Feature request: status icon support

[yioannides]

Hello again! I was wondering whether it is possible to have status support for symbolic icons that receive notifications or updates, like Discord, Telegram or Filen. Thank you!

[nexaknight]

Hi, thanks for the suggestion! Could you help me understand what you mean exactly? Status updates should already work, Discord for example gets a red badge on new messages, and apps like the Nextcloud client change their icon based on status.

Do you mean this doesn't happen when the icons are rendered as symbolic (monochrome)? Or is it something else entirely? A screenshot of what you're seeing vs. what you'd expect would help a lot. Thanks!

[yioannides]

Yes of course: when I use AppIndicator, the icons are using their default notification alerts, like so:

But when using your extensions (with custom symbolic icons to replace all .png icons), the symbolic icons do not produce alerts (not sure what the blank icon artifact is, must be a glitch from switching between AppIndicator and BetterTrayIcons):

I enabled/disabled Appearance > Tray Icons > Configure > Symbolic Icons for good measure, but it produces the same result. I wonder whether status update badges need manual declarations, like:

[nexaknight]

Thanks for the detailed screenshots, I understand the problem now.
I'll look into it and check how AppIndicator handles this.

I'll report back once I know more!

About the blank icon artifact: could you enable tooltips and check what name shows up when you hover over it? That would help figure out where it's coming from.

[nexaknight]

Could you show me the Custom Icons tab in the AppIndicator preferences (see attached screenshot)? I have a suspicion about what's going on here.

About the artifact: I found and fixed it. It was a race during extension switching. If an app's bus connection died while its registration was still in flight, the cleanup arrived before the item was tracked, leaving a "ghost" entry with no process behind it. That renders as a blank icon with a raw bus address like _1_561 as tooltip. Fixed in the next release: in-flight registrations are now cancelled when their owner dies.

[yioannides]

It's completely empty, like yours!

It's a known issue with AppIndicator, where it's extremely difficult to pull an app's indicator ID, as explained in this PR: ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator#312

[nexaknight]

Thanks for checking! I have an idea I want to try. I'll get back to you either with an update or, if it turns out to be too tricky, with a comment about what I ran into.