4.5 updates so far

Functional Programming in C++

4.5 updates so far

Published by Ivan Čukić in the KDE development section, on 15 April 2010

I’m not going to make a detailed post, just a screen-shot based overview of the new features you can expect in KDE 4.5.

Cascading popups

There was a lot of talk in the beginning about why Kickoff and Lancelot are not like the classic menu - and don’t have popups. Although I still don’t consider cascading popups to be good, liblancelot supports them. After a large amount of polishing, the feature is ready to be exposed in the menu itself. It is considered experimental, but it works quite well.

How to activate: Configure Lancelot Menu > Applications > Open popups for subcategories

This feature is not yet enabled for the Shelf applet (ex Lancelot Parts) but it still may find its way into it for 4.5.

Smaller section buttons.

vs.

How to activate: Right-click any of the section buttons and choose “Make buttons narrower”

Search history

Lancelot now remembers what you have typed in the search box, and auto-completes your query.

How to activate: Start typing - the closest match will already be in the search box, grayed out a bit. To use the whole completion, press End key. For completing smaller parts, press right arrow key.

Search engines (runners) configuration

Now, you can choose which runners to enable and which ones to disable. You can disable the slow or crashy ones, …

How to activate: Configure Lancelot Menu > Search

Other stuff

Nice animations and better Plasma-feel.
New icon
Akonadi based unread messages
Disk usage pie-charts
Reduced memory footprint
A lot of fixes…

That’s all for now…

marco_pa
Thanks a lot for this menu, I think it should be KDE default app menu! (i hate kickoff! it's so... unplasmalicious!) =)
Could you think about remove the graal icon from the main menu? Ok with branding but... it seems "unprofessional" IMHO :S
Thanks again for your hard work! ;)
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18711" rel="nofollow">marco_pa</a>: The default icon now is KDE logo - <a href="https://cukic.co/blog/2010/02/02/new-icon/" rel="nofollow">see this post for more info.</a>
Xlinux.pl | Strona główna | Konqiklub
[...] Ivan Cukić przykłada starań aby zdążyć z nowościami, w swoim flagowym dziecku, czyli menu Lancelot, do wydania KDE SC 4.5. Niedawno przedstawił kilka ze swoich pomysłów, które świadczą o wielkim ukłonie w stronę użytkowników pamiętających czasy KDE 3.x. Co ciekawe nowe funkcje będą tylko alternatywą, którą będzie można włączyć na specjalne życzenie, więc nie będzie problemów jeśli ktoś chciałby pozostać przy starych przyzwyczajeniach. Czytaj dalej… Fot. Ivan Cukić [...]
marco_pa
@<a href="#comment-18853" rel="nofollow">Ivan Čukić</a>: I'd put those (menu editor, about, etc...) on the right click on panel button menu, after all they are "one time" settings, you don't use them every day.
Of course this is just my opinion :)
marco_pa
In fact they already ARE in on the right click (apart "about") =P
I'd move the about on the right click and clean the launcher UI :)
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18931" rel="nofollow">marco_pa</a>: Hmh, maybe - initially, it was done because the menu can be used without the applet... I'll have to think about it.
marco_pa
Thanks for your reply =)
but i was talking about this (red marked) icon: http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/466/screen1b.png (do u like my desktop? lol XD)
Keep up the great work! ;)
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18842" rel="nofollow">marco_pa</a>: Ah, that icon... The reason it is like that is that it is an application menu, and I had no idea what else to put there.
And, I kinda liked the solution :)
sojin
Thanks a lot Ivan for this wonderful Menu for KDE, I've always thought of why KDE lacks a polished start up menu. Current menu's, like classic or Raptor doesn't even suits to the KDE 4.4 look and feel. Keep up good work... I'm new to KDE world, albeit downloading the source, (thinking of contributing.. if I can get hold of the source)
Dave Underwood
G'day Ivan.
Two points if I may.
1. I like the new 'smaller section buttons' option. However, would be possible to include a 'no text option' also.
2. I'm not sure why but for some reason Lancelot does not follow my mouse cursor theme choice. As such whenever I navigate Lancelot the mouse cursor reverts to the 'default' look. Any suggestions.
Cheers, and thanks for the work you do.
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-23730" rel="nofollow">Dave Underwood</a>: You may :)
1. There'd be too much empty space, but I'll think about it.
2. That means that L is started in a different environment (with a different set of env variables) somehow - that's an installation problem.
Dave Underwood
G'day again Ivan, thanks for the response.
With regard to point two, L on my system (Debian sid) has just recently been updated along with KDE to 4.5.1 via the Debian QT-KDE repo. Though originally installed via the sid repo.
I can appreciate that this may well be an 'unsupported' install.
but do you have any advice on how I could check the launch / environment variables that L 'lives' under and possibly tweak it to enable 'normal' mouse theming.
Cheers.
Dave.