checkgmail tray background colour cannot be changed

I think a related problem in checkgmail is that in Preferences --> System Tray all buttons can be checked or unchecked, it doesn't make any difference. I thought the idea of the system tray checkboxes (new, no new, error) was that you might want the system tray to NOT show up in certain cases (e.g. when there is no new mail). But this is not possible with this dialog.

It would be great if we could leave the background transparent so it blends in better with transparent toolbars and the wallpaper underneath them.

Agh! With the latest GTK update on Karmic (I think that’s the culprit), the CheckGmail tray icon background color is an unchangeable jet black. I even tried messing with the source to see if I could hard-code a different background color. No luck!

Hi.

As a workaround you can install gnome-color-chooser, launch it, go to the Panel tab and set a color for Panel > normal > background.

Regards.

Thanks rndmerle, that worked for me. Still, this bug is really annoying.

Hi,

for Ubuntu 10.04 this gnome-color-chooser workaround does not work... :-(
Does anybody know any other solution? It's ugly now...

I have installed Lucid 10.04 Beta1 - no joy in changing background colour :-(
Will have to live with it at present as the app is so useful.

Hi all, I found this bug's been fixed in the latest svn version, you can update it by executing

checkgmail -update

and follow the instructions

good luck :D

Here's what I found in the changelog

Fixed inability to change trayicon background under Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu 10.04) and possibly other recent distros. Trayicon background is nolonger set, but the icon does now have transparency. Not sure if this is a recent Gtk2::TrayIcon change or whether creating nested eventboxes was the magic solution all along ...

So it'll be always transparent, great!

WangLu that isn't working for me :(

Me neither. when I try to run checkgmail -update, at he end I get this output:

OK to update to new version via 'sudo mv checkgmail /usr/bin/'?(Y/n)> y
Update NOT performed ...
Deleting temp file ...
Continuing with application startup ...

@hutu.rebel
The trick is you need the capital 'Y' instead of small 'y' -- I also suffered from this at the first time -- is tha another bug?

@Greg
is this also the case for you?

@WangLu
Nope mine is fully up to date :(

@WangLu

Feel so stupid :) Update worked, but background is still gray :(

Hi,
just updated with checkgmail --update as root, all seem to work now. I've attached a print screen..

I only am experiencing transparency in the dark theme for ubuntu. The Light theme has this gray background.

I have attached a screenshot.

Updating didn't help. Using Lucid and only Ambiance theme shows it correctly. With any other theme it has white background (like in Dwight Shepherd's picture).

Interestingly for me Ambiance does not show correctly, but in the dark equivalent (along with many other themes) it does.

I'm running Ubuntu Lucid (final) and the update does not help. Tried updating through Synaptic as well. No game. Then I re-ran the update from the command line but confirmed with a "Y" instead of a "y" and THAT DID work.

Background color does not change. No matter if i confirm the update prompt with y or Y.
See attachted screenshot.

Any ideas?

Same here, updated checkgmail twice, no change, both sudo and non sudo didn't solve it. Working on a fresh install of 9.04, which had transparent background for checkgmail before the fresh install...

Help?

Update:
From the repositories the background is transparent...
Unfortunately one cannot get gmail updates with the repository version...
Once upgrading via checkgmail --update transparency disappears.

hi all
I would like to set this to confirmed and let me see what we need to get this bug triaged.
Cheers

This is the upstream bug tracker that i found
cheers

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: checkgmail 1.13+svn43-1ubuntu1 [modified: usr/bin/checkgmail]
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare

apport information

I ran apport-collect since I confirmed this bug on my Lucid system, just in case the upstream developers want extra information on software versions. Nobody else needs to run apport-collect as this would just post duplicate information.

Since this bug has been reported upstream and has enough information for the developers to work on it, I am marking this report as Triaged.

Please continue to report any issues that you encounter!

As stated by some above, this bug only happens on some themes; only on the ones, it seems, where the background is not solid? well at least that is what I am seeing. I am perplexed as to why I had it working earlier, with this same theme, but with the fresh install, it is not working.

It looks like a Gtk2 problem... I don't know what/ if anything, that helps... but that's what i see.

Attached is the profile I am having problems with. It is called "This good theme" so if it is saved in ~/.themes it should show up under themes. This will give the bar which I am having problems with. The regular "Human" theme was working fine for me, however once changed to the new theme, all is lost.

As a side note, where is the upstream bug, maybe some of us can help with that?

I think I am posting this in the wrong area... but something that I have noticed is that this is a transparency issue. Ergo, trying to make the background transparent results in this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libgtk2-trayicon-perl/+bug/156886
Which follows the exact symptoms of this bug; total white background instead of transparent, no color change etc.

Also having checkgmail white background issue. Another screenshot attached.

The checkgmail icon background is set to whatever colour is selected in:
 System > Preferences > Theme (tab) > Customize Theme (button) > Colours (tab) > Windows:Background.

For me, selecting a background colour in checkgmail Preferences doesn't work - the colour is always the same as Windows:Background

Interestingly, though, WiCd wireless manager doesn't seem to be affected by the same problem, even though its icon is also in the Notification Area panel.

Thanks for what is a useful to work around Rob, at least it makes it look a bit more natural (but we don't get the gradient).

I am not sure about what Mr. Ball says;
WiCD isn't affected by the problem, nor is piding, nor is fusion icon....Further with the theme above, it does not even seem to be following my Colors Windows:Background button; for me that is marekd out because my theme (the one above) does not allow for changes in these colors.

I modified the latest svn version to fix this problem for other themes than Ambiance. Transparency doesn't work, but now you can change the background to whatever color you want. The file is in attachment.

Save the file to your home folder, then open a terminal, copy it to /usr/bin (sudo cp checkgmail /usr/bin) and make it executable (sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/checkgmail) . Now you can restart checkgmail, set the tray background, and restart again.

I modified the latest svn version to fix this problem for other themes than Ambiance. Transparency doesn't work, but now you can change the background to whatever color you want. The file is in attachment.

Save the file to your home folder, copy it to /usr/bin (sudo cp checkgmail /usr/bin) and make it executable (sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/checkgmail). Restart checkgmail, set the tray background, and restart again.

Corona
I ran a checkgmail -update but it is still not working. When i go home i will try your patch.
Cheers

Many thanks, have added file and run it. Works, has now removed the annoying white border.

Corona
Any chance that you can send this patch upstream?
Cheers

I notified Owen, the maintainer of checkgmail, and he told me he would include this as a command-line option. I don't know how to send patches to the Ubuntu team, and I don't know if I have the right to do so - this is not my app.

Corona
Still thanks for your goodwork, i will have to find out more with what to do to make your patch complete.
Cheers

I think, not yet commited to svn. Transparensy still not works, but thanks the patch Corona.

please send the patch to Sandro Tosi, the Debian maintainer of checkgmail -> <email address hidden>

Thanks for the patch Corona, it's working.

Using Ambiance theme with Maverick.

Roger

I sent the patch to morph(at)debian(dot)org as Edward asked. Haven't heard back yet though.

One of the recent gmail updates broke the 404 full text functionality. This is fixed in the latest svn version, which you can install by running sudo checkgmail -update . This update will fix the issue but reintroduce the background color problem, so here's a patch against the new svn version.
I'm also attaching the complete patched file for people who are not familiar with diff files (save the file to your home folder, copy it to /usr/bin (sudo cp checkgmail /usr/bin) and make it executable (sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/checkgmail) .

... and here's the complete file

Thanks for the full update with patch.

Roger

2010/11/13 Corona <email address hidden>

> ... and here's the complete file
>
> ** Attachment added: "checkgmail"
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/checkgmail/+bug/236046/+attachment/1731709/+files/checkgmail
>
> --
> checkgmail tray background colour cannot be changed
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/236046
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Hi Corona,
could you please pester upstream to include this patch, or at least to get a public review from him?

Regards.
Sandro

> I sent the patch to morph(at)debian(dot)org as Edward asked. Haven't heard back yet though.

I don't see a confirmation if this effects Debian in teh first place, if you can get that check done, I can see to include it in the Debian package. Also, the correct way to contact the maintainer of a Debian pkg is to try to replicate the problem on a Debian system and them open a bug on the Debian BTS (I'm sure there's someone in ubuntu that will be able to explain to you how to do that) - sending email directly to the maint is not the correct way, no matter what others say.

Sorry, I have no experience whatsoever with sending patches upstream, I was just following directions. I don't want to pester anyone, and I don't have time to replicate this bug on various distros.
Looking at the code I'm quite sure that setting a custom bg color will be disabled on any system running Gnome, which is especially annoying if you use a custom background color for your panel.

As I mentioned above I notified the developer of checkgmail, he is aware of the issue but he won't change the current behaviour because that would break transparency with the default Ubuntu settings (Ambiance theme without a custom background or transparency for the panel). He told me that he might include the fix as a commandline option.

So, I don't think I'm in the position to push this patch. If anybody else wants to submit it somewhere, please feel free to do so.

On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 19:24, Corona <email address hidden> wrote:
> Sorry, I have no experience whatsoever with sending patches upstream, I was just following directions. I don't want to pester anyone, and I don't have time to replicate this bug on various distros.
> Looking at the code I'm quite sure that setting a custom bg color will be disabled on any system running Gnome, which is especially annoying if you use a custom background color for your panel.
>
> As I mentioned above I notified the developer of checkgmail, he is aware
> of the issue but he won't change the current behaviour because that
> would break transparency with the default Ubuntu settings (Ambiance
> theme without a custom background or transparency for the panel). He
> told me that he might include the fix as a commandline option.

That said, I hope you'll understand I'm not going to apply it in Debian.

Regards,
--
Sandro Tosi (aka morph, morpheus, matrixhasu)
My website: http://matrixhasu.altervista.org/
Me at Debian: http://wiki.debian.org/SandroTosi

Hi Guys i made a ppa package for lucid that contains corona's patch in it
https://launchpad.net/~trinikrono/+archive/ppa
Cheers

Since a couple of days checkgmail keeps asking for my password. I found a fix on the internet so I'm attaching an updated version of the script, as well as a patch.

If you don't know how to apply the patch, just download the "checkgmail" file to your home folder. Then open a terminal and enter this command.

sudo mv ~/checkgmail /usr/bin/checkgmail

This moves the updated script to the applications folder.

And here's the patch against the previous version of the script posted in this thread.

Corona
Thank you for your patch, i really liked your fix in the first place.
I made a bug https://launchpad.net/bugs/851553
To deal with checkgmail not working, any word on if debian users are
affected also?
Cheers