I have been impressed with Mac OS X's Quicksilver for some time and just recently stumbled upon GNOME Do. I watched some screencasts and I am absolutely amazed at its functionality (I won't take time to describe it's features here; I'm sure most KDE users are aware of it). While it does claim to be usable in KDE, and even features a "Oxygenized" theme, I would like to see something comparable in functionality in the "KDE space" (also, all I can find are Ubuntu packages, which don't do a openSUSE user like me much good). The closest I can find is "Katapult", but I have yet to find one good word about it on the web (except that it may someday be almost as good as GNOME Do). Is there any movement towards building this kind of capability into a native KDE launcher? Or even the standard KDE 4 launcher we already have? I must say that this utility alone almost makes want me to switch to GNOME; it has to be the most advanced "productivity accelerator" for Linux I've ever seen.

To any KDE devs around, please lend an ear!

Have you checked KRunner, the default Alt+F2 in KDE4? Here's a screenshot. Then you also have QuickSand, an alternative front-end for KRunner.

Yes, I know KRunner pretty well. But Quicksilver (and GNOME Do) is more than a launcher; it's a launcher, command line, and file manager; all in one tasty package. In the latest GNOME Do, you can perform any context-sensitive action to a file, selection of text, etc. You select a section of text, hit the GNOME Do key shortcut, and then choose to either search for it, open in an editor or in OpenOffice, or run it in a terminal. You can search for a file, then choose to open, copy, move, or delete. It also performs extremely efficient indexing, so searches are lightning fast . Check out this video.

It's all free and open source, so maybe someone could "port" it to KDE, if there's not enough interest in a KDE equivalent. It runs n KDE okay, but it appears to be hard coded to use GNOME apps for it's actions.

Well, KRunner is more than a launcher too. Here are my current "runners": screenshot.
Most of the features you mentioned can easily be added by installing new runners.

I don't know about the Selected Text feature, but KRunner is (as far as I know) also going to support multiple actions in the future. (It might even be available in trunk as I write this).

If we're talking about interface, I personally prefer the default Quicksilver/Gnome Do/Katapult style. Something like that shouldn't be impossible to implant either, just look at QuickSand.

KRunner is also a launcher, command line, file manager, and a lot more, e.g. a dictionary, a calculator, you name it.
Actions are being worked on already: http://rbitanga.blogspot.com/2008/11/ru ... vices.html

All these plugins look great, but I can't seem to get them to actually do anything. Is there a central place for documentation on KRunner plugins?

There is a entry in userbase:
http://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials/Krunner
It'snot complete as far as i can see, but it's a place to start. Technical documentation on Runners is also available at techbase.kde.org

I'm new at kde and i was looking for something like gnome-do. After reading this post, i simply ran krunner and changed its settings to enable the quicksand skin and disable some runners that i don't use, i'm pretty satisfied so far.
The only thing i miss is my old keystroke (windows key+space bar) and i haven't found the way to change it. Anyone?

daas88 wrote:I'm new at kde and i was looking for something like gnome-do. After reading this post, i simply ran krunner and changed its settings to enable the quicksand skin and disable some runners that i don't use, i'm pretty satisfied so far.
The only thing i miss is my old keystroke (windows key+space bar) and i haven't found the way to change it. Anyone?

System Settings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts -> KDE component: Run Command Interface -> Run Command.

Hans wrote:System Settings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts -> KDE component: Run Command Interface -> Run Command.

Thanks, i was looking for those global keyboard shortcuts! God bless you

Krunner is actually quite good, but is there a way to change the order of precedence for the plugin functionality?

For example, if I want to run the Synaptic package manager, I'd like to be able to use my Krunner hot key and type "syn", accept the completion and have it run the program. Since the "Command-Line" plugin functionality precedes the "Applications" functionality, it executes synaptic the same as if I had typed it from the command line rather than as if I had clicked on it in the menu. So, it's not run with "kdesudo" and it can't actually install packages.

Thank you.

--
Ghodmode
http://www.ghodmode.com

It seems to do this for me automatically in KDE 4.5

Autocompletion works in KDE 4.5 automatically, but Synaptic can't install anything without root or sudo access. In Kubuntu, sudo access is required, so you'll really have to type kdesudo synaptic (and after the first time, it remembers it and fills it in when you type kdes).