Support the background apps portal (`org.freedesktop.portal.Background`)

[nekohayo]

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Feature request

People who use this app (instead of GNOME Online Accounts' built-in NextCloud feature, or people on other modern sandboxed & portalized Wayland-based Linux desktops) sometimes have the expectation that it would show some indication that it's running in the background on Pantheon, GNOME, or other Linux desktops that don't provide a legacy tray icon widget. This app, along with Steam, is pretty much the only thing I keep hearing complaints about on this front (personally, I have over a hundred GUI apps installed and none of them have this problem).

To help solve this, this application should support the FreeDesktop background apps portal (org.freedesktop.portal.Background).

This would allow the NextCloud desktop sync app to better let the operating system (and user) know when it's running in the background, and desktops to potentially better integrate it, now and in the future. Additionally, an app relying on tray icons isn't the best UX. They're inconsistent, buggy, not compatible with a sandbox, and barely function as-is (as @orowith2os said in the Steam ticket).

Historical context:

• https://blogs.gnome.org/aday/2017/08/31/status-icons-and-gnome/
• https://blog.tingping.se/2019/09/07/how-to-design-a-modern-status-icon.html
• Future UX in GNOME: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Design/os-mockups/-/work_items/191

[nekohayo]

This FreeDesktop specification is already implemented by a couple of desktop environments (if this wiki page is any indication, this is at least supported by KDE, Deepin, Cinnamon, GNOME, elementaryOS/Pantheon, and possibly others).

My general impression is that this would be the more future-proof, sustainable and natively-integrated way to handle the traditional "minimize to system tray icon" usecase in the long term, particularly for applications running inside Flatpak. It lets the app officially keep running in the background without a visible window, without its process getting killed by the Flatpak sandbox for security reasons.

It also lets you do things like specifying the reason why it is running, using the SetStatus function so the desktop environment UI can also expose this for the user. For example, Pika Backup says "Monitoring Backup Schedule", Shortwave says "Playing [the radio station name]", etc.

[nekohayo]

Reportedly (according to @natanox) the app "lacks context menu features". If I am not mistaken, this would require using the "DynamicLauncher" portal, I think? I'm not entirely knowledgeable about this nor the requirements, so that probably should be filed as a separate feature request by someone who knows what they would expect in terms of actions/features for the desktop app launcher's right-click menu entries.

[natanox]

Reportedly (according to @natanox) the app "lacks context menu features".

That's a misunderstanding from our heated discussion about GNOME earlier. Nextcloud Desktop of course has a context menu, GNOME doesn't allow access to those by default though.

However it (the app) doesn't show on a GNOME desktop by default at all if it was installed via distro repo. Using extensions such as this one to introduce AppIndicator and KStatusNotifier support the app shows up and the context menu fully works. So:

Nextcloud client via Flatpak: Does show up in the background task list as expected, however there's no context menu. This is just GNOME and not an issue with the Nextcloud client.

Nextcloud client via distro repo: Doesn't show up as background program in GNOME without extension (tested on CachyOS), which is indeed quite an issue.

[nekohayo]

Nextcloud client via Flatpak: Does show up in the background task list as expected, however there's no context menu. This is just GNOME and not an issue with the Nextcloud client.

I see, but presumably it also does not show those menus on the app launcher (whether it is pinned to the dash or just in the apps grid), right?

If so, I believe it would be worth using the DynamicLauncher API so that those actions are exposed there too (or at least, it wouldn't hurt to do so). A few apps like web browsers, email clients, LibreOffice, etc. already do that. For example:

…and then maybe GNOME Shell could expose those same menu actions when right-clicking the app in the backgrounded apps list. I have made the suggestion here: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/work_items/9262