On 2019-04-25 18:08:53 E. Liddell wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 18:37:22 +0200
>
> Uwe Brauer <oub@...> wrote:
> >    > On Thursday 25 April 2019 02:31:57 Uwe Brauer wrote:
> >    >
> >    > Another thing that you can try is to right-click on the system tray
> >    > itself and unlock panels. Somewhere there is a dialog that allows
> >    > you to add an item to the system tray.
> >
> > But only the start icon.
> > Maybe we have a misunderstanding here.
> >
> > Suppose I start tde-networkmanager, say from the command line, it then
> > appears in the system tray, where I can access its configuration, that
> > is to which wifi net I want to connect.
> >
> > I want the same for mathpix, I can start it, but it does not appear in
> > the system tray, and that is why I can use it (via its shortcuts) but
> > not configure it because I cannot access the configuration menu.
>
> 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.
>
> >    > Another oddity: I did a quick search using apt-get, and mathpix
> >    > doesn't come up. I am running Devuan Jessie, so maybe it's just not
> >    > in those repositories.
> >
> > It is not you have to install it via snap (so you have to install snap
> > first) once you have installed snap, then
> >
> > sudo snap install mathpix-snipping-tool
> >
> > Will install it.
>
> 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.
>
> 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?"
>
> E. Liddell

	Another reason to avoid snap, Docker and the like is that they typically
include all of the associated libraries that the application uses in a
package, and are intended to be installed into an individual's home
filespace.  That's fine for a system with only one user defined, but not so
good if it has multiple users, where it would be better if the application
used the system's shared libraries and installed into e.g. /usr/local/.

Leslie