Why doesn't AllTray work with Unity on Ubuntu 11.04 and later?

Created by Michael B. Trausch
Keywords:
tray icon, status icon, gtkstatusicon, unity, ubuntu
Last updated by:
Michael B. Trausch

AllTray does not work with Unity by default on Ubuntu 11.04; however, it is possible to make it work. Apparently Unity has support for the system tray, but it requires the use of a whitelist to enable applications to display tray icons.

To enable this functionality, run the following command in a terminal window, then log out and log back in. You'll be able to use AllTray with Unity:

$ gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

That's it! This trick should work with both old and new AllTray.