KRunner is an efficient application launcher but it could be so much more if it had richer user feedback. Below I have blogged some mock-ups

DISCLAIMER: Sorry for rambling text, brevity takes practice and skill.

http://maninalift.blogspot.com/2008/12/krunner-and-new-command-interface.html

Thanks for reading.

Interesting ideas,ahve you thought about talking about them with the Plasma-devels?

I'm liking it, but it could definitely look prettier than those mockups (no offense!)

I must say that I love the concept. It would be great and really handy if krunner did all that

I like the idea of being able to publish further information. Could be used for dictionary searches, etc. Making the item panes larger would be nice too.

I'm only of those evil KDE3 lovers, and my problem with krunner is that it tries to do too much. I logged a bug yesterday on getting too many unrelated search results, but it was summarily closed with WONTFIX and the comment "that doesn't make sense."

I can type FASTER than KRunner can search! How sad is that? Maybe I am just a stupid user for pretending it should be otherwise. Maybe I'm just a stupid user for wanting it to launch apps just as efficiently as KDE3 did. I see a lot of great ideas out there, some wonderful ideas. But let's get KDE working first! Save the new stuff until after the old stuff is working.

Brandybuck wrote:I can type FASTER than KRunner can search! How sad is that?

I have that problem as well. I often open Arora instead of Amarok, because I hit enter too soon. But it's something I hope will be fixed.

I think KRunner is a great addition and I couldn't live without the concept. Quicksilver on the Mac, however, is far more advanced than KRunner or any other implementation (GNOME Do) of the concept. And yet it doesn't feel it does too much, although I never used 100% of all the features. I do hope KRunner becomes more like Quicksilver in the coming iterations of KDE.

One thing I'm hoping for is the ability to "chain" commands. In Quicksilver you could hit ">" to store the application and search for another one, repeat the ">" and after you're done hit Enter to fire up all the applications at once. [size=x-small]But this should probably go in the KRunner feature requests topic.[/size]

mensch wrote:

Brandybuck wrote:I can type FASTER than KRunner can search! How sad is that?

I have that problem as well. I often open Arora instead of Amarok, because I hit enter too soon. But it's something I hope will be fixed.

I frequently get kcachegrind instead of kcalc. I almost logged a bug on this yesterday, but it couldn't reproduce it anymore, so it may have recently been fixed.

I think KRunner is a great addition and I couldn't live without the concept.

I like the idea too, but I'm still missing the old KDE3 miniCLI. Maybe I was using it the "wrong" way, but I used it as an application launcher. It was faster for me to type "kcalc" to bring up a calculator, than to move my hand off the keyboard, to the mouse, to the menu, navigate the menu, and click on kcalc. I also used it for the URLs and URL shortcuts, because it was fast. Now that it's slow it's quicker for me to start Konqueror and type in the URL bar.

Isn't there a way we could get both? I mean, without slowing down the basic command line functionality just to accommodate all the other stuff?

Folks above: KRunner doesn't actually block your typing so you could just ignore the searching/feedback. I get your point though, it would be nice to have the option to use a "basic command runner".

One thing I find really annoying about KRunner is that let's say I type in GVim, it gives me the option to run GVim the application, or run GVim the command. Geez, they both do the same thing! Then for a weird reason when I type gimp, it only gives me the option to run gimp the command, no application gimp in the list (unless it's on page 20000 of the hundreds of search results)

Moult wrote:One thing I find really annoying about KRunner is that let's say I type in GVim, it gives me the option to run GVim the application, or run GVim the command. Geez, they both do the same thing!

That's because there are more than a dozen "runners" that go off searching for stuff as you type. One runner searches in your menu, and another searches commands. Since GVim is in the menu and available as a command, you get both. Yeah, it's annoying, but not nearly so annoying as cut-off text under the icons, so you don't know what anything is.

Moult wrote:One thing I find really annoying about KRunner is that let's say I type in GVim, it gives me the option to run GVim the application, or run GVim the command. Geez, they both do the same thing! Then for a weird reason when I type gimp, it only gives me the option to run gimp the command, no application gimp in the list (unless it's on page 20000 of the hundreds of search results)

I finally figured out that one. Anything you type could possibly be a command KRunner doesn't know about, so you always have that option. However, KRunner only shows the application itself if it can find it in the KMenu hierarchy. I'll bet you that if you look in your KMenu, you'll see that the Gimp's menu entry is actually "GNU Image Manipulation Program". Launch Krunner again, but this time type "GNU" and you'll see the Gimp. Annoying. However, a simple change in the menu editor, and all is well.

Love the mockup ideas! KRunner could very well replace my main desktop menu (and terminal, and file manager, and so on) if it matures.

I think the main reason KRunner seems slow is because of all the plugins it loads by default. If all you want is basic command line, disable all the plugins except Applications and Command Line. That should lighten the load.

Note that if you want to use KRunner with URL's ( http://forum.kde.org for instance ) you will need the "Locations" runner enabled. Same thing for web shortcuts, except the runner is "Web Shortcuts"

Brandybuck wrote:

mensch wrote:

Brandybuck wrote:I can type FASTER than KRunner can search! How sad is that?

I have that problem as well. I often open Arora instead of Amarok, because I hit enter too soon. But it's something I hope will be fixed.

I frequently get kcachegrind instead of kcalc. I almost logged a bug on this yesterday, but it couldn't reproduce it anymore, so it may have recently been fixed.

I have the same problem… I posted one idea to solve it: brainstorm.php#idea88465_page1

Just curious if anybody's tried out Enlightenment's runner equivalent. I tried it a while back and thought to myself "this is what a runner should be!". There are some bits where one is better over the other, but I think it's excellent.

Sorry no pictures or further explanation