Since Gnome 44 there is a new UI to show apps (i.e. messengers, sync clients, …) that run in the background. It is supposed to take the place of the tray icons. In my experience it’s basically not working, though.
The only app I use that uses the UI is the nextcloud client. But that thing’s autostart seems to be very unreliable and most of the time I have to start it manually after booting. Could be an issue with the app and not with Gnome, but I don’t know.
I also use Telegram and Element, but both still seem to use the old tray icons that you now need to install an extension for to work. Meaning that with vanilla Gnome when you close the Telegram window, the app is stopped and can’t receive massages in the background.
Is the new UI broken or are app developers just not implementing it into their apps or what’s wrong with the current situaltion?
The complaint against the app indicators is that apps tend to throw their icon in there for no reason. Why does Steam need to show itself there? Why doesn’t Firefox?
There’s also some technical reasons why they’re bad. There’s quite a few different protocols to show the icons up there, all each with their own pros and cons. But none can handle sandboxing properly, so work is being done towards a new protocol.
Steam has a bunch of runtimes that run in the background even if the main window isn’t visible (due to being closed or in game or whatever) while Firefox is only open when it’s main window is
But you don’t need a status icon to run in the background.
If Firefox wanted to, they could make Firefox continue running in the background. They could even app a system tray entry for Firefox to access recently visited sites or favorite sites, like what Steam does.
This paradigm is actually the norm on MacOS. When you X out of an app, it doesn’t actually close. It will just have no open windows but stay open on your dock.
Steam provides a quick launch menu, thats a good enough reason for me.
Technical issues are worth resolving, but I want the UI to remain the same as the windows one. Its a pattern that works just fine.
All those same options are available by right clicking on the app. Though thinking some more, the status icon being dynamic does give it some extra flexibility, I think it can show recently launched games. Still, does that mean Firefox should get a status icon so that you can access recently opened sites? Should your file manager?
If they can be hidden, like in Windows, I dont really mind if every app has one. I’ll hide the ones I dont care about.
The app dock isnt visible by default, so thats a partitial solution, but I’d prefer to be able to access it directly without opening a menu or overview first.