aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/README.md
blob: 77c9f68556bdc4170fe420ae002373f0cafb1798 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
# Ayatana System Indicator — Session [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-session.svg)](https://travis-ci.com/AyatanaIndicators/ayatana-indicator-session)

## About Ayatana Indicators

The Ayatana Indicators project is the continuation of Application
Indicators and System Indicators, two technologies developed by Canonical
Ltd. for the Unity7 desktop.

Application Indicators are a GTK implementation of the StatusNotifierItem
Specification (SNI) that was originally submitted to freedesktop.org by
KDE.

System Indicators are an extensions to the Application Indicators idea.
System Indicators allow for far more widgets to be displayed in the
indicator's menu.

The Ayatana Indicators project is the new upstream for application
indicators, system indicators and associated projects with a focus on
making Ayatana Indicators a desktop agnostic technology.

On GNU/Linux, Ayatana Indicators are currently available for desktop
envinronments like MATE (used by default in [Ubuntu
MATE](https://ubuntu-mate.com)), XFCE (used by default in
[Xubuntu](https://bluesabre.org/2021/02/25/xubuntu-21-04-progress-update/),
LXDE, and the Budgie Desktop).

The Lomiri Operating Environment (UI of the Ubuntu Touch OS, formerly
known as Unity8) uses Ayatana Indicators for rendering its notification
area and the [UBports](https://ubports.com) project is a core contributor
to the Ayatana Indicators project.

For further info, please visit:
https://ayatana-indicators.org


## The Session Ayatana System Indicator

The -session Ayatana System Indicator is the session menu indicator for
Unity7, MATE and Lomiri (optionally for others, e.g. XFCE, LXDE). Its
behavior and features are listed at
https://wiki.ayatana-indicators.org/AyatanaIndicatorSession

## Notes for Client Renderers

Ayatana Indicator Session has two custom menuitems: the Guest and User
switchers. As per the
https://wiki.ayatana-indicators.org/AyatanaIndicatorSession
specification, both need four visual components: (1) an Active Session
Mark, the user's (2) icon, (3) name, and (4) a Logged-In Mark.

### User menuitems have "x-ayatana-type" set to "indicator.user-menu-item"

   Their four visual components are determined by:

   1. You can test for the Action Session Mark by checking the action's state.
      The state is a dicionary whose "active-user" key yields the current
      session's owner's username. If it matches the username in this menuitem's
      "target" attribute, show the Active Session Mark.

   2. The icon is stored in the menuitem's "icon" attribute. If none is set,
      the client should use a fallback icon such as "avatar-default."

   3. The name is stored in the menuitem's "label" attribute.

   4. You can test for the Logged In Mark by checking the action's state.
      The state is a dictionary whose "logged-in-users" key will give
      an array of usernames. If the array contains the username in this
      menuitem's "target" attribute, show the Logged In Mark.

### The Guest switcher has "x-ayatana-type" set to "indicator.guest-menu-item" action

   Its four visual components are determined by:

   1. You can test for the Active Session Mark by checking the action's state.
      The state is a dictionary whose "is-active" key yields a boolean.
      If the boolean is true, show the Active Session Mark.

   2. The guest user should use a fallback icon such as "avatar-default."

   3. The name ("Guest") is stored in the menuitem's "label" attribute.

   4. You can test for the Logged In Mark by checking the action's state.
      The state is a dictionary whose "is-logged-in" key yields a boolean.
      If the boolean is true, show the Logged In Mark.

## License and Copyright

See COPYING and AUTHORS file in this project.

## Building and Testing

For instructions on building and running built-in tests, see the INSTALL.md file.