Introduction

The System Components are a set of widgets that are usable in both the indicators and system settings to ensure a consistent semantics exist between both Unity 7 and Unity 8.

Base Attributes

Name

Type

label

string

action

string

Name of the action to activate when the menuitem is clicked

target

string

Parameter to send with the action invocation

icon

bytearray

Use g_icon_deserialize()

render-as-switch

boolean

Show a switch instead of a check mark for boolean actions

Types and Profiles

Widget

Desktop

Phone

Tablet

TV

Slider

Progress

Button

User Session

Calendar

Media Player

Time Zone

Appointment

Alarm

Access Point

Message

Indicator Positions

Each indicator may have a Position field in its indicator file, which determines the order in which indicators appear in the panel. The lower the position, the further towards the edge of the panel (right in LTR-layouts, left in RTL-layouts) an indicator appears.

Desktop

These are the positions for the standard indicators [1]:

Keyboard

80

Sync

70

Location

60

Messages

50

Power

40

Bluetooth

36

Network

35

Sound

30

Datetime

20

Session

10

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MenuBar#system-status

Phone

Messages

100

Display

90

Transfer

71

Location

60

Bluetooth

36

Network

35

Sound

30

Power

25

Datetime

20

Widget Definitions

Root Item

The base item implemented by all indicators.

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.root

action

a{sv}

Name of an action action whose state contains the props bellow

x-canonical-secondary-action

s

Name of an action that is activated when the middle mouse button is pressed on an indicator

x-canonical-scroll-action

s

Name of an action that is activated when scrolling the mouse wheel on an indicator. That action must take an int32 parameter signifying strength and direction of the scroll

The action that the root item points to is an a{sv}.

Action Prop

Type

Description

label

s

String with label

accessible-desc

s

String used to describe the state for disabled users

icon

v

Serialized GIcon

visible

b

Whether to show the icon

pre-label

s

Label to be shown before the icon (LTR on left side, RTL on right)

icons

av

If there is more than one icon shown, this should be an array of serialized GIcons in the order they should appear. This item should take precedence over 'icon'.

title

s

User visible string to show at the head of the menu for the items in it

Progress

A menu item that contains a progress bar.

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.progress

label

s

String with label

action

s

Name of an action action whose state contains the progress (uint32 in [0, 100])

Appointment

Sample implementation (for GTK+ in Unity 7): http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~charlesk/ido/add-progress-menu-item/view/head:/src/idoappointmentmenuitem.c#L72

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.appointment

label

s

String with label

action

s

String with an action name

x-canonical-color

s

String specifying a color that can be used as a visual hint for the appointment's type. On the desktop this is set by the user when adding the appointment.

x-canonical-time-format

s

A strftime(3) format string specifying how to display the appointment's time.

x-canonical-time

x

A time_t specifying the appointment's localtime

Alarm

Alarm's properties are nearly identical to Appointment except for the added icon. Its has its own x-canonical-type to preserve the semantic difference.

Sample implementation (for GTK+ in Unity 7): http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~charlesk/ido/add-progress-menu-item/view/head:/src/idoalarmmenuitem.c

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.alarm

label

s

String with label

icon

s

Serialized GIcon

action

s

String with an action name

x-canonical-color

s

String specifying a color that can be used as a visual hint for the appointment's type.

x-canonical-time-format

s

A strftime(3) format string specifying how to display the alarm's time.

x-canonical-time

x

A time_t specifying the alarm's localtime

Time Zone

By having properties for the location's timezone and time format string, the renderer has all the information it needs to periodically update its display of the current time. This way the refresh logic can be on the renderer's side and the service doesn't have to continually ship out new menuitems over the bus when the current time changes.

Sample implementation (for GTK+ in Unity7): http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~charlesk/ido/add-progress-menu-item/view/head:/src/idolocationmenuitem.c#L295

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.location

label

s

String with label

x-canonical-time-format

s

A strftime(3) format string specifying how to display the location's current time.

x-canonical-timezone

s

timezone that the location is in.

Calendar

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.indicator.progress

action

s

name of an action containing the calendar's state as an "a{sv}". Possible keys are: calendar-day (t), show-week-numbers (b), appointment-days (ai).

Calendar's Action

Key

Value Type

Description

calendar-day

t

a time_t denoting which year & month should be visible in the calendard and which day currently has focus/selection.

show-week-numbers

b

Whether or not to show the week numbers in the calendar.

appointment-days

ai

array of int32 day-of-months showing days with appointments in the month specified by calendar-day

Slider

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.unity.slider

action

s

name of an action with state "d", the position of the slider

min-value

d

minimum value

max-value

d

maximum value

step

d

step increment

min-icon

v

an icon representing the minimum value

max-icon

v

an icon representing the maximum value

Media Player

A menu item representing a media player. Its state includes metadata about the currently playing track.

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.unity.media-player

label

s

name of the player

action

s

name of an action containing the state of the player as an "a{sv}". Possible keys are : running (b), title (s), artist (s), album(s), art-url (s).

icon

v

app icon of the player

Playback

A menu item with playback controls.

Property Name

Type

Description

x-canonical-type

s

com.canonical.unity.playback-item

x-canonical-play-action

s

name of a play/pause action with string state ("Playing", "Stopped", "Launching")

x-canonical-previous-action

s

name of a stateless action for going to the previous track

x-canonical-next-action

s

name of a stateless action for going to the previous track

Ayatana Indicators Wiki: SystemComponents (last edited 2021-02-09 14:03:03 by localhost)