As part of every GNOME release (spanning GNOME Shell, Mutter, core apps, etc) is an official set of GNOME Shell extensions.

This is non-default package is “a collection of extensions providing additional and optional functionality to GNOME Shell” that are developed and maintained by GNOME developers.

Ubuntu, like other Linux distributions that use GNOME Shell, doesn’t seed this pack of desktop bolt-ons in its default install, but do package it and keep it in their repositories. On Ubuntu you run sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions to get it.

Most of these ‘official’ extensions are available to install from the GNOME Extensions website. You may be familiar with a few, like the User Themes extension to change GNOME Shell theme, or the Apps Menu extensions that puts a GNOME 2 style app menu in the top bar.

And now there’s a new one…

New ‘Status Icons’ GNOME Extension

This weekend a “Status Icons” extension was added to the GNOME Shell Extensions set. The add-on supports showing ‘legacy tray icons’ in the top bar.

Yes, tray icons – the sort that Steam, Skype, Discord, Telegram, etc still use.

GNOME Shell removed support for legacy tray icons in 2017 (and explained its reasoning, which was fair), going on to recommend third-party extensions to users who relied on apps whose functionality depended on an omnipresent tray-based presence.

This doesn’t appear to support App Indicators, the most commonly-used tray icon spec on Linux…

Six years later, and no great change in the way tray icons are implemented in Linux apps, GNOME is offering its own.

Ubuntu uses GNOME Shell but includes the ‘appindicator-support’ extension to allow third-party apps to show icons/applets/menus in the top panel/status area – in all their inconsistent glory.

Will GNOME’s new1 Status Icons ad-on support all of the same tray icon that Ubuntu’s kStatus/AppIndicator extension does?

I haven’t been able to test it to find out for sure, but it doesn’t appear to support App Indicators, which is the most commonly-used tray icon spec on Linux…

Extension author Florian Müllner has since confirmed on Gitlab that this “[leverages] the xembed support in gnome-shell. If we get a better standard at one point, we may support it. But AppIndicators are not it, and there is no plan on supporting them.”

But even some support is better than none, right?

Official extension, but not default

A ton of tray icon GNOME extensions exist, and have existed for some time. So while this “official” effort is great to see, it isn’t offering anything users haven’t been able to ‘get’ of their own accord prior to now.

And that “of their own accord” still stands here — GNOME’s official Status Icons extension is NOT a default feature and NOT something GNOME Shell will include out-of-the-box unless Linux distribution maintainers choose to bundle it.

However, Status Icons is now part of the GNOME Shell Extensions package (for the GNOME 47 release) that users can install. Plus, its likely to be added to the GNOME Extensions website for standalone installs too, as the new System Monitor extension in GNOME 46 was.

Ubuntu users should continue to use Canonical’s own AppIndiactor Extension. It’s preinstalled out of the box, maintained by Ubuntu developers, covered for critical updates, bug fixes, etc. It also works well, and supports almost all kinds of legacy tray icons out there.

But those on vanilla GNOME Shell setups or who would like to use as much ‘upstream’ elements as they can, the addition of this bona-fide, officially maintained tray icons extension is sure to appeal — so look out for it when GNOME 47 is released later this year.

Thanks Matias S

  1. New to the GNOME Shell Extensions package. The extension was first developed 5 years ago and seems to have lived in limbo while deciding where/how best to release it – until now. Code has been cleaned up and renamed for inclusion in this package. ↩︎