, could you elaborate further on your workaround, and also tell us if it works with Docky 2?

I managed to get Gmail to appear as a separate app from Chrome, but it still doesn't match its launcher or get an icon.

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

Hmm. As often happens, this problem waited until I had wasted some other people's time complaining about it, and then magically fixed itself. Oh well. Sorry.

[Seif Sallam (seif.sallam)]

in Docky 2.0.0-Alpha-1 bzr docky r1067, if i put the application in the dock and run it, the opened window goes under Chromium

Here is after opening google reader chromium app http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IfIy2mAype0olR1KNT9Axw?feat=directlink

[Juno Woods (translunar)]

So the downside to this workaround is that if I use Ctrl+N or Ctrl+T to open a new window, it doesn't know to use my regular Google Chrome settings to do that -- it becomes part of the Gmail app as far as Unity is concerned.

This is not an optimal solution.