18 Apr
2023
18 Apr
'23
7:25 p.m.
Thanks for the suggestions about changing the paths in my home folder. Funny,
but it's been so long since I did it that I completely forgot it was in the
Trinity Control Center. I knew it had to be simple, because last time I
thought about it was at least 15 years ago, when I was a total n00b.
So here's another issue that suddenly reappears: Whenever I open some
programs, an icon automatically pops up in the systray. I can kill these, of
course, by running pkill ksystraycmd, but after I do this a few times within,
say ten minutes, I get tired of it.
Now, I don't mean to kill those icons that I actually want and use; for
example, smplayer puts an icon in the systray, and it is actually useful. But
when I first start the program, a second icon is generated, too, a sort of
ghost icon that serves no real function. This is the bugaboo that I want to
suppress, so that it is not generated in the first place.
Since I reinstalled my OS, I also inadvertently changed some of my paths, and
I believe that this might be a similar issue, because now some apps are
generating icons for the systray, apps that never generated icons there
before now.
This is annoying, as my systray gets cluttered with stuff I don't use; and
furthermore, I get duplicates on top of duplicates on top of yet more
duplicates. It's one thing to have smplayer's icon, as well as the ghost
icon; I kill it, doesn't come back until the next time. But now when I open
text files, I get a new icon for each new text file, so that I end up with a
dozen useless icons taking up space.
I did check TCC under these programs, and this isn't the same thing, where you
see a box to tick off for "Place in system tray"; these ghost icons are
something else.
Any help or suggestions are welcome.
Bill
18 Apr
18 Apr
9:24 p.m.
On Tuesday 18 April 2023 21.25:28 William Morder via tde-users wrote:
So here's another issue that suddenly reappears:
Whenever I open some
programs, an icon automatically pops up in the systray. I can kill these,
of course, by running pkill ksystraycmd, but after I do this a few times
within, say ten minutes, I get tired of it.
(...)
I did check TCC under these programs, and this
isn't the same thing, where
you see a box to tick off for "Place in system tray"; these ghost icons are
something else.
Any help or suggestions are welcome.
Bill
Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but did you right-click on
the "system tray handle " (the control bar to the left of the system tray)
and use "Configure system tray".
I "hide" the icons I don't use and keep only those I find useful.
Thierry
9:42 p.m.
On Tuesday 18 April 2023 14:24:35 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
On Tuesday 18 April 2023 21.25:28 William Morder via
tde-users wrote:
Do you mean the right and left panel hiding buttons? First I must click to
unlock the panel, then when I configure the panel itself, there are various
options about panel hiding, etc. But I don't want my panel itself to hide,
just the excess of ghost icons.
Also, if I leave the panel hiding buttons where I can (accidentally) click
them, or if I leave them panel itself unlocked, I tend to mess up somehow,
and suddenly my panel goes all askew, usually getting put to one side or the
other of the screen, as a vertical panel, and for me that is much worse, and
then I spend a while trying to put things back right.
I did search through the Trinity Control Center, and also the TDE menu editor,
trying to find settings for this behavior, but so far nothing.
Bill
So here's another issue that suddenly
reappears: Whenever I open some
programs, an icon automatically pops up in the systray. I can kill these,
of course, by running pkill ksystraycmd, but after I do this a few times
within, say ten minutes, I get tired of it.
(...)
I did check TCC under these programs, and this
isn't the same thing,
where you see a box to tick off for "Place in system tray"; these ghost
icons are something else.
Any help or suggestions are welcome.
Bill
Don't know if this is what you're looking for, but did you right-click on
the "system tray handle " (the control bar to the left of the system tray)
and use "Configure system tray".
I "hide" the icons I don't use and keep only those I find useful.
Thierry
10:14 p.m.
I hope these pictures explain what I mean: on the left side of the system tray
is a vertical bar that I can right-click and that gives me access to a menu
where I can select which icons I see in the tray.
10:33 p.m.
On Tuesday 18 April 2023 15:14:27 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
I hope these pictures explain what I mean: on the left
side of the system
tray is a vertical bar that I can right-click and that gives me access to a
menu where I can select which icons I see in the tray.
Now I see what you mean, and that sounds like just the ticket ... except, I
don't have the option to configure the systray!
Instead, I have an option to configure the systray shortcuts folder, which I
put there ages and ages ago, back in the KDE3 days, when I had fewer grey
hairs, and dinosaurs still roamed the earth.
That is to say, I don't want to get rid of my shortcuts folder, as it is very
useful; but it seems like I must choose to get rid of the folder if I want to
configure the systray.
See attachment. The folder is that blue icon next to the clock.
Bill
10:59 p.m.
William Morder via tde-users wrote:
Now I see what you mean, and that sounds like just the
ticket ... except,
I don't have the option to configure the systray!
Instead, I have an option to configure the systray shortcuts folder, which
I put there ages and ages ago, back in the KDE3 days, when I had fewer
grey hairs, and dinosaurs still roamed the earth.
Unlock the panel if locked and right click the bar that appears to the left
of the systray. Then click Configure
19 Apr
19 Apr
11:16 a.m.
On Tuesday 18 April 2023 22:59:48 deloptes via tde-users wrote:
Sorry, that doesn't happen here. As I explained, the option doesn't appear.
Maybe I need to remove that shortcuts folder from my taskbar, but I haven't
got that far yet. It actually points to a folder that is full of shortcuts to
places and things: for example, so that I can load a playlist for smplayer,
audacious, etc.
Maybe, if I remove that folder, that option will appear?
Bill
William Morder via tde-users wrote:
> Now I see what you mean, and that sounds like just the ticket ... except,
N.B.
the following words:
I don't
have the option to configure the systray!
Unlock the panel if locked and right click the bar that appears to the left
of the systray. Then click Configure 
1:33 a.m.
On 2023/04/19 07:14 AM, Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
I hope these pictures explain what I mean: on the left
side of the system tray
is a vertical bar that I can right-click and that gives me access to a menu
where I can select which icons I see in the tray.
Learnt something new today :-)
Whenever I open some programs, an icon automatically
pops up in the systray. I can kill these, of course
The question is whether you want to hide the icon or stop the applications.
Many systray applications can be quitted by right click -> Quit and then will ask you
whether they should be started
again at the next boot.
There are some exception, but their autostart behavior can be configured if needed.
What specific icons/applications are you looking at getting rid of?
Cheers
Michele
11:23 a.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 01:33:56 Michele Calgaro via tde-users wrote:
On 2023/04/19 07:14 AM, Thierry de Coulon via
tde-users wrote:
As I said at the start, these are not the icon for the application itself, but
rather a kind of ghost icons that have something to do with docking in the
systray. When I find another, I'll try to get a screenshot, but I don't know
if I can get a screenshot of the bit about hiding or docking in the systray.
I just want the icon for the app itself, if it has useful functions; these
ghost icons take up space and serve no function or purpose, at least not for
myself.
Bill
I hope these pictures explain what I mean: on the
left side of the system
tray is a vertical bar that I can right-click and that gives me access to
a menu where I can select which icons I see in the tray.
Learnt something new today :-)
Whenever I open some programs, an icon
automatically pops up in the
systray. I can kill these, of course
The question is whether you want to hide the icon or stop the applications.
Many systray applications can be quitted by right click -> Quit and then
will ask you whether they should be started again at the next boot.
There are some exception, but their autostart behavior can be configured if
needed. What specific icons/applications are you looking at getting rid of?
Cheers
Michele
11:56 a.m.
From what I understand you have carried a heavily tweaked kicker config from
a very old version of KDE and I suspect that's why your desktop is not
behaving like ours.
I don't know enough about kicker config to figure out why.
Thierry
12:29 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 11:56:42 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:
From what I understand you have carried a heavily
tweaked kicker config
Yeah, maybe ...
from a very old version of KDE and I suspect
that's why your desktop is not
behaving like ours.
I don't know enough about kicker config to figure out why.
Thierry
It still works, usually, but sometimes I need to iron out the kinks.
Bill
12:29 p.m.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:23:24 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 01:33:56 Michele Calgaro via tde-users wrote:
You are not talking about taskbar by chance? Depending on settings, it
could be icons only, or icons of minimized windows only, and if you put it
right next to systray, it may appear as be on systray...
--
Nick Koretsky (nick.koretsky(a)gmail.com)
On 2023/04/19 07:14 AM, Thierry de Coulon via
tde-users wrote:
As I said at the start, these are not the icon for the application
itself, but rather a kind of ghost icons that have something to do with
docking in the systray. When I find another, I'll try to get a
screenshot, but I don't know if I can get a screenshot of the bit about
hiding or docking in the systray.
I just want the icon for the app itself, if it has useful functions;
these ghost icons take up space and serve no function or purpose, at
least not for myself.
I hope these pictures explain what I mean: on the
left side of the
system tray is a vertical bar that I can right-click and that gives
me access to a menu where I can select which icons I see in the tray.
Learnt something new today :-)
Whenever I open some programs, an icon
automatically pops up in the
systray. I can kill these, of course
The question is whether you want to hide the icon or stop the
applications. Many systray applications can be quitted by right click
-> Quit and then will ask you whether they should be started again at
the next boot. There are some exception, but their autostart behavior
can be configured if needed. What specific icons/applications are you
looking at getting rid of?
Cheers
Michele
1:14 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 12:29:53 Nick Koretsky via tde-users wrote:
My systray is on the right. You can see that there are two icons for smplayer,
almost identical. One actually holds useful functions for smplayer, but the
other, the so-called ghost icon, when I click it, just offers option for
hide, undock and quit, none of which are useful to me.
See attachment.
And by the way, I did try to get a shot of just a small section of screen,
that corner with the systray and clock, but ksnapshot doesn't want to do that
for me just now.
Bill
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 11:23:24 +0000
As I said at
the start, these are not the icon for the application
itself, but rather a kind of ghost icons that have something to do with
docking in the systray. When I find another, I'll try to get a
screenshot, but I don't know if I can get a screenshot of the bit about
hiding or docking in the systray.
I just want the icon for the app itself, if it has useful functions;
these ghost icons take up space and serve no function or purpose, at
least not for myself.
You are not talking about taskbar by chance? Depending on settings, it
could be icons only, or icons of minimized windows only, and if you put it
right next to systray, it may appear as be on systray... 
1:13 p.m.
On 2023/04/19 08:23 PM, William Morder via tde-users wrote:
As I said at the start, these are not the icon for the
application itself, but
rather a kind of ghost icons that have something to do with docking in the
systray. When I find another, I'll try to get a screenshot, but I don't know
if I can get a screenshot of the bit about hiding or docking in the systray.
Why do you suspect docking to systray? And if so, what happen if you click on the icons?
It seems strange to have "ghost" icons. Icons should either belong to some
applications or show docked applications. In
any case, something should happen when they are clicked, IMO.
Cheers
Michele
1:34 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 13:13:34 Michele Calgaro via tde-users wrote:
On 2023/04/19 08:23 PM, William Morder via tde-users
wrote:
There, it took a bit of fiddling to get ksnapshot to work. I don't usually try
to capture only a section of screen, but generally do a full screenshot.
There are the so-called ghost icons for smplayer, xscreensaver and ksnapshot
itself (that black circle-in-square is my custom icon). The ghost icon in the
systray only offers options to hide, undock and quit; but I can do pkill
ksystraycmd and these go away, yet the programs keep working. Thus, these
icons are useless for me, and I just want to suppress them, so that I don't
keep clicking to make them go away.
Years ago, back in the good ol' KDE3 days, somebody gave me a command or
script or something (the memory is pretty hazy), and I put it is a shell
script or somewhere that I can find or recall now, and it went away, and I
didn't think about it again until I started running TDE a few years ago, and
it's been bugging me ever since. I know from experience that I can make this
thing go away, but I just can't remember how, aside from constantly running
pkill ksystraycmd.
If it worked then, it ought to work now, if only I could remember how I did
it.
Bill
As I said at the start, these are not the icon
for the application
itself, but rather a kind of ghost icons that have something to do with
docking in the systray. When I find another, I'll try to get a
screenshot, but I don't know if I can get a screenshot of the bit about
hiding or docking in the systray.
Why do you suspect docking to systray? And if so, what happen if you click
on the icons?
It seems strange to have "ghost" icons. Icons should either belong to some
applications or show docked applications. In any case, something should
happen when they are clicked, IMO.
Cheers
Michele 
5:21 p.m.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 13:34:00 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
Years ago, back in the good ol' KDE3 days,
somebody gave me a command or
script or something (the memory is pretty hazy), and I put it is a shell
script or somewhere that I can find or recall now, and it went away, and I
didn't think about it again until I started running TDE a few years ago, and
it's been bugging me ever since. I know from experience that I can make this
thing go away, but I just can't remember how, aside from constantly running
pkill ksystraycmd.
Have you searched back through the archives for this list? This is ringing some
kind of very faint bell for me, and I think it may have been discussed previously.
(Even dimmer recollection suggests this might just possibly be dbus-related. Or
I might be completely off-base.)
E. Liddell
5:57 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 17:21:39 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 13:34:00 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
No, at least some of your memory is right, and just as sound as my own rather
fuzzy recollection of these matters.
Back when I first jumped ship from KDE, and found my way over to TDE, I did
bring up this issue, but nobody seemed to have heard of the trick, whatever
it was. For now, I just keep the "pkill ksystraycmd" command in a shell, so
that I can hit return and kill it when the systray gets too cluttered with
those ghost icons.
If I can kill them with this command, however, yet the programs still keep
working, then those ghost icons are not really essential, so I would like to
suppress them altogether.
I seem to recall that it was a line added to a bash script (maybe?), but when
somebody gave me the line, I was still very new to Linux. I had not yet
developed all my current squirrelly habits about keeping everything, no
matter how trivial it might seem, until I am sure that I cannot reuse it
somehow in a future configuration.
Maybe I will need to do some reading about dbus, as what I know there is
mostly to avoid it so that I don't mess up my stuff.
Bill
Years ago, back in the good ol' KDE3 days,
somebody gave me a command or
script or something (the memory is pretty hazy), and I put it is a shell
script or somewhere that I can find or recall now, and it went away, and
I didn't think about it again until I started running TDE a few years
ago, and it's been bugging me ever since. I know from experience that I
can make this thing go away, but I just can't remember how, aside from
constantly running pkill ksystraycmd.
Have you searched back through the archives for this list? This is ringing
some kind of very faint bell for me, and I think it may have been discussed
previously. (Even dimmer recollection suggests this might just possibly be
dbus-related. Or I might be completely off-base.)
E. Liddell
8:07 p.m.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 17:57:12 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
Back when I first jumped ship from KDE, and found my
way over to TDE, I did
bring up this issue, but nobody seemed to have heard of the trick, whatever
it was. For now, I just keep the "pkill ksystraycmd" command in a shell, so
that I can hit return and kill it when the systray gets too cluttered with
those ghost icons.
If I can kill them with this command, however, yet the programs still keep
working, then those ghost icons are not really essential, so I would like to
suppress them altogether.
I did a little more poking around.
grep through your collected settings files and scripts for any mention
of ksystraycmd, because calling it for every program does not seem to be
default setup. The man page says:
ksystraycmd - Allows any application to be kept in the system tray
I have never seen an instance of this thing running on my system that I can
recall, probably because I have no interest in using the systray as a
mini-taskbar.
So you must have set this up on purpose, and you may need to change the
options being passed to the program (it has a fair number) to get rid of your
"ghost icons". Or there may be a bug in the program itself, unless it's a
lot
more commonly used than I think it is.
(Or you can just schedule your pkill command to run from cron periodically.)
E. Liddell
9:53 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 20:07:56 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 17:57:12 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
That could be, although I don't remember doing so. On the other hand, I did
deliberately drag that shortcuts folder to the systray, because I can access
almost anywhere in my system quickly.
It could be that that shortcuts folder is itself part of the problem, but I
don't want to think about it yet.
Back when I first jumped ship from KDE, and found
my way over to TDE, I
did bring up this issue, but nobody seemed to have heard of the trick,
whatever it was. For now, I just keep the "pkill ksystraycmd" command in
a shell, so that I can hit return and kill it when the systray gets too
cluttered with those ghost icons.
If I can kill them with this command, however, yet the programs still
keep working, then those ghost icons are not really essential, so I would
like to suppress them altogether.
I did a little more poking around.
grep through your collected settings files and scripts for any mention
of ksystraycmd, because calling it for every program does not seem to be
default setup. The man page says:
ksystraycmd - Allows any application to be kept in the system tray
I have never seen an instance of this thing running on my system that I can
recall, probably because I have no interest in using the systray as a
mini-taskbar.
So you must have set this up on purpose, and you may need to change the
options being passed to the program (it has a fair number) to get rid of
your "ghost icons". Or there may be a bug in the program itself, unless
it's a lot more commonly used than I think it is.
(Or you can just schedule your pkill command to run from cron
periodically.)
E. Liddell
I'll do some reading on ksystraycmd and dbus, see what I can find. The weekend
is coming.
Bill
10:33 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 20:07:56 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
snip
> I just keep the "pkill ksystraycmd"
command in
> a shell, so that I can hit return and kill it when the systray gets too
> cluttered with those ghost icons.
snip
ksystraycmd - Allows any application to be kept in the system tray
I have never seen an instance of this thing running on my system that I can
recall, probably because I have no interest in using the systray as a
mini-taskbar.
So you must have set this up on purpose, and you may
need to change the
options being passed to the program (it has a fair number) to get rid of
your "ghost icons". Or there may be a bug in the program itself, unless
it's a lot more commonly used than I think it is.
(Or you can just schedule your pkill command to run from cron
periodically.)
Some further thoughts ...
So if I put those icons in my systray deliberately, I wondered how, and I went
searching through the TDE menu editor. The results are very inconclusive.
For example:
1) smplayer is ticked off to run in my systray, because of course the icon
gives access to most of the commands used for that program. Why the ghost
icon also appears in my systray is still an open question, though.
2) audacious is not ticked off to run in my systray, even though it does so;
however, ghost icons do not usually appear for audacious.
3) xscreensaver also is not ticked off to run in my systray, yet when I run it
a ghost icon appears in the systray.
4) qalculate-trinity is not ticked off to run in my systray, yet it does.
However, no ghost icon appears, and the systray icon only offers options of
remove from systray, minimize and quit; so it behaves sort of like one of
those ghost icons.
5) leafpad ought really not to be here (as it was discontinued after, I
believe, Debian/Devuan Jessie), but I have managed to get it working with my
system. It requires no dependencies, doesn't interfere with anything else in
my system, and thus far I haven't found another text editor (that works so
well) to replace it.
However ... it isn't ticked to run in the systray, yet a ghost icon appears
when I run it.
6) And just for kicks, I ought to add that many times those so-called ghost
icons do not correspond to the actual program that they are supposed to
represent. If I have opened several programs in close succession, I will
often end up with half a dozen icons of, for example, smplayer, yet those
icons represent half a dozen different programs, only one of which is
actually smplayer.
I don't know if these examples of ksystraycmd's seemingly erratic behavior can
help to understand the problem, but as I said, I cannot see that ksystraycmd
performs any real function that cannot be accomplished by running it from
alt-F2, or closing by a shell command. If users actually want this dubious
feature, that's fine, but for those of us who want to declutter, it seems
like an empty ornament. It doesn't really do much of anything. Worse, too,
when there are half a dozen or more of them, all doing nothing but taking up
space.
Bill
11:45 p.m.
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 22:33:05 +0000
William Morder via tde-users <users(a)trinitydesktop.org> wrote:
For example:
1) smplayer is ticked off to run in my systray, because of course the icon
gives access to most of the commands used for that program. Why the ghost
icon also appears in my systray is still an open question, though.
2) audacious is not ticked off to run in my systray, even though it does so;
however, ghost icons do not usually appear for audacious.
3) xscreensaver also is not ticked off to run in my systray, yet when I run it
a ghost icon appears in the systray.
4) qalculate-trinity is not ticked off to run in my systray, yet it does.
However, no ghost icon appears, and the systray icon only offers options of
remove from systray, minimize and quit; so it behaves sort of like one of
those ghost icons.
5) leafpad ought really not to be here (as it was discontinued after, I
believe, Debian/Devuan Jessie), but I have managed to get it working with my
system. It requires no dependencies, doesn't interfere with anything else in
my system, and thus far I haven't found another text editor (that works so
well) to replace it.
However ... it isn't ticked to run in the systray, yet a ghost icon appears
when I run it.
Okay, so:
-smplayer has its native systray integration set to on, and produces two
icons (real and ghost)
-audacious has its native systray integration set to off, and produces one
icon (real)
-qalculate, the only TDE-associated program on your list, probably has
no systray integration features, and produces one icon (prettied-up ghost)
-the other non-TDE programs probably do not have native systray features,
and both generate one icon (ghost)
My guess at this point is that you're somehow invoking all of these through
ksystraycmd, and the different behaviours are due to the presence or absence
of internal systray integration, and/or the programs' relationship with TDE
and TQT. However, I have a history of sometimes seeing patterns that
aren't there.
If you've always been starting these from your folder widget, try calling
up one of them (leafpad's probably the quickest) from the main menu, then
from the command line. Do you still get phantom icons? If not, your
folder shortcut is indeed the problem.
You may be better off switching to the Quick Launch applet for
frequently-used applications (unlock your panel, install it, configure it,
lock the panel back up). Or see if you can add the folder as a separate
button beside the menu, if the Quick Launch is unendurable for some
reason. Heck, you might be able to set the folder as the sole item in
the Quick Launch Or you could wrap every program you put in the folder
in a launcher script that forks the main program then kills ksystraycmd,
although the cron job I suggested previously is probably easier.
E. Liddell
11:53 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 23:45:39 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 22:33:05 +0000
snip
However, I have a history of sometimes seeing patterns
that aren't there.
People often tell me that I also have that problem, but it mostly concerns
stuff like history or politics.
;-)
Sorry, couldn't resist that off-topic bit.
I promise to try to stick to the matter at hand hereafter, maybe.
Bill
11:56 p.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 23:45:39 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
On Wed, 19 Apr 2023 22:33:05 +0000
If you've always been starting these from your folder widget, try calling
up one of them (leafpad's probably the quickest) from the main menu, then
from the command line. Do you still get phantom icons? If not, your
folder shortcut is indeed the problem.
Actually, I almost always start everything using alt-F2. I only use the quick
launch shortcut folder for stuff like video playlists, although I do still
have lots of old shortcuts there, most of which I don't use any more.
But these shortcuts are really handy for, say, loading a television series
playlist, or my downloaded news programs.
Bill
20 Apr
20 Apr
12:01 a.m.
On Wednesday 19 April 2023 23:45:39 E. Liddell via tde-users wrote:
If you've always been starting these from your
folder widget, try calling
up one of them (leafpad's probably the quickest) from the main menu, then
from the command line. Do you still get phantom icons? If not, your
folder shortcut is indeed the problem.
Actually, I never start leafpad except either by alt-F2, or by clicking on a
file icon, because I use text files differently than I do films or television
shows. That shortcut folder is mostly just for loading playlists, either
videos or sometimes music. There's almost nothing else there, and nothing
else that I use regularly.
I probably ought to clean up the old obsolete shortcuts, but it didn't seem
too urgent.
Bill
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23 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
deloptes -
E. Liddell -
Michele Calgaro -
Nick Koretsky -
Thierry de Coulon -
William Morder