Signal-desktop: Feature request: close/minimize to system tray

[gilm0079]

Not sure if this is the appropriate place for enhancement requests. A preference option to close/minimize to system tray would be nice. Too many times have I closed the app and didn't realize it wasn't running.

Just getting started w/ signal. Looks pretty cool. Thanks everyone!

[GuardianMajor]

In the meantime, there is an option to accomplish this already, but you have to modify your shortcuts to pass the parameter for it. An option interface would certainly be preferred for ease of use.

[Fritsbenik]

Add '--start-in-tray' or '--use-tray-icon' as startup argument.

I haven't found where this is documented.

[GuardianMajor]

They were never "documented" per se, but rather exposed through the commits and discussed in various issues subsequently, there is really no official reference for it, I can try and submit one to the wiki for reference.

[michaelkonecny]

Minimizing to tray should definetely be an option in File->Preferences, especially if the funcionality is already there.
Personally, I would turn it on by default.

[ChaoticHolon]

Why is this only a command line flag, and not in the Menu/Preferences!?!
This is basic functionality that I agree should be default behaviour.

[spychodelics]

Wow, i was asking myself, when will this functionality come. And here i found the answer, thank you!

[KopfKrieg]

Add '--start-in-tray' or '--use-tray-icon' as startup argument.

It does start in background, the process is shown in my process list, but unfortunately I don't get a tray icon on Gnome Shell 3.32 (with the KStatusNotifierItem/AppIndicator Support extension installed and activated). Other applications using the tray are working fine.

[cromefire]

Add '--start-in-tray' or '--use-tray-icon' as startup argument.

It does start in background, the process is shown in my process list, but unfortunately I don't get a tray icon on Gnome Shell 3.32 (with the KStatusNotifierItem/AppIndicator Support extension installed and activated). Other applications using the tray are working fine.

@KopfKrieg For me with GNOME Shell 3.28.4 this works just fine so it's likely not a Signal problem. If it's not your configuration, _could_ be a problem with electron.

[spoedvarkie]

I have done this but it's still not working. Is there any other solutions that people found that works?

[cromefire]

I think the tray icon broke after an update, so there might be a bug

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@spoedvarkie Please enter a new bug, following the full issue template. If it previously worked for you, then stopped working, that's a bug. This issue is tracking the promotion of this feature to production; to the settings screen.

[cromefire]

Yes it also stopped work for me under gnome

[GuardianMajor]

For me as well but Scott clearly asked that a new issue be opened for this, so please stop spamming this topic about something that is unrelated to the feature's implementation. If it is buggy then it is its own issue to be tracked and dealt with. It's because of people like you that most issues get limited to collaborators only denying anyone the ability to post legitimate followups.

[allefeld]

I suggest to make the tray icon behave like this:

• left click toggles between minimized to tray and restored
• right click opens menu with extra options (like "Quit")

[stefan-reich]

The switch doesn't work for me on Peppermint Linux 10. "Cannot read property 'isVisible' of undefined". I'm using Signal 1.32.2, installed as per instructions on their home page.

[mhantsch]

"Cannot read property 'isVisible' of undefined". I'm using Signal 1.32.2

Update to v1.32.3. It's just been fixed. See #4085.

[stefan-reich]

Thanks @mhantsch. There is a new problem though. With 1.32.3, no exception, but I do not see the tray icon. The process keeps running, but the tray icon is invisible for some reason. Doesn't even appear once.

[ankx7]

Debian 10 and Mate DE, Signal-desktop v v1.32.3
Option --start-in-tray or --use-tray-icon dont start in tray.

[toreanderson]

This feature appears to have regressed in v1.32.0 and onwards. I'm using Fedora 31 with KDE, Signal installed using Flatpak. Running Signal with the --start-in-tray --use-tray-icon command line options used to work, but no longer does. In order to make it work again, I need to downgrade to v1.31.0:

sudo flatpak update org.signal.Signal --commit=625a93b9ad7fa06e81c7a5c6439040f69e527fbe61aec4ac9460be1155f25bab

[se10dev]

v1.33.4 Fedora 31 build from https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/luminoso/Signal-Desktop/
keeps running in background when closed, but the tray icon does not show/work, --start-in-tray --use-tray-icon options don't make a diference. This issue persists for some time and versions now. DE: Cinnamon.

Also tried the official build in a Debian VM with KDE Plasma and LxQt;
--use-tray-icon makes Signal run in background, tray icon works as expected.

[vasyugan]

v1.33.4 Fedora 31 build from https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/luminoso/Signal-Desktop/
keeps running in background when closed, but the tray icon does not show/work, --start-in-tray --use-tray-icon options don't make a diference. This issue persists for some time and versions now. DE: Cinnamon.

So you are talking about an RPM package? Because I suspected flatpak to be the issue. There are several QT applications such as the Nextcloud desktop client that fail to show the notification icon when installed as flatpak but work normally if installed as a native package. Apparently this is a different issue then.

[mkolassa]

What exactly is the hold-up preventing this from being implemented into the Preferences pane instead of having to modify the shortcut?

[oniGino]

you can really tell when signal team doesn't like / care about a popular basic feature, just look for tickets like this one. There are quite a few.

Instead we get terrible gifs :shrug:

[Kyanite393]

seems to me they are spread to thin attempting to make this available on
all platforms at once... and have become bogged down as a result...

On Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 6:13 PM Gino [e-mail] wrote:

you can really tell when signal team doesn't like / care about a popular
basic feature, just look for tickets like this one. There are quite a few.

Instead we get terrible gifs 🤷

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[yozas2]

unbelievable how can such a simple function (even from a programmer's perspective) can be neglected for this long

[DC4JG]

Adding startup parameters for graphical Windows applications isn't an idiomatic way to achieve this.
It probably isn't even an user friendly experience for _normal_ people who don't know about this possibility, they'll just assume this feature is lacking and complain or will need a dedicated step by step guide to achieve this.

I suggest adding the following settings in the preferences menu (for Windows)

• Close to tray
• Start minimized
• Automatically run at startup

[yookoala]

Adding startup parameters for graphical Windows applications isn't an idiomatic way to achieve this.
It probably isn't even an user friendly experience for _normal_ people who don't know about this possibility, they'll just assume this feature is lacking and complain or will need a dedicated step by step guide to achieve this.

I suggest adding the following settings in the preferences menu (for Windows)

* Close to tray

* Start minimized

* Automatically run at startup

I suggest to add those options to all platform. The feature is available to all platforms as flags. I think if it is possible to implement it to Windows, there is no point not doing so on Macos and Linux.

[bsucker98]

Just tried to use signal as my primary messenger and lacking this feature is making it very difficult :(

I suggest to make the tray icon behave like this:

• left click toggles between minimized to tray and restored
• right click opens menu with extra options (like "Quit")

I second it, was thinking of suggesting this. This would be better and will make a significant difference, else have to click twice just to open it :/

[sadortun]

Would this be merged if i make a PR ?

Close to tray
Start minimized
Automatically run at startup

[SimonCDalzell]

Would this be merged if i make a PR ?

Close to tray
Start minimized
Automatically run at startup

If it makes use of any libraries, probably not. See #3355

[sadortun]

Hi @SimonCDalzell thanks for your quick follow up !

Any idea how to implement this without using windows libraries ?

Also, my guess is that even if it seems a bit ridiculous, it would be really easy to make a 2nd app that would be. "Signal tray manager" that would only launch at startup and control Signal app.

I'll have a look at the code later and see what can be done from there.

Have a good day,
Samuel

[SimonCDalzell]

@sadortun, I haven't the faintest idea! A few days ago I set up an environment to try to adress this issue, but then realized Xaeroxe had done a PR already, and gave up.

[sadortun]

@SimonCDalzell Ahah ! Yeah, quite sad that his PR was closed :(

That said, it seems like electron already support theses features. I could be totally wrong here.

Automatically run at startup

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46318177/how-to-use-auto-launch-to-start-app-on-system-startup

Mimimize to tray

Again, seems supported https://stackoverflow.com/a/38980563/2124837

[sadortun]

@SimonCDalzell Have a look at #4827

[SandboChang]

This is a rather basic feature before it can work well as an app for Windows (or any platform), would be great if it can be supported.

[sadortun]

@cromefire @toreanderson Seems like you guys run on KDE/Gnome, can you test my PR #4827 ?

If you see any issue, can you please send me a .patch ?

Have a good day,
Samuel

[q2apro]

Please support the feature in the options: "Keep running in the system tray, even when closed"

It IS essential. Especially now, that Signal gets so big!

[cromefire]

It is already available, but only using not so user friendly command line options, see above.

[toreanderson]

@sadortun The --use-tray-icon command line option got fixed at some point, so it already works for me at the moment. I am running Signal v1.39.5 from Flathub. I don't really know how to go about rebuilding the Flatpak with your patch applied to test that, as the Signal Flatpak build appears to simply unpack the official Debian binaries from upstream.

[q2apro]

How many normal users know what a command line option is? And even know how to add this to the executing link? - No, it must be an option under >Preferences.

By the way, please also add to the tooltip who has written a new message, otherwise users always have to open the client to see who wrote...

Should show:

1 message by Mike
2 messages by Lucy

[cromefire]

How many normal users know what a command line option is? And even know how to add this to the executing link? - No, it must be an option under >Preferences.

Well as you can see there is a PR on the works otherwise this is open source, so you can contribute it yourself if you really need it

[sadortun]

@q2apro Already impleme ted in PR linked above. Feel free to try it and provide feedback.

For your suggestion about the tooltip, please submit a new issue for that to avoid mangling everything in one issue. I can see some drawbacks in using tooltips for.that purpose and it deserve a separate discussion.

[AgustinLado]

With the recent WhatsApp debacle and Signal's obscene increase in popularity it's time to make this the default.

This is what's usually expected, and a lot of people trying out Signal vs Telegram are going to notice the lack of tray and of the configuration option and weigh it negatively, as I almost did!

[cromefire]

See above, a PR is already in the pipeline... It doesn't make it default (that's another issue) but it adds an easy option

[Javanmardi]

Add '--start-in-tray' or '--use-tray-icon' as startup argument.

I haven't found where this is documented.

It would be way more convenient if the dev team add this feature to Preferences. Also the way the window reacts is important. for instance, if I quit Signal while maximize I definitely want it to open maximize. Or if I change the size for the window obviously I'm not expecting the program to override my preferences.

[cromefire]

It would be way more convenient if the dev team add this feature to Preferences.

Please read. A fix is underway.

[cromefire]

Also the way the window reacts is important. for instance, if I quit Signal while maximize I definitely want it to open maximize. Or if I change the size for the window obviously I'm not expecting the program to override my preferences.

This is a different issue. Please look if such an issue already exists and if not file one.

[MarcinSzafran]

Minimizing to tray should definetely be an option in File->Preferences, especially if the funcionality is already there.

agree

Personally, I would turn it on by default.

+1

[cromefire]

GitHub has a like button which can be used to upvote something. As stated the default activation is another issue, feel free to create one.

[itsjustarumour]

Add '--start-in-tray' or '--use-tray-icon' as startup argument.

It does start in background, the process is shown in my process list, but unfortunately I don't get a tray icon on Gnome Shell 3.32 (with the KStatusNotifierItem/AppIndicator Support extension installed and activated). Other applications using the tray are working fine.

@KopfKrieg - the Signal tray icon works fine for me on my Ubuntu box (20.04, GNOME 3.36).

[KopfKrieg]

Thanks for the update. I switched from Archlinux to Fedora a few months ago, and I'm using now the Flathub build of Signal. It works now if I start it with --use-tray-icon. A graphical/GUI option to show the tray icon would still be better, though (or the Flathub build enabling the option, but they'll only include it if the official version of Signal desktop has it also enabled by default).

[glyph]

I just wrote a feature request on the forum as requested, but since this one already exists; I tried this out on macOS with open -a Signal --args --start-in-tray and it behaves a bit weirdly. Specifically, it opens with a dock icon and menu bar… until the window is first closed, then its dock icon disappears. If I reopen it by re-launching it, then I get a window, and the window gets focus, but it's still not in the dock.

[sadortun]

@glyph did you try the PR #4827 or from the release version ? Would you be able to send me a .patch with any improvments or fixes for mac/os ?

[glyph]

@glyph did you try the PR #4827 or from the release version ?

Release version only - exciting to see that PR though, thank you!

Would you be able to send me a .patch with any improvments or fixes for mac/os ?

Nope, just a user here, not a contributor; my open source dance card is full by a factor of 500% or so :).

[ap4aaron]

March 2021 - is there any update? The feature works perfectly for me, but it's definitely hard for family members who are not tech adept.

[yookoala]

March 2021 - is there any update? The feature works perfectly for me, but it's definitely hard for family members who are not tech adept.

@ap4aaron: Please see this comment from last week: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/pull/4827#pullrequestreview-598717928

[mariolb]

Hi, folks.
Signal-desktop is running for me on system tray. I did this:

• install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator (apt install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator);
• Enable "Kstatusnotifieritem/application support" in Gnome Tweaks (may you have to restart the Gnome to get this extension available in Tweaks);
• Go to extensions.gnome.org and install, the extension Topicons Plus.

When I enable only Kstatusnotifieritem, some icons apperas on system tray, like Dropbox, but not for Signal-Desktop. If I disable Kstatusnotifieritem and enable tha Topicons Plus, all icons appear on system tray, but icons are large. Finally, if I enable the both (Kstatusnotiferitem and Topincons Plus), all icons appear on system tray area (top bar, on the right side) and all icons are smaller.

So, I think this is a Gnome Shell problem. I don't like so much some changes that have been made on it. It seems to me that some changes make Gnome loss some standards, which makes some solutions be tricky.

Sorry for my so poor English :(