A small visual update of Lancelot’s pies:

Concerning bars instead of pies:

1. Bars below the text (like in dolphin) will not be implemented:

   I’m trying to keep everything in Lancelot generic enough with a complete model-view separation, so introducing a widget just for a specific model is not an option. Comment by Ivan Čukić — 7 February 2010

2. Bars as a part of the icon

   This one would be allowed when concerning the above statement. But I don’t really see the point in doing it. When the usability is concerned, bars are more desired when comparing multiple statistical variables (national growth per year), while when percentages are concerned, pies are the way to go (and to increase the usability even more – these are color coded – from blue, through yellow to red). Introducing a new feature just for the sake of it is not something I’m willing to do. If you can convince me that bars* are better** than pies, I’m ready to listen.

• bars that can fit into the icon itself like the current pies do. ** better as in “should replace the pies” - having a configuration option for something this insignificant would be a waste of space.

Just one image of a new Lancelot feature:

The original Lancelot icon is usually considered weird-looking when seen on a panel (or desktop). Even I have had Lancelot set up not to use it.

I like the old icon very much, and I’m still proud I succeed in making something like that with a vector-graphics program (Inkscape) so it still is, and will be until the end of time, the main icon of the Lancelot project. But from now on, it will not be used for the applet button.

Now, the default icon is the standard KDE icon - the same one other launchers use.

For those of you who want to have a normal-looking icon but still want others to see that you are using Lancelot and not something else, you can use the following one:

The new icon can be set through the applet configuration dialogue.

There was a wish once upon a time to make the section buttons in Lancelot smaller, that is narrower, because people thought that they waste too much space.

At first, I was reluctant since I didn’t see the point in doing it, but I changed my mind recently - Lancelot is pretty much feature-complete as it is (at least from my point of use/view), so I decided to implement something that I absolutely have no use for, but somebody else will. The fact that I’m missing the vertical tabs in Amarok could be another reason in making this :)

So, if you want to have the buttons as shown in the following image, just right-click them and choose the appropriate* option. (mind that this is available in trunk, not in the KDE SC 4.4).

*It says ‘toggle collapsed sections’ at the moment, but I’ll change it as soon as I think of a better name.

Just to notify you of a big recent (committed today to trunk) change in Lancelot’s theming.

The items in the lists (ActionListView widget) now shouldn’t have a background - the standard background from Plasma (widgets/viewitem.svgz - the one you see in krunner, folder view, SAL…) is being used.

The only item that is excluded from this rule is the [Group-ActionListView-Categories] which is used for sublist headers (like ‘Recent documents’ inside the Documents section).

If you don’t remove the backgrounds, both backgrounds will be shown on mouse hover.

In order to adapt your theme to the new change, edit all sections in theme.config file that match [Group-ActionListView-*] and replace:

    background.type=svg
    background.svg=...something...
with:
    background.type=none

That’s all.

This change will become active in KDE 4.5 so you have a lot of time to adapt. Cheerio!