Ivan Čukić

dr Ivan Čukić

Author of "Functional Programming in C++", KDE developer and Free/Libre software enthusiast

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Alternative widgets explorer [Plasma]

Published by Ivan Čukić in the KDE development: Plasma section, on 15 May 2010

Preamble: I have no intention to start a dispute related to the new applet browser in Plasma. Some people like it, some don’t, some prefer the old one, some want something completely different…

As you don’t already know :), Marco did some great work which I’m not gonna talk about - he said he’ll make a screencast of it eventually. So I’ll just mention a side-effect of that made possible by a 1-minute patch by yours truly.

KRunner (and Lancelot, naturally) as widget explorers

From KDE SC 4.5, you’ll be able to fire up KRunner or Lancelot, search for some plasma widget and drag it to the desktop.

Well, that’s all :)

Edit: You can also create a shortcut like Meta+P to open krunner with only this /plasma/ runner enabled via Global Shortcuts (thanks vilder for info)

Comments:

BartOtten
Much better! (no time to rant about the default)
Nenad
Dobra ideja, samo se nadam da to neće usporiti krunner do te mere da startovanje kejta traje duže od 10 sekundi :)
Dennis Nienhüser
Hey Ivan,
thanks for the tip and the work behind, appreciated :) Lancelot is among the first things I set up when configuring a KDE session for the first time. I'm not much a fan of kickoff and the new plasma applet browser -- great to here that Lancelot can now replace both.
Dennis
Tweets that mention Ivan Čukić » Alternative widgets explorer [Plasma] -- Topsy.com
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by leinir, Ivan Čukić. Ivan Čukić said: New blog post: Alternative widgets explorer [Plasma] https://cukic.co/blog/2010/05/15/alternative-widgets-explorer-plasma/ [...]
uetsah
How will someone who has not read this article know that the respective item is meant to be dragged (rather than clicked)?
Will there be some kind of visual distinction in the final version?
What happens if the item is clicked, or executed with [ENTER]?
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18541" rel="nofollow">uetsah</a>: The standard activation is what I sad I'll not mention - not to spoil Marco's surprise :)
It is like searching for applications/documents, you can click (or press enter) to open them, and you can drag them to add them to desktop/panel/open in some application etc.
Fri13
So all what is left for "fixing" is the locking system.
Now no one can not use Plasma features and keep widgets locked. User is forced to have a desktop unlocked.
Like you can not keep widgets locked and add shortcuts or icons to desktop. You can not even drag the notification from the pop-up window and get it separated somewhere else.
There is lots of problems from the locking mechanism, like this adding a new widget. There is even a bug on system tray that you can open the "plasma widgets" from it options, but you can not enable/disable any without first unlocked plasma and then going to settings.
As far I have no such great use for plasma when I can not use it as it was suppose to be used.
maninalift
When I need to "do something" on my desktop it is an automatic reaction now to hit alt-F2, my concious thought process then sometimes has to kick-in and say "you're using windows silly" OR "you can't add widgets with KRunner silly".
This means one less case where my automatic reaction is rudely interrupted.
Also this just seems better than the slightly awkward current widget explorer (I did wonder whether a full-screen grid-layout of widgets which would fade away when you started dragging a widget somewhere would be better).
thorGT
Is this the plasma-windowed shell or do real widgets get added to the desktop? If so, does it work with the panel?
In general, that's really one more unnatural thing less. The more we can do with KRunner, the better.
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18539" rel="nofollow">thorGT</a>: p-w is used if you execute the result from krunner. If you drag and drop, you get exactly the same thing like when dragging from the normal applet browser - that is, it works with the panel. :)
Ivan Čukić
The system tray settings now has a 'unlock widgets' button.
But, yes, I do see your points regarding the lock mechanism...
it-s
My clock! Where did you get it?
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Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-18512" rel="nofollow">yoda</a>: Well, there's no point integrating it - just press alt+f2 and it's there :)
@<a href="#comment-18500" rel="nofollow">Nenad</a>: It is rather fast - the slow runners are the ones that do network transfers, disk searches...
@others Glad you like it :)
Diego
That's pure rock guys, keep it up!
yoda
this is great! it should be configurable to choose between standard plasmoid browser and this one krunner integrated :)
peter
thanks. its nice to be able to search, and list widgets vertically again.
Beat Wolf
Thats great news! way faster than the current widget explorer! very handy if i want to add quickly a notes plasmoid to the desktop
TZ
It's very positive news.
Vickers
The way various things are interconnected in KDE is awesome! :)

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