Tray Module
- type = internal/tray
New in version 3.7.0.
The tray module displays system tray application icons on the bar.
This module is a bit different from the other modules. The tray icons (also called clients) are individual windows managed by their respective application (e.g. the Dropbox tray icon is created and managed by the Dropbox application). Polybar is only responsible for embedding the windows in the bar and positioning them correctly.
Note
Only a single instance of this module can be active at the same time (across all polybar instances).
The way the system tray protocol works, at most one tray can exist at any time. Polybar will produce a warning if additional tray instances are created.
For transparent background colors, the tray will use pseudo-transparency, true transparency is not possible for the tray icons.
Formats
The module only has a single format:
Settings
- tray-padding
Space added before and after each tray icon
- Type:
extent, non-negative
- Default Value:
0px
- tray-size
Size of individual tray icons
- Type:
percentage with offset, relative to bar height, non-negative
- Default Value:
66%
- tray-background
Background color of tray icons
Note
This only affects the color of the individual icons and not the space in between, changing this setting to anything else than the bar background will likely not look good unless the background color is also changed for the rest of the tray module (e.g. with
format-background).- Type:
color
- Default Value:
${root.background}
- tray-foreground
Tray icon color
This serves as a hint to the tray icon application for which color to use for the icon.
This is not guaranteed to have any effect (likely only in GTK3) because it targets a non-standard part of the system tray protocol by setting the
_NET_SYSTEM_TRAY_COLORSatom on the tray window.- Type:
color
- Default Value:
${tray-foreground}
Example
[module/tray]
type = internal/tray
format-margin = 8px
tray-spacing = 8px
Migrating From Legacy Tray Implementation
Polybar version 3.7 introduced the new tray module and deprecated the legacy
tray implementation which uses tray-position to position the tray.
You should switch over to the tray module as soon as possible.
The legacy tray was configured in the bar section, the setting for the module live in that module's section of the config file. The settings in the bar section don't always directly correspond to an equivalent setting in the module section for the new tray module.
The following lists how each old setting in the bar section should be migrated:
tray-positionThe tray is now positioned as a module and so its positioning is done by placing it where you want it to appear in one of the three module lists
modules-left,modules-center,modules-right.tray-detachedThis setting does not have an equivalent, detaching the tray is no longer possible.
tray-maxsizeThe
tray-sizesetting now determines the size of tray icons.tray-transparentWas already deprecated and does not exist in the tray module. Transparency is enabled automatically if a transparent background is used.
tray-backgroundAlso exists in the module section (see
tray-background). Now, the setting only applies to the icons themselves and no longer to the space around them.tray-foregroundAlso exists in the module section with the same functionality (see
tray-foreground).tray-offset-x,tray-offset-yHas no direct equivalent in the module settings. Horizontally, the tray can be moved in the same way other module content can be moved; by reordering the modules or using things like
format-offset,format-margin, orformat-padding. The tray can't be moved vertically.In any case, the tray can no longer be moved outside of the bar window.
tray-paddingSpacing between tray icons works a bit different now and needs to be completely reconfigured (see
tray-paddingandtray-spacing).tray-scaleNo longer exist. The size of the icons is solely determined by
tray-size.