Rewrite from the ground up using Gio menus and actions

[tari01]

depends: AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-application#24

This follows the model/view architecture used by our system indicators. Some of the major changes:

• Since our only depency is Gio, the indicators will work with Gtk3, Gtk4, Lomiri, etc
• The deprecated and dead GtkStatusIcon is finally gone
• We have tooltips now
• The zombie libdbusmenu project is no longer required, we can safely abandon it
• Since tons of very old code are gone, we are now consistently GPL-3+
• Due to path/name changes, right now we can run these new indicators alongside legacy appindicators
• This new library is low-maintenance and easy to expand without deprecation fears
• The door is now open for dropping the old libindicator object and using indicator-ng for everything

[ricciolino]

We have tooltips now

I tried building libayatana-appindicator with test support from forked repo here, then running simple-client C test program.

I still cannot see any tooltip on mouse over icon event.

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
GNOME Version: 42.9
Windowing System: X11

[tari01]

We have tooltips now

I tried building libayatana-appindicator with test support from forked repo here, then running simple-client C test program.

I still cannot see any tooltip on mouse over icon event.

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS GNOME Version: 42.9 Windowing System: X11

Displaying the tooltips ultimately depends on the renderer. These PRs add the ability to handle them, but in GNOME's case there is also some extension for indicators. I advise you not to use this yet, it is a completely new API, not backwards compatible with existing appindicators and renderers. Also, the menu is not being sent via the old dbusmenu, but using a native Gio method, which diverges from KStatusNotifierItem.

It is still unmerged because we need to address transition issues.

[ricciolino]

We have tooltips now

I tried building libayatana-appindicator with test support from forked repo here, then running simple-client C test program.

I still cannot see any tooltip on mouse over icon event.

OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS GNOME Version: 42.9 Windowing System: X11

Displaying the tooltips ultimately depends on the renderer. These PRs add the ability to handle them, but in GNOME's case there is also some extension for indicators. I advise you not to use this yet, it is a completely new API, not backwards compatible with existing appindicators and renderers. Also, the menu is not being sent via the old dbusmenu, but using a native Gio method, which diverges from KStatusNotifierItem.

It is still unmerged because we need to address transition issues.

So, practically, for the current state of GNOME's development, there is no way to instantiate a Gtk tray icon with tooltip appearance on mouse over event.

Is this right?

[tari01]

So, practically, for the current state of GNOME's development, there is no way to instantiate a Gtk tray icon with tooltip appearance on mouse over event.

Is this right?

Yes. AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-application#24 adds the ability to handle tooltips, but the issue seems to be in https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator (according to the README).

[ricciolino]

So, practically, for the current state of GNOME's development, there is no way to instantiate a Gtk tray icon with tooltip appearance on mouse over event.
Is this right?

Yes. AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-application#24 adds the ability to handle tooltips, but the issue seems to be in https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator (according to the README).

Isn't there a (even dirty) way of overcome this limitation by implementing something that somehow detects when mouse is over the instantiate Gtk tray icon area and shows a borderless X11 tooltip dialog kind ?

[tari01]

Isn't there a (even dirty) way of overcome this limitation by implementing something that somehow detects when mouse is over the instantiate Gtk tray icon area and shows a borderless X11 tooltip dialog kind ?

I'm afraid not on GNOME. No tooltips until we merge AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-application#24, and then you would have to talk to the developers at https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator to have them displayed.

On MATE, for instance, this change enables and also shows the tooltips.

[ricciolino]

Ok understood TY ;)