Quick and easy: trayicon with python?

Question

I'd just need a quick example on how to easily put an icon with python on my systray. This means: I run the program, no window shows up, just a tray icon (I've got a png file) shows up in the systray and when I right-click on it a menu appears with some options (and when I click on an option, a function is run). Is that possible? I don't need any window at all...

Examples / code snippets are REALLY appreciated! :D

Answer 1

For Windows & Gnome

Here ya go! wxPython is the bomb. Adapted from the source of my Feed Notifier application.

import wx

TRAY_TOOLTIP = 'System Tray Demo'
TRAY_ICON = 'icon.png'


def create_menu_item(menu, label, func):
    item = wx.MenuItem(menu, -1, label)
    menu.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, func, id=item.GetId())
    menu.AppendItem(item)
    return item


class TaskBarIcon(wx.TaskBarIcon):
    def __init__(self):
        super(TaskBarIcon, self).__init__()
        self.set_icon(TRAY_ICON)
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_TASKBAR_LEFT_DOWN, self.on_left_down)

    def CreatePopupMenu(self):
        menu = wx.Menu()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Say Hello', self.on_hello)
        menu.AppendSeparator()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Exit', self.on_exit)
        return menu

    def set_icon(self, path):
        icon = wx.IconFromBitmap(wx.Bitmap(path))
        self.SetIcon(icon, TRAY_TOOLTIP)

    def on_left_down(self, event):
        print 'Tray icon was left-clicked.'

    def on_hello(self, event):
        print 'Hello, world!'

    def on_exit(self, event):
        wx.CallAfter(self.Destroy)


def main():
    app = wx.PySimpleApp()
    TaskBarIcon()
    app.MainLoop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 2

wx.PySimpleApp deprecated, here's how to use wx.App instead

Took me while to figure this out so I thought I'd share. wx.PySimpleApp is deprecated in wxPython 2.9 and beyond. Here's FogleBird's original script using wx.App instead.

import wx

TRAY_TOOLTIP = 'System Tray Demo'
TRAY_ICON = 'icon.png'

def create_menu_item(menu, label, func):
    item = wx.MenuItem(menu, -1, label)
    menu.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, func, id=item.GetId())
    menu.AppendItem(item)
    return item

class TaskBarIcon(wx.TaskBarIcon):
    def __init__(self, frame):
        self.frame = frame
        super(TaskBarIcon, self).__init__()
        self.set_icon(TRAY_ICON)
        self.Bind(wx.EVT_TASKBAR_LEFT_DOWN, self.on_left_down)

    def CreatePopupMenu(self):
        menu = wx.Menu()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Say Hello', self.on_hello)
        menu.AppendSeparator()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Exit', self.on_exit)
        return menu

    def set_icon(self, path):
        icon = wx.IconFromBitmap(wx.Bitmap(path))
        self.SetIcon(icon, TRAY_TOOLTIP)

    def on_left_down(self, event):
        print 'Tray icon was left-clicked.'

    def on_hello(self, event):
        print 'Hello, world!'

    def on_exit(self, event):
        wx.CallAfter(self.Destroy)
        self.frame.Close()

class App(wx.App):
    def OnInit(self):
        frame=wx.Frame(None)
        self.SetTopWindow(frame)
        TaskBarIcon(frame)
        return True

def main():
    app = App(False)
    app.MainLoop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 3

2018 version

import wx.adv
import wx
TRAY_TOOLTIP = 'Name' 
TRAY_ICON = 'icon.png' 


def create_menu_item(menu, label, func):
    item = wx.MenuItem(menu, -1, label)
    menu.Bind(wx.EVT_MENU, func, id=item.GetId())
    menu.Append(item)
    return item


class TaskBarIcon(wx.adv.TaskBarIcon):
    def __init__(self, frame):
        self.frame = frame
        super(TaskBarIcon, self).__init__()
        self.set_icon(TRAY_ICON)
        self.Bind(wx.adv.EVT_TASKBAR_LEFT_DOWN, self.on_left_down)

    def CreatePopupMenu(self):
        menu = wx.Menu()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Site', self.on_hello)
        menu.AppendSeparator()
        create_menu_item(menu, 'Exit', self.on_exit)
        return menu

    def set_icon(self, path):
        icon = wx.Icon(path)
        self.SetIcon(icon, TRAY_TOOLTIP)

    def on_left_down(self, event):      
        print ('Tray icon was left-clicked.')

    def on_hello(self, event):
        print ('Hello, world!')

    def on_exit(self, event):
        wx.CallAfter(self.Destroy)
        self.frame.Close()

class App(wx.App):
    def OnInit(self):
        frame=wx.Frame(None)
        self.SetTopWindow(frame)
        TaskBarIcon(frame)
        return True

def main():
    app = App(False)
    app.MainLoop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Answer 4

If you can guarantee windows and you do not want to introduce the heavy dependencies of wx, you can do this with the pywin32 extensions.

Also see this question.

Answer 5

For Ubuntu

class TrayIcon:
    def init():


iconPath = {"Windows":os.path.expandvars("%PROGRAMFILES%/MyProgram/icon.png"),
                  "Linux":"/usr/share/icons/myprogramicon.png"}        
    if platform.system()=="Linux":
        import gtk
        import appindicator # Ubuntu apt-get install python-appindicator 

    # Create an application indicator
    try:
        gtk.gdk.threads_init()
        gtk.threads_enter()
        icon = iconPath[platform.system()]
        indicator = appindicator.Indicator("example-simple-client", "indicator-messages", appindicator.CATEGORY_APPLICATION_STATUS)
        indicator.set_icon(icon)
        indicator.set_status (appindicator.STATUS_ACTIVE)
        indicator.set_attention_icon ("indicator-messages-new")
        menu = gtk.Menu()

        menuTitle = "Quit"   
        menu_items = gtk.MenuItem(menuTitle)
        menu.append(menu_items)
        menu_items.connect("activate", TrayIcon.QuitApp, menuTitle)
        menu_items.show()

        menuTitle = "About My Program"
        menu_items = gtk.MenuItem(menuTitle)
        menu.append(menu_items)
        menu_items.connect("activate", TrayIcon.AboutApp, menuTitle)
        menu_items.show()   

        indicator.set_menu(menu)    
    except:
        pass

    # Run the app indicator on the main thread.
    try:

        t = threading.Thread(target=gtk.main)
        t.daemon = True # this means it'll die when the program dies.
        t.start()
        #gtk.main()

    except:
        pass
    finally:
        gtk.threads_leave()     

@staticmethod
def AboutApp(a1,a2):
    gtk.threads_enter()
    dialog = gtk.Dialog("About",
                        None,
                        gtk.DIALOG_MODAL | gtk.DIALOG_DESTROY_WITH_PARENT,
                        (gtk.STOCK_OK, gtk.RESPONSE_ACCEPT))
    label = gtk.Label("My Program v0.0.1, (C)opyright ME 2015. All rights reserved.")
    dialog.vbox.pack_start(label)
    label.show()
    label2 = gtk.Label("example.com\n\nFor more support contact me@gmail.com")
    label2.show()
    dialog.action_area.pack_end(label2)
    response = dialog.run()
    dialog.destroy()
    gtk.threads_leave()

@staticmethod
def QuitApp(a1, a2):
    sys.exit(0)

Cross-Platform

See PyQt: Show menu in a system tray application

Answer 6

An alternative if you are trying to run a python based program in the background you can run it as a service. Check out this active state recipe its pretty useful. I believe one of the options is to convert your application to exe with py2exe or pyinstall.

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/551780/

Answer 7

Yes. There is a cross-platform example on wiki.wxpython.org that I've tested with python 2.7 (minconda install) on macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), Windows 7, and gnome 3/centos7. It is here (ignore the page title): https://wiki.wxpython.org/Custom%20Mac%20OsX%20Dock%20Bar%20Icon

Small mods are needed for python 3.6:

• you must import wx.adv
• wx.TaskBarIcon becomes wx.adv.TaskBarIcon
• wx.IconFromBitmap becomes wx.Icon

Gnome 3 required installation of TopIcons Plus.

Since you don't want to have the window display (" no window shows up, just a tray icon"), simply comment out the following line (though you still want to keep the wx.Frame parent):

frame.Show(True)

And since you want to use your own .png icon, remove the WXPdemo image and embeddedimage stuff and replace

icon = self.MakeIcon(WXPdemo.GetImage())

with, for example

icon = wx.Icon('icon.png')

In my experience, this will provide a good start for adapting or extending further.

Answer 8

For an example, refer to this thread -> wx question.

wxPython "classic" -> [new API] wxPython 'Phoenix' (Py3)

Answer 9

Three is a package called pystray(bad name, just say it out loud) but works like a charm and is more lightweight than wx ot qt. These are the links
https://pystray.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
https://pypi.org/project/pystray/