Skype-wrapper is a plugin that integrates Skype with Unity. It adds the Skype icon to the messaging menu and quicklist items to the launcher. It also uses the Unity notification style to notify you of incoming calls/messages.
Installation
Open a terminal and type: The above commands assume that you have already installed Skype in your system.
Running Skype-wrapper
Once you installed Skype and Skype-wrapper, you will find that there are two instances of Skype in your computer. You need to identify which is which and run only Skype-wrapper, and not Skype.
Open Nautilus File Manager and navigate to “usr/share/applications”. Scroll down the application list till you see two Skype icons.
To identify which one is which, right click on the Skype icon and select Properties. The one that shows the “skype-wrapper” in the Command field is the one that you want. Drag this icon to the Unity Launcher.
Click on the icon to launch Skype. A popup will appear to prompt you to grant access to the skype-wrapper app. Check “Remember this selection” and click “Yes”.
Once it is authorized, you should see the Skype entry in the messaging menu and any incoming notification will follow the Unity style.
Right clicking the Skype icon on the launcher also show the quicklist items. You can View Incoming Message and Add Contacts.
Skype-wrapper also comes with a Settings option that allows you to configure its behavior. From the dash, search for skype-wrapper and you should see the “Skype-Wrapper Settings” app. In the Settings, you can configure the events to show notification and whether the file transfer progress should appear in the launcher.
Removing Skype icon from the systray
After the unity integration, there is one thing left that you need to get rid of. If you can’t stand the green Skype icon that didn’t go well with the Unity theme, you can remove it by uninstalling the “sni-qt” package. Note that a few other application, such as Dropbox, depend on the “sni-qt” package to display icon in the systray, and removing this package will affect these apps as well. Here’s what you need to do: The next time you launch Skype-wrapper, the green Skype icon won’t be around anymore.
Uninstalling Skype-wrapper
To completely remove Skype-wrapper from your computer, first open up your Skype option and go to “Public API” (the last option in the left sidebar). Select “Skype4Py” and click Remove.
Next, uninstall skype-wrapper from your computer: That’s it.
