On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 18:37:22 +0200 Uwe Brauer oub@mat.ucm.es wrote:
In other words, in whatever Ubuntu's default desktop is these days, starting the program places an icon in the system tray which provides right-click or drag-and-drop functionality that goes beyond starting the program, and which you find useful.
Right.
I checked the developer's website ( mathpix.com ). The application appears to be closed-source. Snap ( snapcraft.io ) is a distro-hostile "universal" installer program that I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, and the developer's site does not offer the Linux version for download in any other format. Furthermore, the file it does offer is labeled as being for Ubuntu, which with people like these who probably don't know much about Linux means they only tested it on one version of the distro, and with all-default settings. They will not have tested TDE. They will probably not even have heard of TDE.
I contacted them and yes this is my impression too.
My guess would be that this thing is calling something that's specific to the default Ubuntu desktop rather than following the XDG specification for system tray icons (yes, it seems there is one). At this point, I'd install a third desktop environment (possibly XFCE or Lumina) and see if it works as expected there. If it doesn't, complain to mathpix.com that their application doesn't follow standards and hasn't been properly tested. If it does, well, we've at least narrowed the problem down to "what do these DEs do that TDE doesn't?"
Good, idea. I installed XFCE and the same problems occur there. So it seems that mathpix did something very specific for Ubuntu.