Send Firefox to the system tray, in Linux

By Percy Cabello

FireTrayFirefox users who like a clean desktop may already know about MinimizeToTray, a extension developed by Mook and Brad Peterson for Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey on Windows platforms.

As advertised, when you press the minimize button instead of sending it to the task bar it's added to the system tray bar which helps reduce the clutter. You can customize it to do the same when pressing the close button and whether you need to click once or twice in the system tray Firefox icon to restore the window.

Linux user now have the same functionality thanks to FireTray, a developed by Duo for Firefox on Linux only. Here, a Firefox icon is permanently added to the system tray when Firefox is running. Click on it to minimize to the system tray. I tried it in Ubuntu and works perfectly, however this version works only with Gnome desktops but the developer has announced that future versions will fix this.

Try MinimizeToTray and FireTray at Mozilla Add-ons.

Posted on May 10, 2007 - 11:41 am || More on Extensions, Firefox, Reviews, SeaMonkey, Thunderbird

Comments

Adri Vingerhoets

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work here on KDE 3.5.4.
I hope this can be fixed.

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Dimas

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

Thx! I was waiting for it!

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john

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

i see the tray icon but firefox stays at both task bar & systray when minimized
gnome/xfce

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Percy Cabello

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

John, you have to click in the systray icon to minimize it to the systray. I’ll add this to the post.

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Simon

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

Dude! We all know that M$ sucks! (Duh!)
You got already “AllTray” @ http://alltray.sourceforge.net/

::: AllTray :::

With AllTray you can dock any application with no native tray icon (like Evolution, Thunderbird, Terminals) into the system tray. A high-light feature is that a click on the “close” button will minimize back to system tray. It works well with Gnome, KDE, XFCE 4*, Fluxbox* and WindowMaker*

*no drag ‘n drop support .

———————-
me? I just LOVE open source… and the freedome to choose! :)

Btw, I got this add-on installed on my FF @ Linux Ubuntu LOL.

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Béranger

May 10, 2007 11:41 am

It doesn’t work with KDE 3.5.6 either :-(
(Mandriva Spring)

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Simon

May 11, 2007 11:41 am

Bug, feature request,
not working application ?

than go to,
FAQ: http://alltray.sourceforge.net/faq.html
Mail: email@jochen-baier.de

you can see it on the down of the page.

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Simon

May 12, 2007 11:41 am

KDE support?
—————
go to the “Discussions” on the FireTray Add-on, and see what the developer has to say!

here is the link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/discussions/comments.php?DiscussionID=1231

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Zenith

May 20, 2007 11:41 am

Percy,
Its a very nice extension and I’ve been waiting for it. I have one question.

Is it possible to have it go straight to system tray when you click on close button of the window (not tab)? Thats how I have it set up in my windows and I would like to have it in Ubuntu as well. I am using Gnome. I was just wondering if it can be done by going to about: config and changing some settings there.

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Percy Cabello

May 20, 2007 11:41 am

Simon, thanks, I’ll update the article.

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sindhu

June 18, 2007 11:41 am

oh wonderful!

but from the last comment i read, that it doesnt work for KDE, am a lil disappointed. i wanted it to run on Fiesty Fawn kubuntu, i havent myself tried it, so let me.

thanks.

http://www.sindhu-s.com/firefox

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Jeanette Marquette

December 6, 2007 11:41 am

Please tell me how to send a link to the desktop. Thank you.

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tim

January 14, 2008 11:41 am

Great. That’s exactly what I was looking for. Thanks again. Unfortunately there’s no support for Firefox v3.0b2 in FireTray. Do you know how to use it anyway? I prefer a ‘native’ solution as I am a bit wary of tools like AllTray. There were cases where AllTray didn’t work as expected.

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