KDocker

Dock most applications to the system tray. Just point and click!

All you need to do is start KDocker and select an application using the mouse and the application gets docked into the system tray.

Desktop Environment Behavior

Each desktop environment has slightly different behavior in how they handle the system try. Depending on which desktop environment you're using KDocker might work differently than you expect. The behavior of the system try is defined by the desktop environment and KDocker has no control over these differences in behavior.

Desktop	Left Click	Right Click	Double Click	Scroll Wheel	Notify Click
KDE	show / hide	opens menu	show / hide	nothing	nothing
Gnome	opens menu	opens menu	show / hide	nothing	show
Cinnamon	show / hide	opens menu	show / hide	nothing	nothing
Mate	opens menu	opens Mate applet menu	opens menu	nothing	show
LXDE	show / hide	opens menu	show / hide	show / hide	show
XFCE	show / hide	opens menu	show / hide	nothing	nothing

Notes

Gnome, not all distros install the system tray plugin by default.

DBus Interface

A DBus interface is available at com.kdocker.KDocker/manage and allows performing various actions with KDocker. The interface can be used to script working with KDocker.

Docking methods

Two versions of every method are provided with one being a simple command and the other supporting extended attributes for fine tuned control. DBus does not allow default values to multiple versions of the methods with different options is required.

Method	input	output
dockWindowTitle	(s pattern)	()
dockWindowTitle	(s pattern, u timeout, b checkNormality, a{ss} windowConfig)	()
dockLaunchApp	(s app, as args, s pattern)	()
dockLaunchApp	(s app, as args, s pattern, u timeout, b checkNormality, a{ss} windowConfig)	()
dockWindowId	(u windowId)	(b found)
dockWindowId	(u windowId, a{ss} windowConfig)	(b found)
dockPid	(i pid)	(b found)
dockPid	(i pid, b checkNormality, a{ss} windowConfig)	(b found)
dockSelectWindow	()	()
dockSelectWindow	(b checkNormality, a{ss} windowConfig)	()
dockFocused	()	()
dockFocused	(a{ss} windowConfig)	()

pattern

Pattern is a PCRE regular expression.

If pattern matching on the window name is not wanted with dockLaunchApp use "" as the value.

windowConfig

Tray item options correspond to the options seen in the options menu. It is a list of dictionary references. Keys and value are both strings.

Key	value
icon	file path
attention-icon	file path
iconify-focus-lost	true / false
iconify-minimized	true / false
iconify-obscured	true / false
iconify-docking	true / false
notify-time	seconds
quiet	true / false
skip-pager	true / false
sticky	true / false
skip-taskbar	true / false

Invalid keys are ignored.

Entries in the dictionary are options and only need to be provided if desired. However, DBus does not allow empty dictionary parameters. If no settings are desired either send one with the default value or send a key that isn't valid with any value. E.g. { "a", "b" }.

Docked window management

Method	input	output
listWindows	()	(a{us} windows)
closeWindow	(u windowId)	(b found)
undockWindow	(u windowId)	(b found)
showWindow	(u windowId)	(b found)
hideWindow	(u windowId)	(b found)
undockAll	()	()

Behavior

Method	input	output
keepRunning	()	()
quit	()	()

Auto start

KDocker installs itself as a DBus auto start service using DBus' service activation functionality. If a message for KDocker is sent to the session bus and KDocker is not running, DBus will auto start KDocker.

Not all systems support DBus service activation and will auto start KDocker. The --keep-running command line flag is provided to prevent KDocker from closing when no windows are docked. This is to ensure KDocker will always be running to respond to DBus requests. Useful if scripting KDocker via DBus. This is not necessary if only using KDocker via running kdocker.

Cli Examples

Examples of interacting with KDocker via DBus using the dbus-send utility.

dbus-send --session --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=com.kdocker.KDocker /manage com.kdocker.KdockerInterface.dockSelectWindow
dbus-send --session --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=com.kdocker.KDocker /manage com.kdocker.KdockerInterface.listWindows
dbus-send --session --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=com.kdocker.KDocker /manage com.kdocker.KdockerInterface.hideWindow uint32:73400330
dbus-send --session --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=com.kdocker.KDocker /manage com.kdocker.KdockerInterface.dockWindowTitle string:kcalc uint32:4 boolean:true dict:string:string:"iconify-focus-lost","true"

Project home

https://github.com/user-none/KDocker

Window system

KDocker requires X11 and cannot dock Wayland windows. It is impossible to and KDocker can never work with Wayland. This is due to Wayland's security model and outside of KDocker's control

Some distros default starts the desktop using Wayland. In order to us KDocker, the desktop must be started under X11 instead of Wayland. Please consult your distro's documentation on how to make this change.

Packages

Snap and Flatpak packages are available but due to design decisions surrounding the package systems, KDocker has reduced functionality when installed using either of these.

Snap

Snap isolates applications and limits system access. In order to support application launching, the KDocker snap is built with classic confinement. Otherwise, KDocker would not have access outside of it's isolation to start other applications.

Snap discourages this level, but it is desirable to have full functionality. In the future, most likely, the confinement level will be changed to strict when building the KDocker snap. At that time the application launching functionality will no longer work if using Snap.

DBus auto start does not function because Snap does not currently support this with applications that use the session bus. Start KDocker with the --keep-running option in order to keep KDocker accessible via DBus if no windows are docked.

Flatpak

Flatpak isolates applications and limits system access in much the same way as Snap. Due to this, the KDocker flatpak package cannot launch other applications. There is not currently a work around in Flatpak like there is with Snap.

KDocker will not stay running with the --keep-running option after all windows are undocked. However, DBus auto start will start KDocker as needed, reducing the need for this option.

Building

From source

KDocker requires Qt 6. Unlike the name implies, it does not use any libraries from KDE nor does KDE need to be installed.

Build dependencies for Ubuntu 24.04

• build-essential
• cmake
• ninja-build
• qt6-base-dev
• libx11-dev
• libxcb1-dev

Building

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -G Ninja ..
$ ninja

IMPORTANT: Close all previous instances of KDocker that are running before running a new build. KDocker is a single instance application.

Snap

The snapcraft.yaml file is required to be at the root of the project. It is not there by default to keep the source archive uncluttered. However, it will need to be moved there before a Snap package can be built.

The following will build, install, and run the snap.

$ ln -s resources/snap/snapcraft.yaml snapcraft.yaml
$ snapcraft
$ sudo snap install --dangerous --classic kdocker*.snap
$ snap run kdocker

Installation requires the --dangerous flag because the Snap is not signed. The --classic app is required because of the Snap using classic confinement.

Uninstall

$ sudo snap remove kdocker

Flatpak

When building Flatpak packages the default output is not a .flatpak file. Instead the intended behavior is to upload a build to a repo. However, the following will build, produce a .flatpak file, install, and run KDocker.

$ mkdir build-flatpak
$ flatpak-builder --force-clean --disable-rofiles-fuse build-flatpak/ resources/flatpak/com.kdocker.kdocker.yml
$ flatpak build-export export build-flatpak/
$ flatpak build-bundle export kdocker.flatpak com.kdocker.KDocker
$ flatpak install --user kdocker.flatpak
$ flatpak run com.kdocker.KDocker

Uninstall

$ flatpak remove --user com.kdocker.KDocker