Xfce Forum

Y33sha

Member

Registered: 2016-09-20

Posts: 1

Trouble with xfce4-indicator-plugin

Hello,

I'm a die-hard KDEist who is beginning to entertain the idea of a switch to Xfce (due to some annoying feature disappearances since the latest upgrade). I'm currently running Xubuntu 16.04 on a virtual machine inside Kubuntu 16.04.

Among other minor disagreements with the panel, I'm having trouble with the indicator plugin: it only shows network, Pidgin and sound control. When I open Properties, I see three items listed (Application Indicators, Messaging Menu, Sound Menu), and I don't seem to be able to add new items (like keyboard layout, battery, and other stuff that are usually found in Systray). (Right-clicking inside Properties does nothing.) I know I can add separate launchers for those things, but I would prefer a cleaner solution. Is there a way to add them? Or are there any alternatives to this plugin?

(Also, this plugin doesn't seem to handle coloring or transparency: he stays gray and opaque while the rest of my panel is of a transparent reddish hue... Well, except the (otherwise amazing) Orage clock, which doesn't handle transparency either; but that's for another time maybe.)

Thanks for your help.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,494

Re: Trouble with xfce4-indicator-plugin

Hello and welcome.

Among other minor disagreements with the panel, I'm having trouble with the indicator plugin: it only shows network, Pidgin and sound control. When I open Properties, I see three items listed (Application Indicators, Messaging Menu, Sound Menu), and I don't seem to be able to add new items (like keyboard layout, battery, and other stuff that are usually found in Systray). (Right-clicking inside Properties does nothing.) I know I can add separate launchers for those things, but I would prefer a cleaner solution. Is there a way to add them? Or are there any alternatives to this plugin?

The xfce4-indicator-plugin was designed to display ayatana-based (ubuntu) indicators in xfce4-panel. And as such, it will only display certain indicators. The sound icon comes from "indicator-sound", the messaging indicator from "indicator-messages" and the application one from "indicator-application". If you search the repositories for indicator-* or *-indicator, you will find a number of these. Feel free to install them and test them. I know that indicator-multiload works, but am unsure of the others (indicator-power seems to work as well and puts a battery into the plugin). In a nutshell, for an indicator to display in the xfce4-indicator-plugin, it needs to follow a certain spec. Unfortunately, not all plugins follow that spec. The ones that don't (keyboard layout, battery) will be displayed in Xfce's notification (systray) plugin.

(Also, this plugin doesn't seem to handle coloring or transparency: he stays gray and opaque while the rest of my panel is of a transparent reddish hue

This may be the result of the theme that you are using as the default xubuntu 16.04 theme (Greybird) handles transparency well.

... Well, except the (otherwise amazing) Orage clock, which doesn't handle transparency either; but that's for another time maybe.)

See this bug report and this forum thread for more information about this issue.

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