🗂️ trayer - System Tray Icons for GTK4

Etymology: From "tray" + "-er" (one who creates trays), and coincidentally from Middle English "traitor" — because this library gleefully betrays GNOME 3's philosophy of hiding tray icons. 😈

Add system tray icons with context menus to your GTK4 applications with just a few lines of code!

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✨ Features

• 🎯 Simple API - Add tray icons in 3 lines of code
• 🖱️ Full Click Support - Left, right, and middle-click actions
• 📋 Context Menus - Easy menu creation with separators
• 🔄 Dynamic Updates - Change icons and menus at runtime
• 🎨 Theme Integration - Uses system icon themes
• 🐧 Linux Desktop Support - Works on GNOME (with extension), KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon
• 📦 Zero Config - Implements StatusNotifierItem + DBusMenu protocols

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🚀 Quick Start

Installation

pip install trayer

System Requirements:

# On Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install python3-gi gir1.2-gtk-4.0 python3-dbus

# On GNOME, you also need:
sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator
gnome-extensions enable appindicatorsupport@ubuntu.com
# Then logout/login

Basic Usage

from trayer import TrayIcon
import gi
gi.require_version('Gtk', '4.0')
from gi.repository import Gtk

class MyApp(Gtk.Application):
    def do_activate(self):
        self.window = Gtk.ApplicationWindow(application=self)
        self.window.set_title("My App")
        self.window.present()
    
    def toggle_window(self):
        if self.window.is_visible():
            self.window.hide()
        else:
            self.window.present()

# Create app
app = MyApp(application_id="com.example.myapp")

# Create tray icon
tray = TrayIcon(
    app_id="com.example.myapp",
    title="My Application",
    icon_name="application-x-executable"
)

# Add click action
tray.set_left_click(app.toggle_window)

# Add menu items
tray.add_menu_item("Show Window", callback=lambda: app.window.present())
tray.add_menu_item("Hide Window", callback=lambda: app.window.hide())
tray.add_menu_separator()
tray.add_menu_item("Quit", callback=app.quit)

# Setup and run (IMPORTANT: setup() before run()!)
tray.setup()
app.run()

That's it! 🎉

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📖 Documentation

Create Tray Icon

from trayer import TrayIcon

tray = TrayIcon(
    app_id="com.example.myapp",      # Your application ID
    title="My Application",           # Tooltip text
    icon_name="application-x-executable"  # Icon from theme
)

Click Actions

# Left-click
tray.set_left_click(lambda: print("Left clicked!"))

# Middle-click
tray.set_middle_click(lambda: print("Middle clicked!"))

# Right-click automatically shows the menu

Menu Items

# Add menu item
tray.add_menu_item("Show", callback=show_window)

# Add disabled item
tray.add_menu_item("Premium Feature", callback=None, enabled=False)

# Add separator
tray.add_menu_separator()

# Add quit button
tray.add_menu_item("Quit", callback=app.quit)

Dynamic Updates

# Change icon
tray.change_icon("mail-unread")

# Change status
tray.change_status("NeedsAttention")  # Active, Passive, or NeedsAttention

# Update menu dynamically
tray.menu_items.clear()
tray.add_menu_item("New Item", callback=some_function)
tray.update_menu()

Complete Example

See examples/ directory for full working examples:

• example_minimal.py - Minimal integration
• example_hide_to_tray.py - Hide window to tray
• example_dynamic_icon.py - Dynamic icon changes
• example_dynamic_menu.py - Dynamic menu updates

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🎨 Icon Names

Common icon names from system themes:

Applications:

• application-x-executable
• applications-internet
• applications-multimedia

Status:

• user-available (green)
• user-busy (red)
• user-away (yellow)

Mail:

• mail-unread
• mail-read

Symbols:

• face-smile
• emblem-important
• dialog-information

Find more: Look in /usr/share/icons/ or use gtk4-icon-browser

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🔧 API Reference

TrayIcon(app_id, title, icon_name="application-x-executable")

Create a new tray icon.

Parameters:

• app_id (str): Application ID
• title (str): Tooltip text
• icon_name (str): Icon name from system theme

tray.set_left_click(callback)

Set action for left-clicking the tray icon.

tray.set_middle_click(callback)

Set action for middle-clicking the tray icon.

tray.add_menu_item(label, callback, enabled=True, visible=True)

Add a menu item.

tray.add_menu_separator()

Add a separator line to the menu.

tray.setup()

Initialize the tray icon. Must be called before app.run()!

tray.change_icon(icon_name)

Change the tray icon dynamically.

tray.change_status(status)

Change status: "Active", "Passive", or "NeedsAttention".

tray.update_menu()

Update the menu after modifying items dynamically.

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🐛 Troubleshooting

Tray icon doesn't appear on GNOME

Install and enable the AppIndicator extension:

sudo apt install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator
gnome-extensions enable appindicatorsupport@ubuntu.com
# Then logout/login

Menu doesn't show

Make sure you called tray.setup() before app.run()

Callbacks don't work

Ensure callbacks don't take arguments or use lambda:

# ✅ Correct
tray.add_menu_item("Show", lambda: app.show_window(True))

# ❌ Wrong
tray.add_menu_item("Show", app.show_window(True))

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🤝 How It Works

This library implements two D-Bus protocols:

1. StatusNotifierItem - The tray icon itself

   • Spec: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/StatusNotifierItem/

2. DBusMenu - The context menu

   • Spec: https://github.com/AyatanaIndicators/libdbusmenu

Your application communicates with the desktop environment via D-Bus to display the icon and menu.

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📋 Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• PyGObject (GTK4 bindings)
• dbus-python
• A desktop environment with StatusNotifierItem support (GNOME with extension, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon)

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🤔 Why "trayer"?

The name has a double meaning:

1. "Tray-er" - One who creates trays (like "player", "baker")
2. "Traitor" (Middle English) - Because we gleefully betray GNOME 3's philosophy of removing tray icons!

The GNOME team decided tray icons were "legacy" and removed native support. This library brings them back through the StatusNotifierItem protocol. We're the rebels of the desktop world! 😎

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📄 License

MIT License - Use freely in your projects!

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🙏 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

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💬 Support

• 🐛 Bug Reports: GitHub Issues
• 📚 Documentation: GitHub Wiki
• 💡 Feature Requests: GitHub Discussions

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Happy betraying! 😈🗂️

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👨‍💻 Author

Matteo Benedetto (@Enne2)

• 🌍 Location: Italy
• 🐙 GitHub: github.com/Enne2

Eclectic systems designer passionate about elegant solutions to complex problems.

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📄 License

MIT License - Use freely in your projects! See LICENSE file for details.

© 2025 Matteo Benedetto