Score:4

what is the wnck-applet?

au flag
j0h

I just want to know what the wnck-applet is, and or what it does. I located the program at /usr/lib/mate-panel/wnck-applet man wnck nothing. googled it, I see folks having problems with it, but nothing saying what it is.

Score:3
zw flag

From my understanding wnck-applet in MATE is legacy of GNOME Panel, before GNOME Shell introducion.

Some clues from Debian codesearch:

  • libwnck3/40.0-2/HACKING:

    gnome-panel/applets/wncklet/
      The actual panel applets based on libwnck (the window list, window
      selector, workspace switcher and show desktop button) are found in
      this directory under gnome-panel, and all run as the process
     "wnck-applet".
    
  • org.mate.panel.Wncklet.mate-panel-applet.desktop.in.in

    ...
    [WindowMenuApplet]
    Name=Window Selector
    Description=Switch between open windows using a menu
    ...
    MateComponentId=OAFIID:MATE_WindowMenuApplet;
    ...
    X-MATE-Bugzilla-OtherBinaries=wnck-applet
    
    [WorkspaceSwitcherApplet]
    Name=Workspace Switcher
    Description=Switch between workspaces
    ...
    MateComponentId=OAFIID:MATE_WorkspaceSwitcherApplet;OAFIID:MATE_PagerApplet;
    X-MATE-Bugzilla-OtherBinaries=wnck-applet
    
    [WindowListApplet]
    Name=Window List
    Description=Switch between open windows using buttons
    ...
    MateComponentId=OAFIID:MATE_TasklistApplet;OAFIID:MATE_WindowListApplet;
    ...
    X-MATE-Bugzilla-OtherBinaries=wnck-applet
    
    [ShowDesktopApplet]
    Name=Show Desktop
    Description=Hide application windows and show the desktop
    ...
    MateComponentId=OAFIID:MATE_ShowDesktopApplet;
    ...
    X-MATE-Bugzilla-OtherBinaries=wnck-applet
    

In Ubuntu mate-panel package depends on libwnck-3-0 package, so above assumptions are actual.

As an experiment you can try to run killall wnck-applet on the system with MATE desktop using default settings. It will lead to crashes of the above mentioned applets on the bottom MATE Panel - Show Desktop, Window List and Workspace Switcher (and Window Selector if you have enabled it). Clicking Reload in each Error window will reload wnck-applet and all the functionality will be restored.

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