Set Notification Icon in Gnome Shell >= 3.16 (Custom Extension)

Question

I've forked a Gnome Shell Extension, as I want to modify it to fit my personal preferences. I want to send a notification each time an event occurs. Sending the notification itself is fairly easy with Main.notify(summary, text). However, I just can't find out how to set a custom icon. [EDIT: The following is wrong. I looked up bad code]According to the github repo of gnome-shell I can define an icon via an optional parameter: Main.notify(summary, text, params), where params will be checked in MessageTray.js l.367:

params = Params.parse(params, { gicon: null,
                                secondaryGIcon: null,
                                bannerMarkup: false,
                                clear: false,
                                soundName: null,
                                soundFile: null });

if (params.gicon || params.clear)
    this.gicon = params.gicon;

So I tried to use the following command:

Main.notify(summary, text, {gicon: myicon});

But the {gicon: myicon} part is ignored completely and the default icon is used :-/. I'm new to Javascript and GNOME programming, so pls don't hate me :-)

Is using Main.notify() recommended generally, or is it deprecated?

Cheers, Maphardam

Answer 1

I think that Main.notify() is generally recommended, as it is used in some of the "official" extensions.

However, Main.notify() only takes two parameters (msg, details) and thus you cannot use this function to set a custom icon. You can however copy the source of Main.notify() and adapt it to your own needs. Inside the following function the source of the notification is set to a newly created source with a custom icon.

function notify(msg, details, icon) {
    let source = new MessageTray.Source("MyApp Information", icon);
    Main.messageTray.add(source);
    let notification = new MessageTray.Notification(source, msg, details);
    notification.setTransient(true);
    source.notify(notification);
}

For example you could call it with notify("MyApp", "Test", 'folder-symbolic');.