System tray icon support

[kamilprusko]

Support for KStatusNotifierItem (SNI) / Appindicator got released in version 1.1.1

Screenshots

KDE

GNOME

Cinnamon

Capabilities

Quick overview what is enabled on various desktop environments:

Host	Status Icon	Tooltip	Menu Icons	Primary Action	Secondary Action	Scroll Wheel Action
KDE	Yes	Yes	Yes	Activate	Yes	Yes
GNOME, Appindicator extension	Yes	No	No	Context Menu1	Yes	No
GNOME, Status-Tray extension	No2	No	No	Context Menu	No	No
Cinnamon	No	No3	Yes	Activate	No	No
XFCE	Yes	No3	No	Activate	Yes	No
LXQt	Yes	Yes4	No	Activate	Yes	Yes
COSMIC	No	No	No	Context Menu	No	No
LXDE	No2	-	-	-	-	-

Status icon (the progress ring) is displayed only when the host supports IconThemePath, which is not part of the spec. Without it we can only display the app icon - nothing more. Pixmaps could be used as fallback, but I'm not in favour of using them in a modern app. It would be much cleaner if more hosts supported icon themes and symbolic icons.

Primary Action refers to single mouse click on the icon. In Activation mode the app window gets opened / closed. In Context Menu mode, extra shortcut for the Timer window is added.

Secondary Action refers to the mouse middle-button click. Equivalent to pressing the highlighted button in the timer view.

Scroll Wheel Action is for extending / shortening of the countdown. We require Tooltips for this, so that there's an immediate visual feedback.

Capabilities operate on a whitelist - all is hardcoded here. Defaults resemble Cinnamon screenshot.

Overriding capabilities / Testing

If you use custom tray or a different DE you may want to override the capabilities. You can do it by running the app with env variables. For example:

flatpak run io.github.focustimerhq.FocusTimer --quit
flatpak run --env=SNI_HAVE_ICON_THEME=1 --env=SNI_HAVE_TOOLTIPS=1 --env=SNI_HAVE_MENU_ICONS=1 --env=SNI_HAVE_ATTENTION_STATUS=1 io.github.focustimerhq.FocusTimer

Variables and expected behaviour per value:

• SNI_HAVE_ICON_THEME

  • 1 - status icon is visible
  • 0 (default) - displays app icon

• SNI_HAVE_TOOLTIPS

  • 1 - there is a tooltip with timer state
  • 0 (default) - no tooltip or a tooltip with the app name

• SNI_HAVE_MENU_ICONS

  • 1 - icons in the context menu are visible and do not break the layout
  • 0 (default) - no icons in the context menu

• SNI_HAVE_TOGGLES

  • 1 (default) - use system ornaments next to state items in the context menu
  • 0 - use custom icons for the ornaments; consider if 1 breaks the layout

• SNI_HAVE_ACTIVATION

  • 1 (default) - left mouse click opens apps main window
  • 0 - left mouse click opens the context menu

• SNI_HAVE_PASSIVE_STATUS (KDE-specific?)

  • 1 - icon gets lower priority when stopping the timer
  • 0 (default) - icon is always visible

• SNI_HAVE_ATTENTION_STATUS (KDE-specific?)

  • 1 - when the timer is paused, the icon is pulsing/blinking
  • 0 (default) - no animations when paused

Updates to the capabilities.vala file are welcomed! I can't add support for all the DEs / keep it up to date.

Footnotes

1. Activation via double-click ↩

2. No icon at all ↩ ↩²

3. Displays app Title ↩ ↩²

4. Displays state (Pomodoro, Break), doesn't display time remaining ↩