How to re-enable Ubuntu 13.04 systray to display Pidgin and other programs.

Previously, Ubuntu tweak, myUnity and other Unity tweaking tools can provide configuration to modify current whitelist for Unity’s system tray or systray. But with recent upgrade (as usual), it was suddenly gone and nowhere to be found.

But at last, there’s a workaround (again..pfff) for this, here’s how:

1. Add this PPA and update+upgrade your Ubuntu 13.04 system.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:timekiller/unity-systrayfix
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

2. Afterwards, restart Unity, press ALT+F2 (run application), then type in  unity, press ENTER key.

3. You must have  dconf-editor to modify configuration, if not yet installed, do this:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

4. Open dconf-editor and navigate to  com > canonical > unity > panel  and the “systray-whitelist” should be displayed there so you can enable some apps to be able to use the systray. From the default setting, change it to ‘all’ (yes with the single quote “‘“character)

5. Then configure Pidgin, from Tools > Preferences. Set the Show System Tray Icon to “always”

6. Done.