Breathe, breathe in the air Don’t be afraid to care_
The KDE 4.2 has been released today. Although in the image below, and in this post’s title it says “Breathe”, the official code name is “The Answer” since it is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything [link]
The release announcement can be found here, but for more information you should head straight to the visual guide which was nicely prepared for all of us by the KDE Promo team.
Introducing Lancelot
It is a peculiar feeling, although most of you who read my blog know what Lancelot is, and possibly using it already, KDE 4.2 is the first version that ships it. So, it is like Lancelot didn’t exist before, it is a new KDE application. Therefore, I’ll post here a small introduction of what it is.
Lancelot is an application launcher menu (or ALI) for KDE 4 designed to provide a place from which all your jobs begin. It provides quick access to applications, places, documents, contacts and system information.
For detailed info and documentation, visit the website.
For those of you who know what Lancelot is, here are the improvements since the 1.0 version:
- Full keyboard support
- New lists with scrollbars
- Themes that match Plasma themes from
kdeplasma-addonskdeartwork module - Even less bugs
KRunner integration
The most elusive feature in Lancelot is its KRunner integration. There are two reasons for that, the other menus (I speak mostly of Kickoff, as it is the default menu) tend to search only through the applications they navigate. The second reason is that the users are so accustomed to Alt+F2 to start commands, that they can’t be bothered to try something new.
As you probably know, KRunner now comes with two different interfaces which you can set in its configuration dialogue. Lancelot is the third. It integrates the menu and the usual application (and whatnot) browsing with the power of the /Run/ dialogue. Everything that you can do with the default KRunner interface, you can with Lancelot also (yes, the calculator also works :) ).
It is not my intention to say that you should ditch KRunner, it is an awesome application, but if you are really accustomed to L’s interface, you don’t need to use two different applications for basically the same task - starting applications. Before KDE 4.2, this was a bit tricky since you had to click on the search result in order to start it, but now, you can just press “Enter” to start the first match, or you could navigate with your arrow keys. The keyboard is a wonder, I say!
Dot
One of the great things that followed 4.2 is the new Dot (dot.kde.org). It looks fantastic! (I’m even thinking of changing the theme of my blog to something like the new dot interface).
In the other news, there were a couple of KDE bashing news lately which I really don’t care for. So, here’s just one quote for them (when I say “them”, I don’t think of poor Linus who doesn’t enjoy the bliss of KDE anymore, but of all others who made it a big deal, and started flames all over the net):
- _**The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more it will contract.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.**_
