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My idea is to redesign Application Launcher.
Currently, it quite good but few things seems to annoy me.

Favorites tab: too much white space. Lets add bookmarks to the right side, its similar to win7 menu. Could be added other tabs too.
Applications tab: its quite annoying to navigate. For me, adding mouse button navigation support would be awesome.

These are two main issues to solve. I know that kde 4.9 will support mouse button navigation, so i hope it'll include application menu too.

Tried Lancelot ?

Yes, I have.
This isn't any better. I'm sure that some people like Lancelot, for me, it just feels heavy.
I'm using bookmarks to navigate faster around home folder, so those need to be shown after i click menu button. Current menus put them to separate tab, which I really find annoying.
I would modify Application Launcher myself, but I dont know how hard is it, because I was not able to find its source code. I have some programming skills with c++.
Adding bookmarks to right side would make menu way useable. Also mouse navigation (those extra buttons on the mouse side)would be nice.

rang501 wrote:Yes, I have.
This isn't any better. I'm sure that some people like Lancelot, for me, it just feels heavy.

Well, features make it heavy... nothing else.

I'm using bookmarks to navigate faster around home folder, so those need to be shown after i click menu button.
Current menus put them to separate tab, which I really find annoying.

It is called an "Application" launcher for a reason... no wonder places is a second rate citizen.
(You can separate out the 4 tabs though, so that each will have its own buttons, and you can just click the "Places" button to get what you wish.)

I would modify Application Launcher myself, but I dont know how hard is it, because I was not able to find its source code. I have some programming skills with c++.

I believe it is mostly coded in QML.
So, modifying will be quite easy.

Adding bookmarks to right side would make menu way useable.

What do you think, the "Favorites" is column is ?

Also mouse navigation (those extra buttons on the mouse side)would be nice.

Not many have a mouse with "Buttons on the mouse side".

Here is an idea, it isn't clear to me at all, what you would actually like to see.
Why don't you make some dummy pictures, to convey the meaning more accurately ?

http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Ap ... ent=146098

This plasmoid shows a menu of the installed applications, similar to Lancelot but much simpler. The purpose of the simpleness is to have a faster plasmoid which also loads faster. The plasmoid also has a list of favorites and you can search applications by application name. There are "Lock Session", "Leave" and "Switch User" buttons.

I made a screenshot of it:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26667345/menu.png
It's really similar to win7 menu.
It would be easy to implement too.

Regarding mockup - this way may provide one click faster access to folders but there is no enough space to provide access to many folders, like 15 or more. This would make kickoff sort of cluttered.
There is already the "Computer" tab in Kickoff. Instead of what is proposed in a mockup I would use this tab (or add a new tab for this) and allow to create in this tab just shortcuts for different folders, not only places from Dolphin but also other, or even separate this completely from showing places from Dolphin. So it could be like a custom list of folders independent from places in Dolphin. What should be important is to create in Dolphin option to add folder to this tab from mouse right click menu options. And while in this tab - an easy way to remove selected folder from this tab, for example right mouse click within this tab on selected folder and chose option remove. I think about it as an alternative to places, something like a bookmarking folders for more or less temporary use and quick access to it. Like folders that exist a view hours or days before I delete them or move them somewhere else.
What I looking for in this idea is a quick access to different places across my folders and dynamically changing it but I don't want to mess with places in Dolphin. In places I prefer to have more permanent set of frequently used folders. Like four to six so that I don't need to search the tree all the time. This is because places in Dolphin are also shown in other applications like web browser. So when there are too much places in Dolphin things get cluttered. And I prefer have both tree view and places view visible in Dolphin all the time, because I find it the most convenient way to quickly access most important folders while still being able to access other folders, and all this without constantly switching tree view to places view and vice versa.

Perhaps this makes things unnecessarily complicated of an impression of duplication of functions. But I hope you don't get this impression. If developers don't like my approach to this idea I suggest removing "System settings", Moun shortcut from this "Computer" tab and just leave folders from places, so that the function of this tab could be more specific. But I hope you get my idea and implement it.

I would also love to see a re-design in a KDE application launcher.

Or alternatively options to many different application launchers. I know that there are a few, but I would like more.
I would like something like Windows xp launcher. I realise the classic launcher is similar, though I would like an option to be able to increase or decrease its size.

It also appears as though the KDE menu does not pick up as many installed apps within its menu as the Gnome menu does..

Does anyone know the reason for this?

Thanks for allowing me to express this opinion.

Regards,

Have you tried: Right click on app launcher->Menu editor? You can try Edit->Restore to system menu.

http://home.kde.org/~binner/kickoff/sneak_preview.html

http://tr.opensuse.org/Kickoff

I find the "waste space" very important on Favorites as it eliminates the miss clicks what happens on Windows start menu.

What I find still very problematic is navigation on "Applications" sub-menus where user needs to click small previous entry on top right corner and it even is interactive meaning the previous level moves on the left when going deeper the tree.

The older one what had big full height button on left side where user could just swing mouse and click worked better way, but was limited that KickOff was on tightly on left edge of screen and on top or bottom side of screen.

I would have taken different step that "Previous..." entry would have been added to top of all and all entries would have gone below it. Size would been same as any other element and it would have worked with any position and even with touch screens.

> I believe it is mostly coded in QML.

QML didn't exist back when Lancelot was created. So, it is mostly pure C++ (with a custom XML->C++GUI translator). It needs to be rewritten for the new plasma and qml though.