‘Ejector’ tray app adds indicator applet support

By , Published January 25, 2011

Windows users miss an easily accessible tray icon for un-mounting their drives safely in Ubuntu should check out ‘Ejecter‘ (*), an nitfy tool that has recently received some new features…

It’s hard to waffle on about what ‘Ejecter’ does, after all the name kind of gives it away.

Suffice to say it provides convenient access for un-mounting external peripherals hard drives, DVD tray and USB sticks with little more than a click on the system panel.

Indicator Ejecter

When your device is ready to be unplugged from your computer a native Ubuntu notification bubble will appear.

Install

Maverick comes with an old version of the tray app available in the repositories. This works fine but for all the new features you’ll need to upgrade using the following PPA:

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fredp/ppa
  • sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ejecter

Ejecter adds itself your system start-up items and will launch automatically upon your next login.

*Ejecter is not a typo, it’s how the application is spelt

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  • http://twitter.com/Shuninzo Sébastien Michel

    Does the indicator appear when there is no external disk mount (nothing to unmount) ?

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      No, it won’t. It appears when at least one device is plugged (or a cd/dvd is present)

      • Anonymous

        Sweet! No need to waste space when it can’t do anything. :P

      • http://twitter.com/Shuninzo Sébastien Michel

        Cool, thx.

      • http://twitter.com/Shuninzo Sébastien Michel

        Cool, thx.

  • John

    W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/fredp/ppa/ubuntu/dists/lucid/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found

    (after adding ppa & trying to install)

  • http://aaronfournier.50webs.com/ Aaron Fournier

    By default, mounted drives are shown on the desktop anyway, so it’s not like it’s that inaccessible (or hard) to unmount any mounted drives :P

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/stijnverwaaijen Freak-Andelle

      You’re right, by default. I disabled that option so for me this comes in pretty handy. :)

      • dRewsus

        same.

    • Anonymous

      Sure, but if you have a lot of things on your desktop it can be a pain to find the drives, especially since their position sometimes seems to change. Personally I’d give up some panel space for the convenience of easy and quick access, possibly even on my netbook.

      • http://aaronfournier.50webs.com/ Aaron Fournier

        Yeah, true. I just keep my desktop very clean and would prefer to also keep my panel clean with only the absolute necessities. I do realize why this would be useful for others though.

        • Wolki

          I certainly see where you’re coming from, as I’ve had my time of maximizing interface cleanliness; and you can construct an argument based on the Hicks-Hyman law that an interface consisting of fewer things will lead to faster usage. In recent years I have come to the opinion however that (within the obvious limits of information overload) unused space is wasted space, and functionality that is inconvenient to access is functionality I’m unlikely to use to its fullest.

          Isn’t it great that indicators will allow us to tailor our computing experience to our individual habits and ways of thinking even in the post-panel applet time?

  • http://twitter.com/jimothy78 James Sumnall

    There’s a Doctor Who theme emerging on here; first Dalek wallpapers, now you’re watching Masque of Mandragora :)

    • Anonymous

      You either own that DVD or had the same gut feeling I had when I saw BBC on the front … if its the first then … awkward :P

      • http://twitter.com/jimothy78 James Sumnall

        It’s the first :) learned to live with my awkwardness long ago :D

    • Anonymous

      You either own that DVD or had the same gut feeling I had when I saw BBC on the front … if its the first then … awkward :P

    • Anonymous

      You either own that DVD or had the same gut feeling I had when I saw BBC on the front … if its the first then … awkward :P

  • http://forteller.net/ Børge / forteller

    There’s also indicator-usb that does the same thing.

  • http://twitter.com/thiagoproject Thiago Zanetti

    I did install the ejecter, resrtarted and launched it. No icon appears in my indicator panel, but the application is running. Is this a bug?

    • prozacfield

      Same here. :(

      • http://blog.thiagobelem.net/ Thiago Belem

        Same here :/

        • http://twitter.com/cedr cedr

          Do you have external devices connected? I’d assume the Ejecter indicator hides when there’s no use for it.

    • https://launchpad.net/~boniboyblue Boni Boy Blue

      I’ve got the same problem, I use the elementary icon theme if that helps.

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Mean that ejecter shows its icon only when you have something unmountable plugged in.
      In this case, if no icon appears, does at least appear some extra-space between other two indicators? And can you click it and see ejecter’s menu?
      If yes, it probably is an icon-cache problem, fix that with “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-dark”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-light”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/hicolor”.
      If not, then gio/gdu (on which ejecter relies) thinks your device is internal, and I need more information about it to sort out the problem.

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Mean that ejecter shows its icon only when you have something unmountable plugged in.
      In this case, if no icon appears, does at least appear some extra-space between other two indicators? And can you click it and see ejecter’s menu?
      If yes, it probably is an icon-cache problem, fix that with “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-dark”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-light”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/hicolor”.
      If not, then gio/gdu (on which ejecter relies) thinks your device is internal, and I need more information about it to sort out the problem.

      • https://launchpad.net/~boniboyblue Boni Boy Blue

        Worked for me.

      • Anonymous

        Hi Fred, thx for your quick answer!

        It works well now with your tweak : i am using AwOken theme, so i had to type sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/AwOken in my terminal

        Bye!

      • http://twitter.com/komputerowy MiesiÄ™cznik

        For Linux Mint 10:

        sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/Mint-X

      • http://twitter.com/komputerowy MiesiÄ™cznik

        For Linux Mint 10:

        sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/Mint-X

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XSAG6YPFJS7AB3L3JAWQTLR6EM johnny

        Did not work for me, same Problem

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Mean that ejecter shows its icon only when you have something unmountable plugged in.
      In this case, if no icon appears, does at least appear some extra-space between other two indicators? And can you click it and see ejecter’s menu?
      If yes, it probably is an icon-cache problem, fix that with “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-dark”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/ubuntu-mono-light”, “sudo update-icon-caches /usr/share/icons/hicolor”.
      If not, then gio/gdu (on which ejecter relies) thinks your device is internal, and I need more information about it to sort out the problem.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Yogotiss Yogoitss

    Very nice Indicator but… How does this work with AWN?

    • http://www.google.com/profiles/Yogotiss Yogotiss

      Scratch that, it works perfectly with AWN after a reboot.

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Yogotiss Yogoitss

    Very nice Indicator but… How does this work with AWN?

  • http://www.google.com/profiles/Yogotiss Yogoitss

    Very nice Indicator but… How does this work with AWN?

  • Anonymous

    You don’t need to add this repository. It’s already in the main one

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Main repository hosts 0.3.1, which is not an indicator (tray icon instead) and hasn’t notifications.

  • http://technos.wordpress.com/ Daniele80

    does it use notify-osd notifications
    (like indicator usb)?

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Yes, it does.

  • http://twitter.com/Sahilshines Sahil Hassan

    *missing app recieved*
    ROGER THAT :D

  • Anonymous

    Hi!

    Great indicator! Works well with AWN without needed to tweak.
    Indicator-usb do not works with awn.

    Is there a possibility to change the ugly icon (the red cross) ??

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      I didn’t test it with AWN, I’ll do so and try to find out what goes wrong.

  • http://notatoad.com notatoad

    wasn’t the whole indicator thing meant to cut down on useless clutter in the top corner?

  • http://notatoad.com notatoad

    wasn’t the whole indicator thing meant to cut down on useless clutter in the top corner?

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      Well, it was. But as ejecter existed before all the indicator-* thing, I just decided to port it to the new infrastructure just to make it more consistent with the desktop.

    • dRewsus

      Pretty sure you can install and not install whatever you like, no?

  • Anonymous

    i received this error:

    maverick@router:~$ ejecter

    (ejecter:19121): libnotify-CRITICAL **: notify_notification_close: assertion `notification != NULL’ failed

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      It’s known, but at least on my system ejecter runs anyway. Will be fixed, though.

    • http://quiproquo.wordpress.com/ Phill

      I received the same error, but on my system it then doesn’t run. Any suggestions guys?

      EDIT: Scratch that! It does work, I just hadn’t plugged anything in. The indicator still doesn’t display an icon though, even when there is removable media plugged in…

  • http://twitter.com/icalper Ivan Calderon Perez

    Alt-f2 > Eject

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_CMJYPSXLFHHWHISIEV5IF2XQ44 tora

    All working here! However, gotta wonder why Linux insists that you “eject” or “safely remove” external drives in the first place. I mean, in Windows I just pull them out, when I don’t need them and have never had a problem. What is it with Linux that if you don’t “eject” then sometimes data is not written correctly to the drive??

    Also, there is a bug in this. (Kinda). Try it. “Eject” your drive, then leave it alone, and open the “Computer”. See, your drive is still there! Right click it, and there is a “Safely remove drive” and no “eject” (Whereas normally both are present). This is kinda confusing, and should be corrected so that when you eject the thing, then it should be unmounted and that should be the end of it.

  • Anonymous

    No love for those of us on Lucid? :(

  • Anonymous

    No love for those of us on Lucid? :(

    • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

      I’m working on this, as soon as I find how to build packages for another release I’ll publish it to the PPA.

      • https://launchpad.net/~fredp Fredp

        Now on the PPA are available also packages for Lucid. (not very tested though, I don’t have a Lucid installation to try it)

  • Anonymous

    Whoops! sorry for the repeating comments, I didn’t realize I had to wait and confirm my address before posting with Discus, I thought it just timed out.

  • Anonymous

    this should be default

  • Inukaze Maquiavelo

    I use ejecter , a long time ago , i start to use in Hardy , are in the official repo .

 
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