I currently use launchy to perform tasks equivalent to launchbar (the mac quick launching program), but I'm looking to replace it as it doesn't integrate well with KDE4 (many applications are launched with file:// protocol, and hence fail to actually launch) .

KRunner looks like the recommended equivalent for KDE4, and for many tasks (launching applications, calculator, web-URLs) it works really well. What I really want, though, is to be able to launch files with their default applications. For example, say I have an OpenOffice file called "accounts.ods", I'd like to use KRunner to select the file by simply typing its name, and have it open that file with OpenOffice. Note that I don't really want desktop search (yet), just a way to open files by name.

The above doesn't seem to work with KRunner by default, but it is common to launchy and launchbar (and things like spotlight and quicksilver), so I assume it is possible. The "locations" runner suggests that it might be used for this task, but I have no idea whether I'm triggering it or not (I have it enabled in the krunner options).

Can someone tell me if it's possible to launch files by name with krunner, and if it is, how to do it?

Thanks in advance!

The locations runner will open a file if you specify it by location + name ( eg: ~/accounts.ods )
Note that environment variables such as $KDEDIR do not work, although "~" does. Specifying files directly by name is currently not possible.

You would have to use desktop search ( Nepomuk + Strigi, which once initially indexed does not affect system performance as long as you use Sesame2 ) to get the desired effect.

bcooksley wrote:The locations runner will open a file if you specify it by location + name ( eg: ~/accounts.ods )
Note that environment variables such as $KDEDIR do not work, although "~" does. Specifying files directly by name is currently not possible.

Having tried this, it works exactly as you say - thanks!

I don't know whether this is because of lack of development or a conscious decision. I'd be happy to contribute some of my dev time if it's the former - any idea how I can get in touch with the dev team for the locations runner?

You would have to use desktop search ( Nepomuk + Strigi, which once initially indexed does not affect system performance as long as you use Sesame2 ) to get the desired effect.

I was afraid you'd say that. I've never managed to get it working properly. I'll do another trawl, but if you have any suggestions as to howtos, I'd be most appreciative.

Cheers,
D

The locations runner is probably located under /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/runners/
Details about its developers are usually contained in the files inside that folder. You would be best to contact the plasma development list however ( plasma-devel@kde.org )

If Nepomuk + Strigi do not appear to function try removing the contents of $KDEHOME/share/apps/nepomuk
Corrupted information is usually the cause of many of the crashes of Nepomuk and Strigi

bcooksley wrote:The locations runner is probably located under /trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/plasma/runners/
Details about its developers are usually contained in the files inside that folder. You would be best to contact the plasma development list however ( plasma-devel@kde.org )

If Nepomuk + Strigi do not appear to function try removing the contents of $KDEHOME/share/apps/nepomuk
Corrupted information is usually the cause of many of the crashes of Nepomuk and Strigi

I tried all of the above, and eventually tracked down my problems to a missing sesame2 backend. I'm now horribly lost.

In an attempt to force Nepomuk to use sesame2, I followed the advice here:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=54581

(I use kubuntu with KDE4.2 installed from a launchpad repo, but this forum seemed useful.)

I jumped through all the hoops, but there was seemingly no change: every time I restarted Nepomuk, it would reinstate the redland backend.

I eventually found that sesame2 was missing by listing the /usr/lib/soprano directory. It contains:
libsoprano_nquadparser.so
libsoprano_nquadserializer.so
libsoprano_raptorparser.so
libsoprano_raptorserializer.so
libsoprano_redlandbackend.so

I then found this:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/12324

which suggests that sesame2 is only built under certain conditions. I attempted an aptitude reinstall of soprano, but that didn't change anything.

So my new question is: does anyone know how to force force soprano to detect my (Sun) JVM and build with a sesame2 backend?

Apologies for renewing this thread, but it seemed the only pertinent place to put it.

I believe to build Sesame2 requires Java development packages. You will also need KDE 4 + Qt4 development packages installed as well.