For example Slack or Telegram or something else. The program has a single window, I click the “x” and it is closed. GNOME doesn’t have a tray with program icons by default, I didn’t install any extensions besides Vitals to monitor the CPU temperature. I don’t even have a visible Dash. Just vanilla GNOME. In Windows, some programs will go to the background and will still be running when you close the window, usually there’s a setting for that in each program. I wonder whether in GNOME I can do the same or if I should change my mindset and leave everything open at all times. This is more of a habit than necessity.
If it’s an app with background functionality it goes in the background, but with no indication it does because there’s no tray for them to have an icon in
OK, but it DOES work in the background. I generally like GNOME’s minimalism, but this is a bad design choice IMO. Maybe I need that AppIndicator after all. :)
On my first day on GNOME I missed Slack notifications for 4 hours. It was great, no distractions and laser focus on my work! ;)
Yeah it’s one of things that really fuels the memes GNOME devs not designing for their user’s needs lol
I feel like everyone I know who uses GNOME has at least appIndicator since a ton of apps rely on the basic function of having a system tray
Appindicator and dash2dock are your biggest friends on GNOME. Those, and alphabetical app grid.
it does have an indication in the background apps dropdown.
Yeah I saw someone said that. I’ve not used newer versions of GNOME extensively, but last I used it, it didn’t have any indicators, nor has anyone mentioned them being added to me :p
they used not to have it, but they caved on this particular bit for a few years now.
always better to use an extension to enable indicators though, nbd.
Not sure if this is standard GNOME behaviour but on Fedora Silverblue under the control centre (where volume, bluetooth etc are) there is a Background Apps section if an app is running in the background.
I forgot about that! Indeed, I just closed Telegram and Slack and they are shown in the menu. Thanks!
Keep in mind that this will only work with apps that support the appropriate xdg-portal (eg flatpaks) other apps might not show up there, despite running in the background.
