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Fragrant1470

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 9

icons appear although hidden in xfce4-panel:systray

I have trouble configuring the xfce4-panel:systray plugin.

The localsend app icon keeps appearing in the panel, even when I hide it in "Status notifiers" and "Systray icons". By the way, these are, respectively, "show notifications from this app" and "show icon for the app in the panel"?

The documentation is kinda brief, so I'm not sure what kind of behaviour to expect from some of the functions.

Clear Known Applications: Clears the list of applications from the Known Applications list.

I'm considering doing that to try and fix my problem, but what about:

The Known Applications section displays a list of all applications which have appeared in the Notification Area. You can hide applications by checking the boxes within the Hidden column. Hidden items are displayed in a list accessible by clicking the arrow button that appears beside the icons.

See the bolding. I do not know when app is eligible to appear in the notification area (isn't that a different plugin?). I just want to know that if I clear all known applications, I will not have problems adding the apps I want back into the systray.

And the option "Hide items my default" means appeared first all-time, not appeared first during current session? I'm asking because the localsend app when hidden after reboot just appears back again.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,815

Re: icons appear although hidden in xfce4-panel:systray

It appears that every time localsend runs, it generates another unique ID. You can see this in the list of Status Notifiers as 10 character randoms IDs. This makes it difficult for systray to identify it to be able to hide it. You could reach out to the localsend developers to ask why they don't just use a static ID.

As an alternative, you can enable "Hide items by Default". This will affect all new items that get added to the systray. Since localsend generates a new ID every time, it should be hidden (you will still see the arrow in the systray to indicate hidden items). But it will also hide any new tray items and you will need to manually enable them to see them.

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Fragrant1470

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 9

Re: icons appear although hidden in xfce4-panel:systray

It appears that every time localsend runs, it generates another unique ID. You can see this in the list of Status Notifiers as 10 character randoms IDs. This makes it difficult for systray to identify it to be able to hide it. You could reach out to the localsend developers to ask why they don't just use a static ID.

As an alternative, you can enable "Hide items by Default". This will affect all new items that get added to the systray. Since localsend generates a new ID every time, it should be hidden (you will still see the arrow in the systray to indicate hidden items). But it will also hide any new tray items and you will need to manually enable them to see them.

Thanks! About this:

"Status notifiers" and "Systray icons". By the way, these are, respectively, "show notifications from this app" and "show icon for the app in the panel"

I still don't really know what the difference is.

ToZ

Administrator

From: Canada

Registered: 2011-06-02

Posts: 11,815

Re: icons appear although hidden in xfce4-panel:systray

Maybe this will help explain it.

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Mark solved threads as [SOLVED] to make it easier for others to find solutions.
--- How To Ask For Help | FAQ | Developer Wiki  |  Community | Contribute ---

Fragrant1470

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2025-03-01

Posts: 9

Re: icons appear although hidden in xfce4-panel:systray

For the folks stumbling upon this thread, here is my summary for you:

Systray icons and status notifiers are two panes inside `panel:systray`  settings.

Very recently, they were two different plugins.

Since Xfce 4.15 [status notifier](https://docs.xfce.org/panel-plugins/xfc … ugin/start) is considered obsolete because it has been integrated into `systray`.

This means:

**Systray icons and status notifiers seem to be alternatives, so you could use one of them.**

Notification area (`systray`) shows more complete set of icons from different applications. In particular, if you have some programs which use XEMBED-based tray icons, you need this plugin. See also: "Where are my systray icons?" blog post by a KDE developer (from 2014, when this mess appeared).