indicator-datetime configuration panel only works in Unity session

[Alistair Buxton]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Perform a fresh install of 12.04, 12.04.1, or 12.10, and fully update the system.
2. Left click the clock on the panel and select "Time & Date Settings..." You should see a window with title "Time & Date" - Not "Date and Time" or the top level gnome system settings menu.
3. sudo apt-get install gnome-fallback-session
4. Log out and log in to the Gnome Classic or Gnome Classic (no effects) session.
5. Left click the clock on the panel and select "Time & Date Settings..." You will see the top level Gnome Control Center menu and the "Time & Date" panel will not be available. Instead you will see a "Date and Time" icon, which is not able to configure the indicator-datetime correctly.

Video demonstrating the bug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpzaq43pRkg

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: indicator-datetime 0.3.94-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-32.51-generic 3.2.30
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-32-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu14
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Nov 2 11:29:28 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120328)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: indicator-datetime
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alan Bell (alanbell)]

from a vanilla ubuntu desktop install, I added gnome-shell and removed unity (didn't remove compiz) logged into a gnome-classic session and the datetime indicator is indeed broken.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

After more testing I can reproduce this without uninstalling Unity or Compiz. I only need to log in to a session where Compiz does not run such as gnome-classic (no effects).

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Now tested with fresh installs of 12.04.1 and 12.10

[Jason Conti (jconti)]

Unfortunately, it is kind of on purpose. The .desktop file has OnlyShowIn=Unity; otherwise there will be multiple Time & Date options in gnome-control-center. There is a workaround though:

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity gnome-control-center indicator-datetime;

I suppose indicator-datetime could force that environment when it execs gnome-control-center, but otherwise I'm not really sure how to fix this issue.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Interesting. In detail:

/usr/share/applications/gnome-datetime-panel.desktop has OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
/usr/share/applications/indicator-datetime-preferences.desktop has OnlyShowIn=Unity;

So this prevents both displaying at the same time. In Gnome classic it's possible to choose between the applet (configured by the former) and the indicator (configured by the latter) or even have both at the same time. I agree that there isn't a good solution for this since if for some reason you add both you need both control panels, but this would require the control center to be aware of what you had on your panels.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

Since Gnome Classic by default uses indicators and not the applet I think it should look like this:

/usr/share/applications/gnome-datetime-panel.desktop has OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
/usr/share/applications/indicator-datetime-preferences.desktop has OnlyShowIn=Unity, GNOME-Classic;

or, gnome classic should show both icons if both date applets are installed:

/usr/share/applications/gnome-datetime-panel.desktop has OnlyShowIn=GNOME, GNOME-Classic;
/usr/share/applications/indicator-datetime-preferences.desktop has OnlyShowIn=Unity, GNOME-Classic;

This will require,

a) changing gnome classic session to set XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP to a different value
b) fixing anything else that looks at this variable
c) possibly fixing whatever parses OnlyShowIn to accept multiple values if it doesn't already.

However, this is the only solution I can see that isn't a terrible terrible hack.

[Alistair Buxton (a-j-buxton)]

With Ubuntu now switching to it's own control center[1] and Gnome Shell's control center no longer supporting external applets, it should be possible to drop that "OnlyShowIn" line entirely.

[1]https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-desktop/2013-December/004360.html

[Charles Kerr (charlesk)]

This panel now lives in unity-control-center.