Unity Plugin

[pascat]

I would like to see a Unity Plugin to do a message count for the Launcher. Though I have no idea where to even start coding for that :/ Or maybe if someone already has done something I would like to see the work in progress! It is really annoying that it 'briefly flashes' and then doesn't display when there are messages. There are APIs to access those features, but I also do not know if its possible to use them at all with Perl.

Thank you for your prompt answer!

[jmud]

pascat,

It is very difficult to understand, what you want.

Which launcher? What messages? What is 'briefly flashing' when there are messages?

Can you explain it better?

[pascat]

In the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, there is a UI named Unity. It uses a sidebar dock similar to the one by MacOS X. Now, it is possible for programs to use an API to send a message to the Dock, like Thunderbird doing mail count, xchat doing message count, and Chrome having a progress bar for downloads. I am wondering if it is at all possible to write a plugin using Perl to use that API to have the Unity Launcher (The side bar in Ubuntu Proper) to display a count of messages received in every windows since the last time the client got focus, as a means to help with my habit of Multitasking.

[jmud]

Hmm, I have no idea, how to do that.

[ekalin]

If there is a perl library to access that dock, it should be possible to write a plugin.

[jmud]

I looked for a perl library like that, but I didn't find anything.

[pascat]

I may have a lead for that. An answer from Ask Ubuntu dot Com about the current topic, and here is the answer I got first for it:

You need to use the Glib::Object::Introspection module, and load the Unity package through it to get access to the API for launchers. For indicators, you'd want to use Indicate for example. You'll also want to fail gracefully when they aren't available.