I'll keep this short and sweet.

Cons against launchpad style launchers:

1. Spreading search results across two axis is a dumb idea.
-It's more difficult to parse information displayed on a grid (for the human, not the computer). The world runs on lists. Why change that? Consider internet search engines and the explosion against Metro-- a decidedly click/touch oriented interface that did away with lists.
-It encourages using the mouse. I think keyboard support is a big deal in a launcher, especially one where search is a centerpoint. Switching from typing a search to clicking an icon is silly. This is exacerbated when you throw search categories into the mix. Navigating two axes adds unnecessary complexity to the entire thing, which should be avoided. Examples: Unity's search, Windows 8's search-- sillyness.

2. Full screen launchers on large screens are terrible. Enough said. I would not like a redux of Metro.

Pictures:






All four possible panel positions.

Simple. Add search categories. Default without a category loads preset or pinned applications, recently opened files, etc. Add the option for shortcuts-- Meta+M to search for music, Meta+F for documents, Meta+V for video, and so on, like Unity's Dash. Results are displayed in a simple list. Scroll up and down. But what about possible actions?

Let's take for instance Unity's dash. By default, searching for pictures loads a list of pictures on your computer, as you would expect. But selecting them opens them up in your default image viewer. What if you wanted to edit the pictures, or attach them to an email? Or what if you just wanted to navigate to the file in Dolphin? This is where that unused axis comes in.

Pressing left or right would switch the "action." "Open with Gwenview", "Edit with so-and-so", and so on. Or for music: Play Song, Queue Song, Open in Audacity. For video: Play Video, Edit Video, Mail Video-- whatever, you get the point. No other launcher provides that kind of functionality. Or maybe they do? I'm not sure. The more I think about it the more I think this is a lot like Unity's Dash, just missing an axis.

So yeah, so far this is a pretty good search tool theoretically, only requiring the arrow keys to navigate yet providing quite a bit of functionality.

It would be nice to also get a piratebay plugin for it also = 3=.