messaging indicator integration

[David Nielsen]

Binary package hint: amsn

I know that empathy supports msn as well but that doesn't yet have working webcam support for me whereas amsn does and it supports custom emoticons which is an important feature also lacking from empathy current. While I am sure these issues will be fixed it would be nice if amsn made the effect to integrate a bit better with Ubuntu now by integration with the message indicator.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Mar 11 21:05:54 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
Package: amsn 0.98.1~debian-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=da_DK.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: amsn
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic x86_64

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

Sorry, which kind of feature are you requesting?

[kakaroto (kakaroto)]

what's "message indicator" exactly ?

[David Nielsen (davidnielsen-deactivatedaccount)]

Ubuntu's message application indicator, it has been in there for a few cycles but is otherwise not widely adopted.

[kakaroto (kakaroto)]

Sorry, I don't know what that is. I don't use ubuntu, or gnome for that matter (E17 user here). So I'm a bit clueless at what this is or what i'm required to do.
If someone can point me to examples, API documentation, code samples and also if possible CLI commands for doing this, I'd be grateful.
aMSN is in Tcl/Tk, so there is a small chance that we'd be able to integrate into this anyways, unless there's an external command to launch, like with notify-send for libnotify (which aMSN does when you enable the notify plugin).

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

@kakaroto: "https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/ApplicationIndicators#Porting Guide for Applications"

[kakaroto (kakaroto)]

Humm... yeah, I don't think we're gonna do that.. reasons are as follow :
- this looks like an ubuntu thing, not a system/linux/freedesktop thing.. I don't see why we should waste our time to match one of ubuntu's custom designs.
- this is for Gtk stuff, we use Tcl/Tk, so it already doesn't fit.. not in the toolkit, not in the programming language.
- we would need to write a custom library for aMSN that links with gtk (adds the gtk dependency to aMSN) just for that, and it doesn't make sense to us because we're cross-platform and cross-desktops.
- How would this work on a KDE or Enlightenment environment? this isn't standard..
aMSN uses a tray icon like everybody else on the planet, and we use an extension that is freedesktop compliant.. your 'app indicator' stuff is not standard at all as far as I can tell, so I see no reason why we should integrate with that.
My opinion is that if Ubuntu wants aMSN to fit better in their desktop, they should invest their own time in porting aMSN to this app indicator stuff, and send us a patch, we'll gladly review it and merge it, but I do not believe we should dedicate our resources for an ubuntu-specific extension to the desktop.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

so generally its 'wont fix' :(

[Heimen Stoffels (vistaus)]

On KDE you also have a message indicator. On E17 the message indicator doesn't display and falls back to the default right-click menu (I know that out of experience). So it would be possible to at least make it an optional dependency.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

Hi David and anyone else affected.
Could you please try the new amsn 0.98.9-1 from my ppa [1]?
this version is available for precise and quantal and it contains so many bug fixes.
If this doesn't fix the problem set the status back to new
[1] https://code.launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/amsn

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for amsn (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]