The Me Menu

Blank little square besides the account name

Asked by Jordi Margalef

What does that supposed to do? Clicking on the applet, my account details appear, name, picture and on-line status but I am intrigued as to what that little square, on the panel, is supposed to do.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
The Me Menu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Jan
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#1

Could you please make a screenshot with Applications → Accessories → Make Screenshot to clarify what you mean? :)

Be sure to not include any private stuff in it though. Then upload it (for example on http://tinypic.com/ ) and post the link here.

Revision history for this message
Jordi Margalef (jordi-margalef) said : 		#2

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8008/screenshotbs.png

I am asking about the little square in between the clock and the account name.

Revision history for this message
Best Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#3

That is the online/offline status indicator for the social networking profiles you can use with that applet. You probably don’t use it, hence the grey. If you don’t care about social networks and the square sitting there, you can stop reading here. ;)

You can start using them by configuring a program called Gwibber that you can find in the Application menu. A green square would then indicate you being online on those networks.

If you don’t want to use the networks, you can just ignore the grey square. :)

If you want to remove it, you can do so by right clicking – although that will remove the shutdown menu as well (it will be placed in the menu under »System« then). If you only want to remove the account name, open Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type in:
sudo apt-get remove indicator-me

Revision history for this message
Jordi Margalef (jordi-margalef) said : 		#4

Thanks, Jan-Christoph. Great help.

And, as a suggestion, is it possible to substitute the grey/green square for a miniature picture of my account?

Revision history for this message
Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount) said : 		#5

Hey Jordi, I’m glad I could help you. :)

Theoretically changing the icon is possible. I tried some things with some icons I thought were the right ones but nothing happened, not even after reboot. I am guessing that this is hard coded in some way.

For future reference, here is the command I tried via Terminal:
sudo cp .face /usr/share/empathy/icons/hicolor/scalable/status/empathy-offline.svg
(.face is the hidden file in your home folder where your account picture is stored)
That should have worked. But maybe »/usr/share/empathy/ … /empathy-offline.svg« is not where the Me Menu grabs its icons from.

Nevertheless, the icon is intended to serve as a status display, so there probably will never be an official way to substitute it. You can still go, as I said, to the Terminal and type in:
sudo apt-get remove indicator-me
to remove icon and name. :)