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WorkingOnIt

Member

Registered: 2014-05-23

Posts: 50

[SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

I would like to add network manager to the top gnome panel so that I can choose what networks to connect to, etc more easily. I would think this would be fairly routine, but I've been unable to find anything that works about it on the forums or from a google search, nor could I find anything that does precisely this on https://extensions.gnome.org/, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist on there. I've tried multiple combinations of alt/super/ctrl-right-click, but none of them worked. However, if there's another you think I should try, tell me, as there's always the chance that I missed it.

gnome-session --version yields: gnome-session 3.12.1

Please let me know if I should provide any additional information. Thanks!

EDIT: In case I didn't make it clear, I'm having no problems with wireless; I set it all up during installation as per the beginner's guide. I'd just like to get a networks tab on the top panel to make switching and adding networks easier.

EDIT2: I have changed the subject from "Adding things to top gnome panel, such as network manager?"

EDIT3: I added "EDIT:wicd?" to the end but had to remove it to add "[SOLVED]".

Last edited by WorkingOnIt (2014-05-24 18:32:58)

ooo

Member

Registered: 2013-04-10

Posts: 1,638

Re: [SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

You shouldn't need to add anything, network setting should be available by default on the top-right corner menu if you're using networkmanager.
afaik it won't work with other "network managers" like netctl etc.

WorkingOnIt

Member

Registered: 2014-05-23

Posts: 50

Re: [SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

Thanks for the answer. Stupid question on my part then. I'll double-check in the morning what network manager I'm using then and hopefully get this working.

WorkingOnIt

Member

Registered: 2014-05-23

Posts: 50

Re: [SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

Ok, so turns out I was using netctl. I managed to show the NetworkManager part on the top by following the instructions outlined here: http://www.jeffstory.org/wordpress/?p=669.
However, then NetworkManager was taking a very long time to connect to the network, so I switched back to netctl and then installed wicd, which I've used previously and really liked.
However, now I can't get wicd to show up on the notification bar! I tried running wicd-client --tray, but nothing came up, even after restarting gnome with alt-f2 r.
I installed wicd-gtk and optional packages notification-daemon and python2-notify.

Does anyone know have any ideas to put the wicd notification up?

ooo

Member

Registered: 2013-04-10

Posts: 1,638

Re: [SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

Does anyone know have any ideas to put the wicd notification up?

The top bar icon only works with networkmanager. It may be possible to write a gnome extension for wicd, but I'm not sure whether the extension API would allow to do that.
However if wickd-gtk has a tray icon, it should appear in bottom message tray

edit. If you prefer how networkmanager works with gnome, you may be able to improve connection time by passing noarp option for dhcpcd (unless you are using dhclient instead of dhcpcd for some reason)

Last edited by ooo (2014-05-24 18:12:07)

WorkingOnIt

Member

Registered: 2014-05-23

Posts: 50

Re: [SOLVED] Adding network manager to top gnome panel/notification bar?

Ah, thanks a lot; [Super]m brings up the notification bar, and wicd is right there; I was mixing up the bottom message tray and the top panel.

Thanks for your help! Marking as solved.