This is not a duplicate of How to create Unity indicators?. I'm looking for system indicator not application indicator.
Backgound:
From these two questions:
I learned that there are two types of indicators:
All application indicators are handled/showed by indicator-application (a system one). System indicators are showed directly by Unity panel.
Both questions are about adding/removing indicators from login & lock screen. The first was a straight forward setup (when dealing with system indicators). The second was a tough setup (when dealing with app indicators), which needs modifying the source of panel service (unity package) for lock screen and the source of unity-greeter for login screen.
As the case of sysmonitor, to me that was workaround. The best solution is to implement a system indicator instead of an application one.
Topic:
Is there a unified API for system indicators (Preferably: Python then C/C++)? Please, reference to the official documentations.
Most system indicators are written using Vala programming language. Could any one write small demo for a system indicator using Python or C?
Update:
I found few links that may give a push:
In Application Indicators project page, They listed links to AppIndicator-0.3 API (C & Python) used for application indicators.
They listed also Indicate-0.7 API (C & Python). What is this?Well, it is a DBus messaging channel between Desktop Applications.On other hand, in System Indicators project page, they mentioned:
System Indicator APIs
Messaging Menu using libindicate.- Sound Menu using libunity.
Date/Time Indicator using Evolution-Data-Server
They seem listing Data API not Indicator Development API like for Evolution-Data-Server. But not sure about
libindicate &libunity. Did any one work with these two libraries?Try
apt-cache rdepends libunity9 libindicator7 libindicator3-7to see which indicator is relaying these libraries.
Update2: This to keep interested users updated.
From what I have collected till now, here is the order of possible solutions:
libindicator3-7(high, Many indicators depend on it)I found some test examples in the source, some dummy indicators that I have tried, could be installed in
/usr/lib/indicators3/7/, they are shared lib.so. I could get them displayed in Login & Regular Session but Not in Lock Screen.However there are some test indicator services, which seems like Unity system ones. I haven't tried them yet.
libindicator7From same source as libindicator3-7, from rdepends:
mate-indicator-applet
lxpanel-indicator-applet-pluginIt seems to be used to make container for indicators in panels.
libunity9(low)No research yet
Well, it is really simpler then I expected. There is no specific API for it. Because it is just a GSimpleActionGroup & with corresponding GMenu's exported through DBus then Unity is told about their presence using declaration file with same name put in /usr/share/unity/indicators/. No need for any other library.
Here a very small C language example:
Get a copy of
tests/indicator-test-service.cfromlibindicatorsourceapt-get source libindicator
cp libindicator-*/tests/indicator-test-service.c .
cp libindicator-*/tests/com.canonical.indicator.test* .indicator-test-service.c no changes
#include
typedef struct
{
GSimpleActionGroup *actions;
GMenu *menu;
guint actions_export_id;
guint menu_export_id;
} IndicatorTestService;
static void
bus_acquired (GDBusConnection *connection,
const gchar *name,
gpointer user_data)
{
IndicatorTestService *indicator = user_data;
GError *error = NULL;
indicator->actions_export_id = g_dbus_connection_export_action_group (connection,
"/com/canonical/indicator/test",
G_ACTION_GROUP (indicator->actions),
&error);
if (indicator->actions_export_id == 0)
{
g_warning ("cannot export action group: %s", error->message);
g_error_free (error);
return;
}
indicator->menu_export_id = g_dbus_connection_export_menu_model (connection,
"/com/canonical/indicator/test/desktop",
G_MENU_MODEL (indicator->menu),
&error);
if (indicator->menu_export_id == 0)
{
g_warning ("cannot export menu: %s", error->message);
g_error_free (error);
return;
}
}
static void
name_lost (GDBusConnection *connection,
const gchar *name,
gpointer user_data)
{
IndicatorTestService *indicator = user_data;
if (indicator->actions_export_id)
g_dbus_connection_unexport_action_group (connection, indicator->actions_export_id);
if (indicator->menu_export_id)
g_dbus_connection_unexport_menu_model (connection, indicator->menu_export_id);
}
static void
activate_show (GSimpleAction *action,
GVariant *parameter,
gpointer user_data)
{
g_message ("showing");
}
int
main (int argc, char **argv)
{
IndicatorTestService indicator = { 0 };
GMenuItem *item;
GMenu *submenu;
GActionEntry entries[] = {
{ "_header", NULL, NULL, "{'label': <'Test'>,"
" 'icon': <'indicator-test'>,"
" 'accessible-desc': <'Test indicator'> }", NULL },
{ "show", activate_show, NULL, NULL, NULL }
};
GMainLoop *loop;
indicator.actions = g_simple_action_group_new ();
g_simple_action_group_add_entries (indicator.actions, entries, G_N_ELEMENTS (entries), NULL);
submenu = g_menu_new ();
g_menu_append (submenu, "Show", "indicator.show");
item = g_menu_item_new (NULL, "indicator._header");
g_menu_item_set_attribute (item, "x-canonical-type", "s", "com.canonical.indicator.root");
g_menu_item_set_submenu (item, G_MENU_MODEL (submenu));
indicator.menu = g_menu_new ();
g_menu_append_item (indicator.menu, item);
g_bus_own_name (G_BUS_TYPE_SESSION,
"com.canonical.indicator.test",
G_BUS_NAME_OWNER_FLAGS_NONE,
bus_acquired,
NULL,
name_lost,
&indicator,
NULL);
loop = g_main_loop_new (NULL, FALSE);
g_main_loop_run (loop);
g_object_unref (submenu);
g_object_unref (item);
g_object_unref (indicator.actions);
g_object_unref (indicator.menu);
g_object_unref (loop);
return 0;
}com.canonical.indicator.test modified to add lock & greeter mode
[Indicator Service]
Name=indicator-test
ObjectPath=/com/canonical/indicator/test
[desktop]
ObjectPath=/com/canonical/indicator/test/desktop
[desktop_greeter]
ObjectPath=/com/canonical/indicator/test/desktop
[desktop_lockscreen]
ObjectPath=/com/canonical/indicator/test/desktopcom.canonical.indicator.test.service remove
.inpostfix from filename and change the executable path[D-BUS Service]
Name=com.canonical.indicator.test
Exec=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-test/indicator-test-service
Compile it
gcc -o indicator-test-service indicator-test-service.c `pkg-config --cflags --libs gtk+-3.0`Manual Installation
sudo su
mkdir /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-test/
cp indicator-test-service /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/indicator-test/
cp com.canonical.indicator.test /usr/share/unity/indicators/
cp com.canonical.indicator.test.service /usr/share/dbus-1/services/Configuration for Greeter, override the default indicators list
90_unity-greeter.gschema.override
[com.canonical.unity-greeter]
indicators=['ug-accessibility', 'com.canonical.indicator.keyboard', 'com.canonical.indicator.session', 'com.canonical.indicator.datetime', 'com.canonical.indicator.power', 'com.canonical.indicator.sound', 'com.canonical.indicator.test', 'application']Install
cp 90_unity-greeter.gschema.override /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
Test
sudo service lightdm restart
Notes
DBus service is troublesome, if you want user to be able to close application anytime. It is better to use autostart instead, like default indicators do.
I have uploaded ready files here:
https://github.com/sneetsher/mysystemindicator_minimum
and a modified copy here:
https://github.com/sneetsher/mysystemindicator
Where I have tried different menu for different mode. It could be installed and tested quickly.
This seems too simple and can be easily ported to any other language that have support for GIO Gnome lib (including DBus). As I'm looking for python, I may add it later.
References:
This is not full standalone indicator as the one above, it is just a share lib plugin, similar to libappmenu.so & libprintersmenu.so (application menu & printer indicator). It could be shown only in regular user session & greeter (Not on lock screen).
I couldn't make it work in my current machine, but I did before. Here the steps, may be I'm missing something.
Using same source above of
libindicatortest/libdummy-indicator-*.care examples (simple & visible the ones show up on the panel)Compile
./autogen.sh
makeInstall
sudo cp tests/.libs/libdummy-indicator-visible.so /usr/lib/indicators3/7/libdummy.soConfigure to show in greeter screen
90_unity-greeter.gschema.override use same name without
libprefix and.soextension.[com.canonical.unity-greeter]
indicators=['ug-accessibility', 'com.canonical.indicator.keyboard', 'com.canonical.indicator.session', 'com.canonical.indicator.datetime', 'com.canonical.indicator.power', 'com.canonical.indicator.sound', 'application', 'dummy']Install
cp 90_unity-greeter.gschema.override /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas/
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