What’s the reasoning behind not having a “system tray” in GNOME? You need to install an extension for that, and that is a weird process for newcomers/beginners.
But my question is why? Does GNOME really think you don’t need one? Why don’t they include it?
The best and most official explanation I’ve read is the 2017 GNOME blog post, Status Icons and GNOME.
Essentially, tray icons are a throwback to the days before designated notification and media playback APIs, and they now create some ambiguity for app developers, in addition to being ripe for abuse.
It’s a worthwhile read and the writer makes several valid points, but doesn’t address as much as I’d like in terms of actual solutions for things like instant messengers.
Personally, I would be happy if most traditional tray apps could be displayed in the dash, with status indicators, and started in a minimized state, but I still see the benefit of having some always-visible panel icons, such as instant messengers and VPN indicators.
Nice read. I’d add that there’s also no mobile or tablet counterpart which becomes more and more important
Gnome spends a lot of time testing user designs that are simple and get the task done for the 99% marketshare they don’t have. They try not to be bound by our current approach to computers, and instead idealize what most of the world actually wants.
I think it’s a noble goal but will never touch it. I’m surprised other people do. That said, I’ll always support them because of how much they upstream.
Thanks for sharing these links! I’m glad to see so much consideration being put into a better solution.
I like that initial installation is reduced to the max ant then you can add what you need rather than removing what you don’t want. I guess thats a design philosophy where the alternative KDE interface tries to put everything in on initial installation I like as well that GNOME creates rails for app developer to achieve continuity in user experience throughout all apps
Well… they don’t like the design of a “system tray”. To be fair, it’s a very Windows centric idea, and the notion that they must provide one because Windows has one seems… similarly questionable to me too. Speaking personally I hate the idea, and always have. It’s a real dumpster fire because:
- Lots of drivers (on Windows) assume you don’t know how to launch programs, and force a permanent launch shortcut on you.
- Programs assume you don’t understand how to minimize or hide a window, and put themselves in the tray instead. (launchers, chat programs, etc)
- Some programs seem to use them just to put their logo on the screen. You can’t really do anything with the tray icon.
- Few icons match stylistically, and even on Windows, they don’t match the system style. (White icons on a white taskbar? FFS)
- Programs often don’t provide an option to disable their tray icons, and it’s rare that I want them.
I guess I found the lack of them to be a breath of fresh air when I first tried Gnome 3 a few years ago. The current iteration doesn’t quite work though… 99% of the time I just want an option to kill the damn things, but I’ve have had some programs that only provide functions through the system tray. It’s dumb, and I hate it, but it is what it is.
It’s part of the “focus” workflow. Having app indicators might distract you from your current task, so they don’t want them.
Not only that, but they aren’t standardised, and Gnome really likes adhering to standards and staying away from anything they consider unstandardised or janky.
System trays really are a complete clusterfuck.
Sometimes the icons have colour, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they’re minimalist icons, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes you left click on them to do something, sometimes you need to right click, sometimes it’s both, sometimes they have their own menu UI, sometimes they integrate with the system’s, sometimes you can exit an app via them, sometimes you can’t, sometimes they give you notifications, sometimes they just do it through your standard OS notification system, etc.
They are an inconsistent mess. And we all know how anal Gnome can be about UX consistency.
Gnome in the past has expressed a desire for a standardised, cross-desktop system tray that fixes these issues, but tbh I’m sceptical it’d catch on. Not because other desktops wouldn’t get on board, but rather because app developers will just go “meh, we’ll just stick to what we have” and it won’t gain traction.
I don’t have the answer, though im positive someone else here does. On Fedora, an appindicator extension is included with the distro, but disabled by default, and this is still suboptimal UX.
The biggest offender for me was the overview at login change with gnome 40. It was so controversial that it even pulled in Matt Miller to weigh in on the matter directly. The exchange is extremely disappointing
I still use gnome, and I feel that it’s still the most polished DE available, I’m just worried about what other changes they might incorporate without any user-centric reasoning.
Why does overview at login offend you?
There’s at least a speech or post somewhere where the design is explained, and once I read it, I understood it more. It boils down to: there’s no reason to be on the desktop page when no window is open. And the first thing you will do when logging in is to open a window, e.g. by taping on a pinned icon. Once I understood that there is a productivity increase, I liked it. Prior to that I even used dash to dock because I didn’t understood GNOME’s workflow. As soon as I understood that there’s a broader concept behind it, which I didn’t know back then, I stopped using it. Since using PaperWM, an extension that enables sliding tiling, extensions like dash to dock hindered my workflow because they don’t make sense.
Yeah I actually like the change. It’s one less thing to do when I turn on my PC and get to work.
On login, I either open an app, or I drag multiple apps onto multiple desktops, then get started. Both need the activities view open to do. It’s useless to boot to an empty screen IMO.
I do concede that if you’ve configured hotkeys to open certain programs, it may be better to boot to desktop, though. And there’s also the “this is what I’m used to after decades of using Windows” argument, which is valid, just look at other fantastic desktops that copy the Windows paradigm such as Plasma and Cinnamon, but Gnome has never tried to be like Windows, and I don’t think they should.
I know that if you use dash to dock, there’s an option to disable activities view. And probably a bunch of other extensions too, but idk, I don’t use extensions.
Hey, valid question. In my case, I still have to use Windows for work, so I like to keep a uniform workflow (with dash to panel on linux).
I launch my regular apps with super keys and numbers (also have a shared terminal shortcut since I use conemu/cmder on windows), and the overview will block that until I hit super or escape (or at least did with gnome 40).
This scenario represented many of the responders in that thread. You could argue that this only really affects a subset of users who behave in such a way (keyboard centric with pinned shortcuts), and that gnome are working towards a more ‘one size fits all’ approach with overview at login, but this sort of behaviour is not seen on any other desktop environment, including Windows and Mac.
It’s prompting that you must do something as soon as you log in, which I feel is jarring.
I wouldn’t say I’m offended at the change, more that I’m disappointed in the gnome team’s refusal to discuss the matter with their own end users. They were adamant about the change and shut down any prospect of a toggle for it.
With that said, Florian had kindly helped one of the members create a shell extension to disable it.
keys and numbers (also have a shared terminal shortcut since I use conemu/cmder on windows), and the overview will block
Meta+Numbers work on 45
GNOME extensions should be more accessible, KDE is a good (not perfect) example for this. If GNOME extensions were more accessible, the design choices wouldn’t matter too much. Since when are we dealing with extensions and extension manager and neither is installed by default on most OSs.
True, they work regardless. DTP keeps a consistent look across my desktops, and I agree that having to install third party extensions is perhaps not ideal to reach that, but I was catering to a specific use case. I didn’t mean to suggest that I dont find stock gnome to be a perfectly servicable DE.
In any case, the overview at login is still obstructive for my workflow, and I’ve resorted to disabling that with yet another extension.
I did try plasma 5.27 and 6 (fedora 40 rawhide) very recently. Can appreciate all the functionality it offers but maybe it goes a but too far. I found it sort of busy, the config menus were disorienting, and I found myself tweaking that ootb experience more than with gnome.
Damn, this thread you’ve linked… I can’t believe they didn’t even want to consider giving the user an option to choose the behavior for themselves.
It seems to be characteristic of the Gnome project’s philosophy to do things in what they consider the best way rather than the way a new user might expect. It’s an admirable commitment to deliberate design rather than copying, but it may also make it unappealing to some users. Personally I don’t enjoy using Gnome, but I know people who love it. Thankfully in the Linux world we have options.
I don’t know if I’d call that “admirable”. It’s not the first time I see Gnome team basically telling the users “STFU, we know better”.
Their design was more mobile type wherr you don’t minimize windows, you just switch between them or between spaces. I’ve used Gnome forever, including the rough times on Gnome 3.0, and I’ve always used a system tray as well. Never liked leaving clutter everywhere and imo it goes against the minimal design. But thankfully easily extendible.
What is the problem? There are many other DE:s with tray. Gnome does not listen community much.
I think you’re supposed to use the new notification panel now, which kinda works like those in android and ios, but it’ll take a while until 3rd party apps supporting them.
