getlantern/systray

Systray is a Go library that lets you add an icon and a menu to the system tray area of the operating system -- the small icon area near the clock on Windows, the menu bar on macOS, or the notification area on Linux. This is the region where background applications typically place themselves so the user can access settings or quit the app without the app having a full visible window. The library works across all three major desktop platforms from a single Go codebase. You provide two functions: one that runs when the app is ready (where you set the icon, tooltip, and menu items) and one that runs when the app exits. Menu items can be enabled or disabled, and they can show a checkmark. On macOS and Windows, individual menu items can also have their own icons. For developers, the setup process is straightforward on Windows and macOS, but Linux requires installing some system-level graphics libraries before building. The library requires cgo (a feature of Go that allows calling C code), so that setting needs to be enabled at build time. The repository includes a small working example application that you can compile and run to see a tray icon appear on your system right away. A separate webview example demonstrates running a tray icon alongside a web-based UI panel. The library is actively maintained by the team behind Lantern, a privacy networking tool, which is the origin of this fork. The README points to full API documentation and a changelog for developers who want to explore the complete set of options.