Refresh icon view in App Drawer in real time

hankschwie

Hi!

We wrote a small script and a desktop file to toogle Anbox via

anbox-tool enable|disable

see [https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Ubuntu_Touch/Anbox/#Automatisches-Umschalten-per-Icon] .

because Anbox is using energy, even when not in use. It works fine.

Now I thought it would be nice to change the icon (like using a green one when Anbox is enabled, and a red one when it is disabled). I tried to use cp within the script to copy a new icon to home/phablet/.local/share/applications/ . That works, but it looks like the icons are cached somewhere, and are only refreshed after unity8 is restarted, or the whole device.

Would it be possible to change that in real time, so I could see just by the colour of the icon if Anbox is enabled or not?

hankschwie

Hi!

I was able to solve this. I noticed that anbox apps are displayed immediately after installation, as soon as the desktop file is placed in /home/phablet/.local/share/applications . So I tried to work with two desktop files which are moved back and forth between /home/phablet/.local/share/applications and /home/phablet/Downloads . The anboxtoggle.sh shovels those back and forth with each disable/enable run instead of the icons - they stay in place.

anboxtoogle.sh looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
anboxtool=($(anbox-tool status)) 
atenabled=${anboxtool[5]}

if [ "$atenabled" == "YES" ]; then
      anbox-tool disable
	mv /home/phablet/Downloads/anboxtoggleRED.desktop /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anboxtoggleRED.desktop
	mv /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop /home/phablet/Downloads/anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop 
else
      anbox-tool enable
	mv /home/phablet/Downloads/anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop
	mv /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anboxtoggleRED.desktop /home/phablet/Downloads/anboxtoggleRED.desktop 
fi

The desktop file anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Anboxtoggle
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon=/home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anbox-green.png
Categories=Utility
Comment=Switch between anbox enabled and disabled
X-Ubuntu-Touch=true
Exec=/home/phablet/.local/share/applications/anboxtoggle.sh

For anboxtoggleRED.desktop you just need to change the icon name in the Icon line to anbox-red.png. You need two different icon pictures, called anbox-red.png and anbox-green.png, as well (just grab some from the net, and change the colours with gimp or a similar program, if neccessary).
Make the other files executable, and put the two icon files and one of the desktop files in /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/, the other desktop file in /home/phablet/Downloads/. (If Anbox currently is runnig, put anboxRed.desktop in .../applications, if not anboxtoggleGREEN.desktop.)

Now there should be just one icon in the app drawer, indicating if anbox is enabled or not, changing is colour with every call.

Have fun!

chrisse

Hi,
Everything works fine, thanks!

hankschwie

Hmmmm.... Don't know why, but the icons vanished from /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/ after a restart of Unity8. I put them back in, but renamed them to match the desktop files, so they now are called anboxtoggleGREEN.png and anboxtoggleRED.png; changed that in the desktop files, too. Hope this will work permanently,

chrisse

You're right, I just restarted Unity8 and they vanished.
Tell me if your solution works before I transfer them again.
Otherwise, I will transfer them to Downloads and copy them to ../applications everytime I restart Unity8 (not often)...

hankschwie

@chrisse

Well, the icons survived a couple of unity8 restarts, and two device restarts, so it looks like the name was important... For all anbox apps the names for the desktop files and their icons are identical except for the ending, so I thought that could do the trick.

chrisse

Two Unity8 restarts and it still works! Thanks!

Lakotaubp

@chrisse Two Lomiri restarts

TobsEnd

Hi,
I tried to use the script, but it couldn't get it to work. I can see the red icon in the drawer but nothing happens when I push the button. Do I have to activate something so that the script can run properly?
Do I need to make script executable with root rights?

hankschwie

@TobsEnd
Yes, you need to make the script executable. It will run without r/w rights later on.

TobsEnd

@hankschwie I do i have to use chmod +x or ```
sudo chmod +x

hankschwie

@TobsEnd
Sorry, I didn't use chmod, but used a nautilus function to set it executable

ls -la in the directory tells me:

rwxr-xr-x 1 heinrich heinrich 631 Mär 15 19:30 anboxtoggle.sh
for the skript, so I guess you would have to use the sudo version.