First of all, Lancelot development is now branched to KDE 4.1 compatible development and trunk. It needed to be done since there already are API changes in libplasma, and I want L to be in shape for 4.1 too. The 4.1 compatible code is located in /branches/work/lancelot/kde4.1-backport/. It is a bit misleading name - ‘backport’ - since the main development happens there, and then, changes are copied to the trunk. I’m updating the trunk on every major change so it still is the latest development release.

In the other news, the Favourites section works perfectly. When you start Lancelot for the first time, favourite applications will be loaded from Kickoff, or if there is no kickofrc file will be populated with default set of applications. If you want to add or remove an application from the Favourites, just right-click it. Although this looks like a trivial change, there had to be a couple of big improvements under the surface - Lancelot had no support for context menus before this :)

Since I’ve almost missed the BIG BIG BIG message saying “From August 4th CMake >= 2.6.0 will be required, please update your CMake” (I’ve set up scripted compiling in background, so it’s not that strange I did not see it) I thought that there could be someone else who could miss it. So, upgrade your CMake! (for Debian users: CMake 2.6 is present in unstable)

BTW, I’ve switched to use the 4.1 branch for all modules. Obviously, I’ve set a trunk setup as well, but this time only Plasma is from the trunk. For the next few months, Lancelot will be developed for both 4.1 and trunk (The separation was needed since there already is an API breakage).

Move along, nothing (more) to see here

Vijay Patil asked me to explain the application browsing component, so here it is:

At first, you get a panel with two columns - Favourites on the left, and application categories on the right.

When you choose a category, the Favourites column is replaced by the application categories, and the currently selected category is opened in the right column. (can anyone guess what is the ratio between left and right columns here, but without looking at the code?) As you can see, you get a breadcrumb bar above the list.

Now, there are two options for ‘what should happen when a subcategory is chosen’. One would be to hide the left column again like in the previous step, and the other is just to shrink the leftmost column like in the screenshot:

Later (the one in the screenshot) way is uglier, but more useful (for me, that is). Since I can not make up my mind about it, it will be configurable.

Just joking, I haven’t introduced a proper versioning, but the current state could be dubbed as “alpha 2” (yes, I took the version from amarokers, but have no cute child-knight to show you to compete with their little wolf).

I got a bit of a development boost by Beojan Stanislaus who sent me a patch for a bug in the launcher applet concerning the layout and the size of the icons. After that I just couldn’t stop tinkering with it.

I’ll get into making the configuration interface soon, and then the polishing will begin.

I will skip doing the plug-in system for the first stable release, and will probably not succeed in replacing the current list widgets with a work-in-progress ones that will have real scrollbars and keyboard input support. (yes, Lancelot can not be manipulated by using only the keyboard at the moment, but that is the most important feature that I’m planing to add)

P.S. Are there any objections to make the “sections in the panel” instead of “one icon launches the menu with sections inside” as the default?

There are some news concerning applets for the embedded Plasma I mentioned earlier. There are two new plasma applets in the playground (trunk/playground/base/plasma/applets/embedded-ivan/) - one that shows the title of the currently active window (needed since I intend to remove the decorations of main windows) and a simple task manager/application launcher which is on the left.

They are not fully operational yet, and have no documentation on how to set them up, so don’t even bother. I just wanted to say that they exist. :D

The task manager/application launcher contains a predefined set of icons. Each icon represents one task or application. And when you click it, application is started, or in case it is already running, it is brought to front. Some say that MacOS X has something similar, but I wouldn’t know, I haven’t tried it. (please skip comments about OSX… they might get deleted instantly).

Cheerio!