Lack of wine notification area icons makes using wine more difficult

[Andrew Marsden]

Binary package hint: wine1.2

Natty Narwhal (Alpha 2) - Unity with Wine issue
Two Aesthetic and Ease of Use issues running Wine under 11.04A2

ISSUE #1:
Notification Area has been removed, and so the normal Wine Dock has been undocked. This creates a floating "Wine System Tray" window, containing the notification icons from the normal systray.
As it's now a normal window, it can be hidden beneath the (potential) dozens of windows that one has open, and means it might be difficult to sort out a misbehaving Wine App.

ISSUE #2:
All Wine apps are shown with a Wine icon on the Unity sidebar. This means it's not possible to identify (even by hovering over, which returns the label "Wine") what the Wine app open is, without scrolling through the windows.
Even if these programs WERE separated, they'd all have the Wine icon, so the ability to tell what the programs are is STILL not there. (Query: Based on process name?)

MORE INFO: http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?p=56466

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: wine (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-1.28-generic 2.6.38-rc2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-1-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Feb 14 20:55:29 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha i386 (20110202)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: wine1.2

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

This is the job of wine to update their software to match our specifications. We are aware of the inconvenience, but ultimately think that this is the best way forward. Wine should devise a new solution to their problem.

[Andrew Marsden (atmarsden)]

By changing the name, you've changed the meaning. Issue #2 is a definite Ubuntu problem, as it groups it by process, and uses the process' default icon.

[João Ricardo Lourenço (jorl17)]

I'm going to have to but in here. I know that I am not contributing that much to the bug report, but this needs to be said:
Wine does not have to meet "your specifications".

Ubuntu is still a Linux distro. And Wine is made for far more than "just Ubuntu" or even "just Linux". Wine follows wide standards and it does not need to meet "Ubuntu's specifications". Ubuntu should be the one to match specifications -- accepted and general ones, which do not obstruct users at all.

I understand why Ubuntu chooses not to follow specifications, but it should definitely have an option to enable it to match them, or at least severe ones such as these. Wine may, in fact, come up and match Ubuntu's specifications but this kind of behaviour by Ubuntu's developers has started to kill compatibility with some (many?) applications. I, myself, have stopped using Ubuntu ever since it started to try and "change" the world. However I want it to succeed and I think it's just not going to happen this way. Wine is crucial for many Ubuntu users and these kind of "nuances" will probably lure them away of the operating system -- as they did to me.

So, please, understand that this is kind of inappropriate towards application developers. They develop their app and they should not be "forced" to meet one Operating System's standards -- they've got pretty much every standard out there to match already (and these standards are more general and capture more users). In many other Operating Systems we see these changes in their interfaces because the vendor usually controls the source code for all the applications and, thus, can instantly adapt them to fit in. Windows is a perfect example of this -- plus they manage to "transport" some old apps into new operating systems by laying out some compatibility layers. OSX is a bit different, in the sense that they control some APIs and, hence, can, indeed, as a unique platform, dictate standards. Ubuntu should not dictate standards and expect applications to progress for themselves. I think this is something to ponder; we shouldn't treat Ubuntu as an independent OS, or even a "regular" OS, because it is a OS that uses the community (for the community).

Once again, if Wine adheres to these new specifications, it'll be better for Ubuntu! But I think that you should watch out for possible problems with these policies. (This is similar to the Wine-Pulseaudio conflict, which seems to have matured enough to the point where Pulseaudio has, indeed, reached some kind of "standard").

[Andrew Marsden (atmarsden)]

Ubuntu does have a rather large market share, and it seems to me (and to you, João?) That they are throwing their weight around and forcing others to meet their standards, rather than the STANDARD standards...

[Andrew Marsden (atmarsden)]

Clarification: "Rather Large Market Share" on the LINUX OS market.

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

Issue #1 is definitely a bug in Unity -- keeping the XEMBED support in the system tray for Wine purposes is even an explicit part of the design!

Alex, I hope I don't have to remind you of the reasons for this design decision. They were discussed at UDS and have been in MPT's blueprint for months.

Issue #2 is also a bug, but I'm not sure which "standard" you're referring to is best to fix it. We have Window title ("Mozilla Firefox") and process name ("firefox.exe") both being correctly generated by Wine, but Unity is using neither in the descriptions. How are these supposed to be provided by the app?

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

Importantly: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MenuBar#Vestigial%20notification%20area

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I thought Neil had fixed this two weeks ago.
<http://twitter.com/njpatel/status/37106345022996480>
<http://twitter.com/njpatel/status/37541925120774144>

[Michael Kogan (michael-kogan)]

What about all the other apps not having AppIndicator support? I've came across this problem using Shutter: Closing it resulted in hiding with no option of restoring it (besides of starting it again).

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Photon, there's this workaround: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/how-to-hide-or-show-app-tray-applets-in-ubuntu-11-04/

[Michael Kogan (michael-kogan)]

Thanks, sounds good! But what about new users that don't want to play around with their configs but expect a tray icon if an app provides one? Shouldn't it be a blacklist containing apps that already have AppIndicator support rather than a whitelist?

[Dan Kegel (dank)]

I had this problem (autohotkey not showing an H icon) in Natty Beta as installed,
but after running update manager, I have my H icon back in the notification
area when running Autohotkey scripts. Ahhh, thank goodness!

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

 status fixreleased

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

Issue 2 in the original report is this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1103833