First of all I want to say hello to the forum: this is my first post here.
The question is: is there a way to force applications to minimize themselves directly in the system tray at start up?
I try to explain it better: when i start a kde session some applications i've set to autostart, like akregator and kmail, pop up the main windows, so i have to close it every time.
Other applications insted, like amarok, do not show the main window but only the icon in the system tray.
I would like that all applications behave in the second way; I'm able to force to minimize them in the panel, but i haven't found the option to force them to minimize themselves in the sys tray.
Is it possible to do?

Thank's in advance.

Do you use "Restore previous session" (or "Restore manually saved session")? You can set it in System Settings -> Advanced -> Session Manager.

If you use one of these options, you don't have to set applications to autostart. Simple launch the applications you want (e.g. Amarok, Akregator and KMail), minimize to system tray and log out. Next time you login your applications will be restored in the system tray.

You'll notice that other windows that you had opened when you logged out will be restored too. If you don't like that, you can choose "Restore manually saved session"). Then you can set up your session (start the applications you want to be restored) and then choose "Save Session" in your menu (e.g. Kickoff).

As for your question, I recall there was a command for setting up startup options (such as position, start as minimized etc.) for applications in KDE 3.5.x, but I can't remember what it was called.

EDIT: Ah, it's called kstart. There's a --tosystray parameter, but I don't think this the recommended way.
Some applications might have a parameter to start in system tray, and you can also use dbus to "force" them there. However, I think sessions (as I described above) is the right way to go.

Hans wrote:Do you use "Restore previous session" (or "Restore manually saved session")?

Yes, I already use it. But anyway some applications don't behave in the right way: they appear in the sys tray, but also pop up the main window as i described early.

Ah, it's called kstart. There's a --tosystray parameter, but I don't think this the recommended way.

I tried it. But it doesn't change the behaviour of these applications.
So I think it's a problem of these applications, beacause amarok, ktorrent, etc haven't this "problem".
If only i could force their behaviour with window behaviour --> window-specif... but i don't find the right option (if it exists).

Thanks anyway.

Please file bugs aganist these applications if they don't already exist at bugs.kde.org

bcooksley wrote:Please file bugs aganist these applications if they don't already exist at bugs.kde.org

I took a look at bugs.kde.org and i find out that Kmail seems to be affected to this bug from 2004 (!).
About akregator i didn't find anything so i opened a bug report.

For akregator you can use the option --hide-mainwindow although it won't work if you add it as an autostart application. You should create a script for launching akregator with that option and then add your script to autostart scripts.

Howl wrote:About akregator i didn't find anything so i opened a bug report.

This shouldn't be a problem with akregator. I have the same problem you described with Kmail, but akregator starts properly on login (that is, in systray only) and I've done nothing in particular accomplishing that. As far as I can remember, akregator have been well-behaved (in that regard at least, it had some really annoying bugs earlier...) since the first KDE4 version.