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alltray has an excellent option that gives us great customizability:
--menu; -m: "menu text:command": add entry to popdown menu

just to run test it I am using tho ex.: alltray xev

it is installable on ubuntu 16.04.

using kwin it will fail with ERROR get class hints

using with metacity (my preferred for speed) or compiz gives Alltray: no system tray/notification area found.

what can be done to let it work? preferably on metacity.

as an alternative answer, any equivalent application or script that has an equivalent option to --menu will do it.

this wont work, outdated.

Aquarius Power
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  • I have just posted an answer with an alternative tool, but since you are explicitly asking to let `alltray` work because of the nice `--menu` option, I realized that perhaps the alternative tool I suggested does not help for your particular issue and I deleted the answer for now. What do you think? If you think that even without the `--menu` option an alternative tool may still help, I can undelete the answer. – Kubuntuer82 Jun 06 '18 at 15:02
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    @Kubuntuer82 feel free to post it, may help. I just tried alltray again and it is not showing (I think it is waiting to recognize some 'system tray applet' and doesnt for the current ones running), so if yours shows something will be better than what we have now :) – Aquarius Power Jun 08 '18 at 21:27
  • done! Again, the alternative tool does not have advanced features like the `--menu` option, but it should do what `alltray` is usually supposed to do :-) – Kubuntuer82 Jun 08 '18 at 21:46

1 Answers1

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Short answer (TL;DR)

alltray is not maintained anymore, if you are using KDE use kdocker instead.
(it may also work with Gnome)

It's as easy as:

sudo apt-get install kdocker

Details

As you can see from their repository and from this post the alltray tool is not being maintained anymore.

Because of this, even if you try to compile it from source it would be very difficult to get it working, since it is based on old standards and old/obsolete libraries. For example, it is based on old standards for the Vala language and if you try to compile it with recent Vala compilers it even generates syntax errors.

The kdocker tool is still maintained instead, and it is very easy to install it on Ubuntu 16.04 as shown above.

It works almost exactly like alltray, if you want to cancel "docking" just click with the right mouse button instead of left button (Esc will not work).

It surely works with KDE, I didn't test it with Gnome (the fact that its name starts with K means nothing, many applications like Kate or Konsole still work with Gnome).

Kubuntuer82
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  • I should be able to test it also with Gnome and to update this answer in the next few days, if you are able to test it with Gnome earlier please feel free to edit and update the answer. – Kubuntuer82 Jun 08 '18 at 21:50
  • my kdocker is version 4.6-2, should I update it? with `kdocker xev` I get "Could not find a matching window for xev in the specified time: 5 seconds.". It allows we select any application to dock it in tray what is interesting, but doesnt work as only the first selected will show up. – Aquarius Power Jun 09 '18 at 22:51
  • The explanations about alltray abandon is a good answer tho. So in short it is not possible unless we fork and continue from where they stopped, so that alone deserves +1. The kdocker alternative is not working for me, if you have more tips about it would be cool :) – Aquarius Power Jun 09 '18 at 22:53
  • I use compiz/unity. – Aquarius Power Jun 09 '18 at 22:57
  • @AquariusPower What do you mean when you say "only the first selected will _show up_?" – Kubuntuer82 Jun 11 '18 at 16:14
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/78737/discussion-between-kubuntuer82-and-aquarius-power). – Kubuntuer82 Jun 11 '18 at 16:25