KDE applications' system-tray icons are not shown at System Tray

[Ahmed-E-86]

• Cinnamon version: 4.6.7
  • Please specify if you are using the daily builds PPA (https://launchpad.net/~linuxmint-daily-build-team/+archive/ubuntu/daily-builds). No, I do not.
• Distribution: Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon
• Graphics hardware and driver used: AMD HD 8750M, Mesa 20.2.2
• 32 or 64 bit: 64bit
• Attach /home//.xsession-errors, or /var/log/syslog xsession-errors.tar.gz

Issue KDE applications' system-tray icons are not shown at System Tray, applications like: KDE Connect, Kget, Ktorrent, and Kalarm, but I can make Kalam's system-tray icon to appear when I change the system-tray settings of Kalarm from Automatically hide to Always show, but this option is not available for any of the other KDE applications.

Steps to reproduce 1- Open any KDE application like KDE Connect, Kget, Ktorrent, and Kalarm.

Expected behaviour The system-tray icon of these applications to appear.

[mtwebster]

Hi, I can't reproduce this:

• Kalarm shows an icon if there is an upcoming alarm within the specified time, but otherwise hides it.
• Ktorrent shows an icon if there's an active download.
• Kdeconnect shows an icon if it's paired with another machine.

Are you on the most recent xapp version? (apt list libxapp1)

Is 'xapp-sn-watcher' running? (I think it is but just to make sure).

Is this a new install of Mint?

[Ahmed-E-86]

Kalarm shows an icon if there is an upcoming alarm within the specified time, but otherwise hides it.
Ktorrent shows an icon if there's an active download.
Kdeconnect shows an icon if it's paired with another machine.

That is the problem. KDE hides system-tray icons, but you can find them between hidden applications, but on Cinnamon, there is no such a thing.

Are you on the most recent xapp version? (apt list libxapp1)

libxapp1/ulyana,now 1.8.10+ulyana amd64 [installed]

Is 'xapp-sn-watcher' running? (I think it is but just to make sure).

Yes, it is running.

Is this a new install of Mint?

Yes, it is a fresh installation.

[mtwebster]

KDE hides system-tray icons, but you can find them between hidden applications, but on Cinnamon, there is no such a thing.

I'm not sure I understand what this means, can you elaborate (or even screenshot/screencast). There's not really any way to leave items partially visible in cinnamon - they're hidden or not. This may be some kde-specific feature with tray icons.

This is what controls visibility: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/StatusNotifierItem/StatusNotifierItem/#org.freedesktop.statusnotifieritem.status

Note, I'm not trying to throw specs and excuses out there, just explaining how we determine when they're to be shown or hidden - I'm fairly certain other gtk-based desktops do the same.

[Ahmed-E-86]

On KDE Plasma desktop hidden system-tray icons appears after pressing the arrow next to the clock like this picture:

KDE Connect, Kget, Kalarm, and Ktorrent are between the hidden system-tray icons.

I can change these system-tray icons to be Always shown instead of Shown when relevant from System Tray Settings like in this picture:

But this can not be done on Cinnamon desktop.

[nicolasfella]

My 2ct with my KDE hat on: Judging by the spec neither of us is wrong, it clearly says "likely that visualizations will chose to hide it". Whether the ability to show all icons somehow is useful or important is a different question I don't have an opinion on

[andrewcharnley]

Audacious tray icon doesn't show either, could be related.

[mtwebster]

@nicolasfella That's pretty much how I feel - it's just a detail specific to each desktop. We could do something like KDE does but we've never seen much need.

There are a number of third-party applets that appear to provide some amount of control over what displays or not, but I think they're more to allow the user to decide they don't need to keep track of program a, b and c, so hide them.

@andrewcharnley Known music players are deliberately hidden in Cinnamon (and always have been) if the native sound applet is active and they provide MPRIS support.

See: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/blob/master/files/usr/share/cinnamon/applets/sound@cinnamon.org/applet.js#L25-L30

You could edit that file in /usr/share/cinnamon/applets and remove 'audacious' from the list (and restart Cinnamon), then its icon would display in the tray applet.

[andrewcharnley]

Got it, by default Audacious doesn't start a MPRIS server, it's in the plugins.