Functional Programming in C++

Lancelot, Plasma theme, Scroll buttons... and other FAQ

Published by Ivan Čukić in the KDE development: Plasma section, on 13 September 2008

Hi all, long time no see.

I have been receiving the same questions over and over again, some of them even through the bugs.kde.org so I’ve decided to answer them for the last time here.

Why doesn’t Lancelot follow Plasma theme?

Yes it does. But your theme doesn’t provide the necessary files needed by Lancelot. At the moment the only theme that does provide the needed files (because those are shipped with Lancelot) is the default Oxygen theme. Standard Plasma themes are not sufficient simply because Lancelot has much more graphic elements than other Plasma applets. (and no, using the task manager’s buttons and dialogue background for Lancelot’s buttons and background is no option - it is even uglier than having a default themed Lancelot).

Scroll buttons should disappear when… should not cover the items… should… or should…

Scroll buttons should not do anything. Anything except be thrown out of Lancelot, that is. The scroll buttons and the old ActionListView (the widget that shows the lists in Lancelot) are being obsoleted and will not see the light in Lancelot again.

In a nutshell, the scroll buttons will be replaced by scrollbars as you can see in the screenshot (yes, it is a screenshot, not a mockup, thus the rendering glitches).

I want to be able to use Lancelot only by keyboard…

I do too! I really do. The thing with the old ActionListView is that it was not easy to add the keyboard support to it. Now, the new ActionListView (named ActionListView2 at the moment) is being developed on top of newly developed Lancelot widgets (ScrollPane, CustomList, CustomListView…) and will eventually provide all the fancy stuff you requested.

You can test the ActionListView2 right now, by just uncommenting one line in the ActionListView.h file (it is obvious which one). But mind that it will render Lancelot unusable since it is far from finished. But it does scroll using scroll bars. :)

These answers (not this detailed, though) are also added to the FAQ section of Lancelot’s website so they will never be answered by me again.

Dave Walker
I used lancelot for about 30 seconds before deleting kickoff from my panel. Love it! Thanks for a great applet!!
Jonathan Thomas
@FVA It happens with KDE 4.1.1 too.
Ivan Čukić
@FVA It is /by design/. The reason is a technical in nature - the menu is completely independent from the applets and knows nothing about them. You can have zero, one or more applets, but you always have exactly one menu.
FVA
Is it by design that lancelot opens in the middle of my screen if I press the global shortcut, or is this due to the fact that I'm running a KDE svn build of yesterday morning?
Jonas
Just a heads-up: the link to the website is broken.
And a question while I'm at it: what determines what is listed under the Computer->System tab? Can it be altered by the user somehow?
SVG Crazy
Hi!
First of all, Lancelot is an excellent applet!
One feature I miss a lot is the possibility to clear recent used documents (just like kickoff - right-click button on Recent Documents)
Keep up the excellent work!
Ivan Čukić
@Jonas Thanks, I've copied it from a wrong place :)
Not at the moment, maybe in the future.
@SVG Crazy OK, it seems you're not the only one :)