Indicator plugin help wanted

[Andrzej]

On 12/03/17 15:28, Chris Green wrote:
> I have never really understood the indicator plugin and just now I
> wanted to change something and found it very confusing.
Indicators are not native Xfce4 panel plugins (they come from Ubuntu and 
are designed to work with Ubuntu Unity) so some confusion or 
incompatibilities are unavoidable. Still better than nothing, as some 
Unity indicators are genuinely useful.
Think of the indicator plugin as a wrapper/container for displaying 
Ubuntu indicators in Xfce panel.

>    So, a few
> questions:-
>
> What are 'Known Indicators'?  They don't seem to correspond to what's
> displayed in any sensible way.  In the list under 'Known Indicators' I
> have:-
"Known indicators" is a list of:
a) well known indicators shipped with Ubuntu (even if they have never 
been displayed),
b) any third-party indicators ever displayed in the indicator plugin 
since it was added to the panel.
So, any indicator you are currently seeing in the indicator plugin are 
already in that list.

The list allows you to filter out some unwanted indicators or arrange 
their order in the panel.

>      Application Indicators - what's this do?
It is sort of a "systray" for Ubuntu Unity. It display icons of any 
applications that want to show their icons (+ context menus) in the 
panel. Technically it is not compatible with the conventional systray, 
applications have to explicitly support one of (or both) solutions.

> How do you set/clear the 'Hidden' box?  You can't click in it.
Seems like a bug. This used to work. Thanks for reporting.

> What does the 'Clear know indicators' button do?  Does it actually
> remove them all from the panel?
No, it will just reset the list of indicators to (a) + currently running 
indicators.

> What do the up and down arrow buttons do, they don't appear to do
> anything.
They are supposed to change the order of indicators (probably the same 
bug as with the "Hidden" box)

> How does one do anything with things that (apparently) *aren't* 'Known
> Indicators'?  I have a couple, one of which (the Owncloud one) causes
> a nasty 'flicker' and I'd be happier without it but I can't see any
> obvious way to turn it off.
Owncloud is most likely an application indicator. You can switch (all) 
application indicators on/off but you cannot do that for each app 
indicator icon separately. The issues withj flicker etc you are seeing 
are often caused by code not in our control (indicators themselves, 
libappindicator, libindicator) or are caused by inherent 
incompatibilities between Unity and Xfce panel. Since indicators are 
written for and tested only with Unity don't expect radical improvements.

> ... and finally it says "Please restart the panel for visibility
> changes to take effect" but offers no way to actually do this.  As far
> as I know there's isn't a way to restart the panel except by rebooting
> or drastic means like killing it.

xfce4-panel -r

Cheers,
Andrzej