Re-enable Shutter App Icon in Ubuntu 18.04 System Tray

shutter-icon

Shutter, one of the most popular Linux screenshot tool, has two annoying issues in Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome desktop.

Shutter in Ubuntu 18.04 can not edit picture images. The edit option is grayed out due to lack of libgoo-canvas-perl library. And there’s already a step by step tutorial shows how to re-enable Edit option in Shutter.

Another issue is that the Shutter indicator icon in top-right system tray is also missing in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

That’s because Ubuntu 18.04 main repository removes ‘libgtk2-appindicator-perl’, a perl bindings for libappindicator that Shutter requires it for showing software icon in system tray.

A workaround is to install a perl extension for libappindicator library. And below will show you how:

1. Search for and open “terminal” from application launcher.

launch-terminal

2. When it opens, run command to install the application indicator libraries:

sudo apt-get install libappindicator-dev

Input your user password (no password typing feedback) when it prompts and hit Enter.

appindicator-bionic

3. Finally install Gtk2::AppIndicator perl extension for libappindicator:

sudo cpan -i Gtk2::AppIndicator

gtk2-appindicator

If everything goes well, restart Shutter screenshot tool and you’ll see the indicator applet in system tray:

shutter-app-indicator

About ml

ml is a part time stay-at-home dad who've been using Ubuntu Desktop for a few years. He writes in the free time and wishes to share some useful tips with Ubuntu beginners and lovers.

5 comments

  1. Rafael Martines

    I love how Canonical remove things after each release

  2. Thanks for this! The shutter systray is annoying to use and the appindicator is much easier to use with a single click!

  3. Has Shutter broken? It has disappeared completely from my system and I can’t recover it or reinstall it.

    I get:

    shutter:

    Package shutter has no available version, but exists in the database.
    This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded, has been made obsolet or is not available with the contents of sources.list

  4. Nice tipps. Thanks a lot.
    Can you help me, how to make the “print”-key using a region-cut in Shutter?
    I’m on Ubuntu 18.04 and Gnome. I want to press “print” and start a region-screenshot, but I don’t have a clue what to do …
    Thanks, Tom

  5. Thanks. It’s work for me.