As part of every GNOME release (spanning GNOME Shell, Mutter, core apps, etc) is an official set of GNOME Shell extensions.
This 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 include this pack of desktop bolt-ons in its default install but does package it and keep it in their repositories. On Ubuntu, you can 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 extension that puts a GNOME 2 style app menu in the top bar.
This weekend a new “Status Icons” extension was added to the GNOME Shell Extensions set. This add-on supports showing ‘legacy tray icons’ in the top bar.
Yes, tray icons – the sort that Steam, Skype, Discord, Telegram, etc. use.
For reference, GNOME Shell dropped support for status icons in 2017 (and explained its reasoning), recommending that users who still relied on them install a third-party extension for support.
Six years later it’s offering an official one.
Ubuntu, as I’m sure you’re aware, already supports tray icons through the pre-installed ‘appindicator-support’ extension. This lets third-party apps show non-standard icons/applets/menus in the top panel status area, and allow you to interact with them.
Will GNOME’s new1 Status Icons extension support as many of those apps as Ubuntu’s appindicator extension? I haven’t been able to test it to find out (GNOME 47 beta hits this week, and parts of it are due to land in Ubuntu 24.10 daily builds in the next fortnight).
Given the multitude of inconsistent specs, UX, protocols, etc that third-party apps that use legacy tray icons implement, chances are there’ll be some edge-case gaps.
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 AppIndicator Extension. It’s preinstalled out of the box, maintained by Ubuntu developers, and covered for critical updates, bug fixes, etc. It also works incredibly well — I’ve never had an issue with it.
But those on more vanilla GNOME Shell setups and/or who prefer as much upstream code as they can get, the addition of an official legacy tray icons extension is sure to be an enticing addition.
Thanks Matias S
- 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. ↩︎