How to run an action when clicking on an appindicator

Question

I'm looking at writing a simple app indicator and I need it to update it's information whenever it's clicked on to open the menu. Is there any kind of on_click action thing?

Let me rephrase it then: How to perform an action (any action) when the user clicks on the appindicator to open its menu?

Answer 1

An app indicator can only open its menu. It can't perform any other action and your program doesn't get notified when the menu is displayed.

You could either include some kind of "Update" menu item or find other events that trigger the update.

Answer 2

I have used the middle mouse click on one of my indicators to perform an action, so I think you could do the same...see related [answer[(https://askubuntu.com/a/501050/67335). Note it only seems to work on Ubuntu (not Lubuntu/Xubuntu).

Answer 3

Indeed, you may notice that some indicators (like volume or keyboard language ones) support middle mouse click. It can be done with set_secondary_activate_target(menu_item). My code snippet for pyGtk/pyGI:

    menu_items = Gtk.MenuItem("Toggle Floater")
    menu.append(menu_items)
    menu_items.connect("activate", self.toggleWindow)
    self.ind.set_secondary_activate_target(menu_items)

I found it here, but it's not described, I just tried it on chance, and it worked.