App indicator does not show icon for Qt apps or with custom icons

To expand a little bit on this. So indeed, what's happening is:
- the client side set some icons/assets in its /tmp (which is != from the system /tmp)
- the client then sends his menu + the icon uri to the system shell
- the system shell tries to open the icon at that address which doesn't exist.

There are multiple issues there:
- as we want snapd to be cross distros, I don't think we can patch Qt, GTK and other toolkits to export indicators with translated path (client side)
- if we go that road, it means we need to make the application aware it's running in a snapd environment, unsure this is wanted
- patching all shells (at least Unity, GNOME Shell and KDE plasma) has the same issue in term of cross distro compatibility (shell-system-side)
- ofc, we don't want /tmp to be the same than the system one
- I don't think apparmor can do this on the fly translations, right? Patching dbus is an option (with a running on snapd awareness), but brings the same issue in term of cross distro distributions.

Any other idea?

"- I don't think apparmor can do this on the fly translations, right?"

No, the kernel LSM hooks (which apparmor uses) look at the files themselves.

Based on your explanation, it sounds like it is only the client side (ie, the snap) that needs to change and that it simply must tell the system shell what the icon uri is. As such, one idea would be to put the icons in ~/snap/$SNAP_NAME/... or in /run/shm/snap.$SNAP_NAME.<something> and then set the client uri appropriately.

Assuming that works it then becomes a matter of making this easy for developers. I'm not sure that 'no upstream changes' is the right attitude-- snappy is a new way of doing things and asking upstream to make reasonable changes shouldn't necessarily be avoided at all costs. That said, I think the preload idea of Gustavo's (see bug #1577514) could help with not needing client changes for the file write (but the uri the client reports to the shell needs to be corrected-- maybe the client libraries honor TMPDIR or some other env variable and you can set it to ~/snap/$SNAP_NAME/... or /run/shm/snap.$SNAP_NAME.<something> (and then you wouldn't even need the preload library)).

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Please, fix it. I can not use Telegram snap: https://github.com/sergiusens/telegram-snap/issues/2

So...

The problem for generic apps should be fixed. You can see some examples here:
 - https://github.com/3v1n0/indicators-examples-snaps

Basically we export to unity the proper absolute icon path, unless that's readable (so basically it can be everywhere inside the SNAP but in /tmp).
They're using remote parts indicator-<toolkit>, although I hope to include this in the desktop launchers by default.

As for some QT apps that don't use appmenu-qt, until we don't fix the Qt upstream implementation, the only workaround is to use a different TEMPDIR for them, see https://github.com/sergiusens/telegram-snap/issues/2#issuecomment-261139307.
When bug #1620442 is fixed, it might be ok to set TEMPDIR to XDG_RUNTIME_DIR for a such snap.

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

This bug was fixed in the package appmenu-qt5 - 0.3.0+17.04.20161124.2-0ubuntu1

---------------
appmenu-qt5 (0.3.0+17.04.20161124.2-0ubuntu1) zesty; urgency=medium

  * AppMenuPlatformSystemTrayIcon: reset app usertime on activation to
    ensure compiz will raise it (LP: #627195)
  * AppMenuPlatformMenuBar: Don't initialize X11 related functions in
    other environments (LP: #1606246)
  * IconCache: get the proper theme path based on the fact we're using a
    themed icon or not (LP: #1600136)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Thu, 24 Nov 2016 18:39:00 +0000

This bug was fixed in the package sni-qt - 0.2.7+17.04.20161124.2-0ubuntu1

---------------
sni-qt (0.2.7+17.04.20161124.2-0ubuntu1) zesty; urgency=medium

  * statusnotifieritem: reset app usertime on activation to ensure
    compiz will raise it (LP: #627195)
  * IconCache: get the proper theme path based on the fact we're using a
    themed icon or not (LP: #1600136)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Thu, 24 Nov 2016 18:38:52 +0000

This bug was fixed in the package libappindicator - 12.10.1+17.04.20161129-0ubuntu1

---------------
libappindicator (12.10.1+17.04.20161129-0ubuntu1) zesty; urgency=medium

  * AppIndicator: fix icon and theme paths when running in $SNAP
    environment (LP: #1600136)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Tue, 29 Nov 2016 18:04:06 +0000

Upstream fix for pure Qt apps (when not including appmenu-qt5) is proposed at https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/182307/.

Here's the patch for the ubuntu package too.

The attachment "qdbustrayicon-try-to-save-temp-icons-in-readable-location.debdiff" seems to be a debdiff. The ubuntu-sponsors team has been subscribed to the bug report so that they can review and hopefully sponsor the debdiff. If the attachment isn't a patch, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are member of the ~ubuntu-sponsors, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issue please contact him.]

I think you meant https://codereview.qt-project.org/182310 (not 182307). Thanks for the patch anyway!

Yes sure... Wrong paste :-)

Debdiff updated to backport the patches that have just merged upstream.

 - https://codereview.qt-project.org/182492
 - https://codereview.qt-project.org/182564

https://bileto.ubuntu.com/#/ticket/2454

Accepted appmenu-qt5 into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/appmenu-qt5/0.3.0+16.04.20170216-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Accepted libappindicator into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libappindicator/12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Accepted sni-qt into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sni-qt/0.2.7+16.04.20170217.1-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed.Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

This bug was fixed in the package libappindicator - 12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1

---------------
libappindicator (12.10.1+16.04.20170215-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * AppIndicator: fix icon and theme paths when running in $SNAP
    environment (LP: #1600136)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Wed, 15 Feb 2017 14:14:47 +0000

The verification of the Stable Release Update for libappindicator has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

This bug was fixed in the package appmenu-qt5 - 0.3.0+16.04.20170216-0ubuntu1

---------------
appmenu-qt5 (0.3.0+16.04.20170216-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * IconCache: get the proper theme path based on the fact we're using a
    themed icon or not (LP: #1600136)
  * IconCache: use $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR as preferred place where to save
    icons
  * AppMenuPlatformMenuBar: Don't initialize X11 related functions in
    other environments (LP: #1606246)

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Thu, 16 Feb 2017 22:57:56 +0000

This bug was fixed in the package sni-qt - 0.2.7+16.04.20170217.1-0ubuntu1

---------------
sni-qt (0.2.7+16.04.20170217.1-0ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=medium

  * statusnotifieritem: reset app usertime on activation to ensure
    compiz will raise it (LP: #627195)
  * IconCache: get the proper theme path based on the fact we're using a
    themed icon or not (LP: #1600136)
  * fsutils: always use $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR if it's set for saving icons

 -- Marco Trevisan (Treviño) <mail@3v1n0.net> Fri, 17 Feb 2017 01:14:24 +0000

This bug was fixed in the package qtbase-opensource-src - 5.7.1+dfsg-2ubuntu4~1

---------------
qtbase-opensource-src (5.7.1+dfsg-2ubuntu4~1) zesty; urgency=medium

  [ Marco Trevisan (Treviño) ]
  * debian/patch/qdbus-tray-icon-use-runtimedir.patch:
    - QDBusTrayIcon: try use runtime or cache for icons (LP: #1600136)
  * debian/patch/qdbus-tray-icon-always-save-icon-in-unity.patch:
    - QDBusTrayIcon: always save the temp icon in Unity (LP: #1600136)

 -- Timo Jyrinki <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Feb 2017 08:42:30 +0000

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.