Signal-desktop: Make Signal-Desktop work with Gnome's message-tray

[vdcbb]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Bug description

It would be nice if Signal-Desktop's messages integrated with Gnome's message tray. Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish this would be to create a Gnome Extension (https://extensions.gnome.org/)

Screenshot of Gnome's Message-Tray

Platform info

Operating System: GNOME GNU/Linux
Browser: Google Chrome

[smichel17]

I think this is a bit outside @liliakai's purview... one reason chrome apps are nice is that they're inherently cross-platform. As much as I love gnome (fedora is my primary OS), I'd rather see development effort go towards feature parity with the mobile clients.

It also seems like a waste to write an extension for only signal, when you could write something more generic to integrate chromium's desktop notifications with gnome (though I'm not sure that would cover reply-from-notification).

[Thoma5]

Please see https://www.chromium.org/developers/linux-technical-faq System Integration. If Chromium would support libnotify, then the integration would work out of the box, however, this won't happen (at least in the near future) and in the second half of 2017 Chrome Apps will be deprecated anyway,
I don't know what WhisperSystems is planning for the future of the Desktop App, but I am sure it will open new possibilities.
As this is mainly a Chromium/Chrome and libnotify issue, I think you should close this issue here.

[jeremyn]

This issue covers (not) working with Ubuntu Unity's notification system too, right?

[smichel17]

Yes.

[JohnTheodore]

I don't know if this is helpful, but I just stumbled upon it and thought I would share: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/linux-native-notification/dbmjjjonelodfeckmpfglmffhngdplal

[christianfl]

Is this something which could be fixed or is already fixed within the electron application?

[Thoma5]

I think the chrome version should work, you have to enable chrome://flags/ #enable-native-notifications . However idk if there is a way to enable it for the electron app.

[Thoma5]

Nevermind, works ootb in the electron app! So issue solved?

[jeremyn]

The issue is not resolved. With Ubuntu/Unity 16.04 using the Chrome app, if I get a new message, there is a brief Chrome pop-up notification but nothing happens in the system tray.

[christianfl]

Did you enable the native-notifications flag in chrome as Thoma5 suggested?

[jeremyn]

Yes. It is the same behavior with "Default" or "Enabled", a Chrome-style notification.

It looks like Ubuntu's Unity may be unable to use Chrome native notifications, for example see https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Chrome-Native-Linux-Notify. Can you (or anyone) get Chrome native notifications working on Ubuntu 16.04?

[smichel17]

Works on Fedora 26 / Gnome 3.24.3.

[scottnonnenberg]

Is this working alright on Electron in the latest builds? Is there something else we need to do?

[christianfl]

Works alright since I am using the electron builds (1-2 months).

[jeremyn]

It doesn't work for me on Ubuntu 16.04 with Unity, as described in my previous comments.

[christianfl]

No offence, but that matter will resolve itself after the release of Ubuntu 18.04, won't it?

[jeremyn]

@christianfl It's okay if that's the answer, but I would like a definite answer one way or another before this issue is closed.

[scottnonnenberg]

@jeremyn Can you talk about the exact version of Signal Desktop that you're using? We expect native notifications to work out of the box in 1.x, but it sounds a bit like you're still on the Chrome app, versions below 1.0.0.

[jeremyn]

@scottnonnenberg I'm using Signal desktop installed from the signal.org repository, v1.1.0 which is the latest.

I do get a brief popup notification in the top right part of the screen when I get a Signal message. What I really want though is for there to be a permanent indicator in the top right notification area for unread messages. For example, there's an envelope that turns blue when I have an unread email in Thunderbird.

I said something like this in an earlier comment https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/issues/918#issuecomment-339682119:

The issue is not resolved. With Ubuntu/Unity 16.04 using the Chrome app, if I get a new message, there is a brief Chrome pop-up notification but nothing happens in the system tray.

I'm getting this same behavior now, but with the Electron app. I'm sorry for any confusion.

[scottnonnenberg]

@jeremyn Given that this bug is specific to Gnome, maybe you should create a new bug. Sounds like you want some sort of persistent thing beyond the notification itself. An icon highlight perhaps. Or, if it's minimized to the try, then update that icon: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/pull/1934

[Thoma5]

The default electron notifications are using libnotify on linux. According to the libnotify docs, it's possible to set expiration time to 0 and the notification would have no expiration date (will stay visible in the notification tray). You can easily reproduce this by using notify-send -t 0 "asdf" in your terminal.
However the electron notification implementation itself does not support any kind of expiration time (at least a native one for linux) it seems. https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/v1.8.2-beta.3/docs/api/notification.md .
Feel free to open up an electron feature request.

[jeremyn]

It would be nice if Signal could integrate with the notification system the way Thunderbird does, however if that's not going to happen and instead the project prefers the approach in PR https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop/pull/1934, then I agree that that PR adds the sort of notification I'm looking for. Thanks.

[phocean]

As an alternative, you could support libappindicator, which has support for Unity, Mate, Cinnamon and, I believe, Gnome.

I tried to set this environment variable:

env XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=Unity signal

But, to the contrary of other Electron apps (pCloud, Skype), it does not work. Could you include it?