Fwd: system tray or notification area in python

D

Daniel Fetchinson

Hi folks,
Why not look at the source code of the current app your using to get
an idea how that application accomplishes said task?

I actually did that already it's using the C bindings of gtk.
You might ask you I'm not modifying the code in order to achieve what
I want, well, the answer is that I'd much rather prototype something
like this in python than work immediately with gtk from C.

But I have zero experience with gui programming in python. So any
pointers would be much appreciated how to implement a system tray in
python. Gtk is I guess just one option, one could use other stuff from
python but I wouldn't know what the simplest approach is.

Cheers,
Daniel

You could always use raw X11 libs but leveraging something like Gtk or
Qt/KDE would probably be much easier.
 
D

Daniel Fetchinson

Hi folks,
I think you are mistaken - if its this one:
http://stalonetray.sourceforge.net/

Yes, that's it.
I had a quick look into the sources, it does not use gtk at all, it uses
low level X11 calls. Programming in this way is very tedious.

Sorry, you are right. I was mixing things up, I just remembered it was
gtk, apparently it's not.
I'm not sure it is even possible. "Usual" GUI applications just need to
request certain features from their window manager such as the setting
the program icon or requesting a certain position on the screen. That is
what is implemented in the usual toolits like Tk, QT, and gtk.

That is my impression as well, tk, qt, etc, won't be good for this
task but I thought there are some sort of X bindings in python that
will make writing low level X applications in python possible. For
instance a system tray :)
A window manager, on the other hand, must be able to recieve and
interpret these messages. For a system tray, they are described here:

http://standards.freedesktop.org/systemtray-spec/systemtray-spec-0.3.html

I have not studied the whole interface of the aforementioned toolkits,
but I suspect that there is no way around writing low level Xlib code in
order to recieve these messages.

Right, but nobody wrote Xlib bindings for python?
Don't take it wrong, but when you write that you have no experience with
GUI programming, I'd start another projet first - I think you will have
a tough way to succeed with this project.

I certainly wouldn't start with Xlib in C, but if python bindings
would be available that would make life much easier.

Cheers,
Daniel
 
D

Daniel Fetchinson

So I thought I would write a brand new stand alone system tray or
Erm, Google is your friend: "python xlib" turns up

http://python-xlib.sourceforge.net/

as well as

http://plwm.sourceforge.net/

which is pretty close to what you are trying to do.

Great, thanks a lot!
Everything is easier in python:) because usually python libs are
designed with OO and ease of use in mind. Beware that this will be much
tougher than using gtk&friends.

I guess so :) But it's a good excuse to get familiar with X :)

Cheers,
Daniel
 
A

Anssi Saari

Daniel Fetchinson said:
But I have zero experience with gui programming in python. So any
pointers would be much appreciated how to implement a system tray in
python. Gtk is I guess just one option, one could use other stuff from
python but I wouldn't know what the simplest approach is.

Well, when I went to download stalonepanel, SourceForge said I might be
interested in PyPanel as well. Which is a "lightweight panel/taskbar
written in Python and C for X11 window managers." It includes a system
tray. Fairly old though but I suppose it could be a start? Apparently it
uses python-xlib.
 

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