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Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] integrated notification area support
JGuerette English 4 matttbe [Read]
09 November 2014 à 16:29

JGuerette, Monday 20 October 2014 à 19:18


Subscription date : 19 October 2014
Messages : 2
I've been wanting to use this dock for a while, but the absence of a truly integrated notification area make that impossible. Having to click on an icon in the dock to see the notification area, or have the notification area as a stand-alone object somewhere else on the screen is strange. There is no other dock/panel that has this odd limitation. I cannot use this without a notification area. I have tried every variation of the configuration of the "Notification Area Old" plugin, as well as other stand-alone apps to work around this. I need it to be part of the dock, so it's visible only when the dock is visible, and all icons within it are available at all times, without having to click to expose with it.

The nearest alike dock, and what I currently use, is Avant Window Navigator. It's no longer maintained, and it's dependency on libdesktop-agnostic make it's continued use more difficult. Fedora dropped AWN, and now you have to manually compile libdesktop-agnostic to make it work. Other Fedora & AWN users are looking for alternatives; it would be an easy way for you to pick up new users.

What would it take for you to consider adding real integrated notification area support? I'd personally be willing to pay $100 for this feature, with a commitment to continued support, either directly or via www.bountysource.com or whatever.

brianw, Sunday 02 November 2014 à 03:35


Subscription date : 25 April 2012
Messages : 270
Thank you for using cairo-dock and sorry for the delay.

The issue with the notification area is that protocols have changed and it is not easy to integrate the different ones. Many applications and distros have migrated to the new protocols but some applications and distros have not (some distros hold back versions and use the old protocols even if the application has been updated to use the new protocol). Fabounet and matttbe explain it much better than I can

http://www.glx-dock.org/bg_topic.php?t=7986
matttbe :
All icons should be drawn in the same line but it's not possible to include these icons into the dock (the dock receives all icons, it's not possible to customise it and it's a problem with a wave/zoom feature of most dock's views).


http://www.glx-dock.org/bg_topic.php?t=7189
fabounet :
ok, I see
well it seems that some applications use the new protocol, and some don't use it yet
unfortunately, the only way to solve the problem is to report this to the devs of the different applications
they should migrate to the new protocol

JGuerette, Sunday 02 November 2014 à 18:06


Subscription date : 19 October 2014
Messages : 2
brianw :
Thank you for using cairo-dock and sorry for the delay.


No problem.

I do understand the problems with new protocols and enabling legacy support. It seems there is a work-around that would make it simple to enabled this feature, and also open the door to other possibilities.

This application "stalonetray", http://stalonetray.sourceforge.net/, provides full legacy notification area support, and it also has full XEMBED support. If you were to make a generic widget/container that acted as a receiver for embeddable applications, then you enable support for this, without having to deal with the details of the legacy protocols. Additionally, I don't think people would care if certain dock items where immune to effects/transformations; I personally would prefer the clock was like that.

My offer for $100 still stands. I think there are enough people who would benefit from this that it's worth it. I'd like to see all Avant Window Navigator users have a modern alternative that works as a drop-in replacement. I'd also like all non-Gnome/KDE destop users to be able to have more choices. If that monetary amount isn't enough to drive more interest, then perhaps I could put it on bountysource.com, and try to drive more interest and donations to the effort.

brianw, Sunday 09 November 2014 à 04:29


Subscription date : 25 April 2012
Messages : 270
JGuerette :
This application "stalonetray", http://stalonetray.sourceforge.net/, provides full legacy notification area support, and it also has full XEMBED support.


I tested the stalonetray in Ubuntu 14.04 with XFCE4 and all that would show up is the language icon. Not sure it is the solution required.

JGuerette :
My offer for $100 still stands.
I am sure the cairo-dock developers could make very good use of any help you can provide. After all they are volunteers running this operation out of their own pockets and the goodness of their hearts.

matttbe, Sunday 09 November 2014 à 16:29


Subscription date : 24 January 2009
Messages : 12573
Hello and thank you for this idea! (and sorry for the delay)

The biggest problem with the (old) systray protocol is that the dock will receive an already built widget. This is a problem for this dock because it supports a zoom feature and the dock cannot dynamically modified this widget: it looks ugly if icons of this systray are not resized when the other icons are zoomed...
With the new protocol, the dock receives all details to build this widget (path to the icon, label, widget for the menu, etc.)

We hoped that all new applications were going to support this new systray. But many GNOME devs want to only support Gnome-Shell environment which still uses the "old" systray in an extra panel... (which is hidden most of the time). Ubuntu and KDE devs have added the support of the new protocol for some apps but some patches are still not accepted by upstream devs.

But about this problem here with Cairo-Dock, we can maybe found workarounds:
  • The "panel" view doesn't support this zoom feature: maybe we can add this applet on a dock only if it uses this "panel" view.
  • We could "hack" the widget in order to get some details and rebuild a systray (but I don't know if it's possible (it should be) but it will maybe need a lot of work...).

We didn't try these solutions because we thought that most apps were going to support the new systray protocol soon but it seems it's not the case except on Ubuntu.
What do you think about these workarounds?

What would it take for you to consider adding real integrated notification area support? I'd personally be willing to pay $100 for this feature, with a commitment to continued support, either directly or via www.bountysource.com or whatever.

This is a really good way to improve Free and Open-Source softwares! Even more when this bug doesn't affect all users/devs
Feel free to open a new bug report on Launchpad and put your offer on BountySource! We will try to find some time (if it's possible) to fix this bug but it can also be interesting to find new contributors

Ideas | Propositions

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] integrated notification area support
JGuerette English 4 matttbe [Read]
09 November 2014 à 16:29


Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Ideas | Propositions integrated notification area support Top

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