[Linux] Use more specific & more integrated alternatives for status icon

[csoriano1618]

Hello,

Carlos from Linux & GNOME here. We are trying to approach important apps using status icons to provide better alternatives that are more integrated with the system. Status icons have been deprecated for some time and we plan to remove the systray for GNOME 3.26.

Currently Telegram uses status icon for:

1. Notify of incoming messages
2. Quit application
3. Disable notifications
4. Minimize to tray
5. Open app

For 1, the proper approach is to use native notifications. Telegram has a setting for this, but it's off by default. The solution would be to enable this on by default, so the user benefits from the notification integration.
This will allow the user to see whether the user has any pending messages in a permanent place, and also disable notifications if desired in a grained way.
I filed issue #3831 separately to discuss the notification implementation. Documentation for native notifications can be found here.
For 2, the recommended approach is to ask the user if the application should run in the background the first time it click the close button, then enable a setting with "run in the background". The user can deactivate it anytime if changes user's mind.
An example would be Polari, and IRC client. The dialog looks like:

For 3, would be fixed with 1, and will use the system wide settings and integration for notifications, instead of something for every app in the system.
For 4, won't be needed if 2 is implemented.
For 5, it happens when a notification is clicked, or if the app is run again from the recent app list or from any place where apps can be searched & run

Something to note here is that these solutions are cross-desktop, so it should work for any Linux distribution.

Let me know what do you think and feel free to ask any question!

Thanks

[stek29]

Quit application

Ctrl+Q

Disable notifications

It's in settings

[fbruetting]

@csoriano1618 I’m wondering, what the GNOME view of the message aggregation indicator of Unity is? Since messages are usually more important than other (non-permanent) notifications, one can separate urgent cases from the minor ones. Also this would target a whole class of use cases (mails, instant messages, IRC, Twitter, etc. pp.). The benefits I see are:

• Not as crowded as a list of mixed notifications about all kinds of things in the notification center.

• For instant messaging services, people usually respond very quickly – while most people (I know of) just look sparsely into the notification center. Missing instant messaging notifications prevents messaging being instant.

• One should be able to mark notification sources as inactive. E.g. receiving E-Mails should not light up the message indicator, because most mails are not that important. You should still see the number of unread mails of every mail account when you click the indicator, but this way you won’t be compelled clicking the indicator. Received instant messages should indeed light it up like it’s done on everybody’s mobile – but this won’t be as obtrusive as a notification popping up. One then would be able seeing all unread messages of all sorts of messaging sources all together in a clean and unified way.

• I think that communication is so important, that it deserves it’s own icon in the top panel. Maybe this aggregation could be implemented inside the notification center, instead of making up a separate indicator, but communication overview should really be separated from other notifications.

• This approach could solve all mentioned issues and introduce more coherence into desktop environments when a corresponding libmessaging could be provided, like this new libcloudproviders.

[diazbastian]

@csoriano1618 I would also like to see native notifications by default, but currently Telegram notifications offer better features. On the other hand there is no native solution for voice calls (eg something similar to the implementation of MPRIS in Gnome, where you can accept/deny a call and view its status persistently without go to the app window) . The above example would also work for any other voice and video application (Ring, Skype, Viber, Gajim, Jitsi, etc.).

Note: You may be interested in the ticket 279 of transmission.

[csoriano1618]

Thanks for the feedback and questions so far. I'll answer them soon, I'm evaluation the questions with our designers and other developers to provide accurate answers, sorry for taking long :)

[Aokromes]

#2191 ?