Gnome Shell doesn't support Indicator Applets

[Leaird Wedd]

Gnome Shell does not support libindicate which makes it difficult exit Postler as well missing some functionality. A preferrable solution would be to detect if mutter is running and just use GtkStatusIcon to replicate most functionality, or at least quit when the window is closed so we don't end up with 'Ghostler'

[Sergio Spinatelli (spinatelli)]

To quit Postler completely,you can use Ctrl+Q.
As for libindicate,I have no idea.. =)

[Leaird Wedd (leaird-wedd)]

That's good to know, thanks.

I guess this might actually affect other setups that just don't use indicator applets, maybe a better solution would just be to check if indicator-applet is running and if not then connect the appropriate signals to gtk_main_quit(). Personally I'd like a notification icon if possible, but I realize this is generally targeted at standard Ubuntu/elementaryOS environments.

[Cris Dywan (kalikiana)]

Isn't the preferred facility in GNOME Shell notification bubbles in the message area? Correct me if I'm wrong, I only read the documentation but never used it myself.

[Leaird Wedd (leaird-wedd)]

Sort of. Gnome Shell supports extensions written in GJS (Gnome Javascript with introspection of Gnome libs) and uses those to unify some things. For example libnotify, Telepathy and Rhythmbox are handled by extentensions that use similar pop-ups (libnotify just message, Telepathy pop-ups allow replying to messages, Rhythmbox changing songs, etc).

However the 'panel' in Gnome Shell is more static than Gnome2 and doesn't support gnome-panel applets like indicator-applet, but just provides a 'status tray' that will hold GtkStatusIcon's. A Gnome Shell extension could probably be written for Postler, but since Gnome Shell development is still moving fast I just think a simple old-school status icon would do most of what is needed. Maybe one day I'll think about writing an indicator-applet wrapper in GJS.

[Leaird Wedd (leaird-wedd)]

I was looking into indicator applets and found this on the Ubuntu Wiki:

"By default the Application Indicator supports a fallback which will create a GtkStatusIcon with the same icon as the Application Indicator. It supports the menu and responds to all the same state and icon changes." - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/ApplicationIndicators#Custom%20Fallbacks