Lancelot 1.0 Final “In my own… idiom”
… I’m afraid when I’m in this idiom, I sometimes get a bit, uh, sort of carried away.
If you’ve been watching the SVN logs, you might have noticed the tagging of the Lancelot 1.0. And now it is official!
lancelot.fomentgroup.org
Introduction
Lancelot is an alternative menu, or application launcher interface, for KDE 4.x series. If Kickoff or KMenu don’t fit you, feel free to try it. Lancelot provides a quick access to the most used applications, to your devices, contacts etc. in a familiar yet refreshing way.
1.0 Release highlights
- Optional no-click interface which allows you to navigate through the menu and perform any action in it without making a single click.
- The layout of the menu adapts so that most used parts are always closer to the mouse cursor.
- Advanced search capabilities. Thanks to KRunner integration, you can search not only your applications, but also contacts, bookmarks and many more (even a calculator is included).
- You can place parts of the menu directly onto the desktop or your panel for quicker access.
Documentation/Usage manual
Although the documentation is not finished, the basic usage section is. You can reach it at lancelot.fomentgroup.org/docs
Some statistics
I thought it would be interesting to compare the sizes of Plasma and Lancelot since the later is based on the former.
The first is the line-count of all source files (only .cpp for C++ and .py for Python are included)
liblancelot 5916 lancelot 4482 puck 1470 ---------------- total 11868 lines libplasma 21903 plasma 33611 ---------------- total 55514 lines
So Lancelot is one fifth of Plasma. Not bad 
Thanks
I would just like to thank all of you who have tested Lancelot in the past, all of you who are making distribution packages, all of you who provided feedback and all of you I forgot to mention in the first part of this sentence.
Disclaimer
Only 3 pixels, and 5 lines of code were harmed during the making of this project.
p.s. If the popularity of this blog could be measured by the SPAM messages it receives, I have to say that approaching the 1.0 version was a real traffic drawer
The Link to the KDE Website on the Lancelot Website is broken, it directs to lancelot.formentgroup.com/www.kde.org
Comment by blueget — 26 August 2008 @ 12:36
OK, now, if I have a touchscreen will I continue to touch the wrong element on the display because the elements are too close together because there is an assumption that I am using a mouse?
In other words, Does Lancelot suffer the same interminable nearsightedness of all the desktop interfaces, that we are all sitting at a desk with a mouse?
Comment by Mighty Mouse — 26 August 2008 @ 12:42
Hey, how big are the chances that you set up an openSUSE Build Service? It can generate benaries for other distributions than openSUSE as well.
Comment by Markus — 26 August 2008 @ 12:43
@blueget
Stange, it works for me. The link on the left?
@Mighty Mouse
Probably yes. I did not have any problems with it when I tested it with a touch screen, but I had no problems with Kickoff either.
@Markus
I’ll see what I can do, but can not promise anything since I don’t know (yet) how it works.
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 12:54
Interesting!
I’ll be trying this out tonight. Plasma applets and visual effects are not very important to me. I pretty much use KDE as a application/document launcher and window manager.
Allthough I’m still a KDE 3.x user. Not so happy with the performance of KDE 4.1
Not sure if it’s my machine, I have a pretty new Thinkpad T61p, but still I experience major redraw slowdown with KDE 4.1(And Qt 4.4 in general I think). I’ll stick to KDE 3.5 until this gets better.
Comment by User — 26 August 2008 @ 13:05
Hi, i just compiled Lancelot from kde’s trunk and i still have the old look. Why?
Comment by sheytan — 26 August 2008 @ 13:07
@Sheytan
The 1.0 tag doesn’t apply for the trunk, but, still, you shouldn’t see the old look. Check the version in the about dialogue.
p.s. Does your nick means ‘the devil’? (it does in some parts of Balkans)
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 13:11
Same issue here with trunk.
Lancelot
Version 1.6
Using KDE 4.1.62 (KDE 4.1.62 (KDE 4.2 >= 20080814))
Comment by Cheko — 26 August 2008 @ 13:16
Ivan, check https://build.opensuse.org/
You can also use the opensuse.org servers to host packages for different distros.
Comment by Markus — 26 August 2008 @ 13:18
@Cheko and @Sheytan
Should be fixed now. Did you have the old one installed before?
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 13:21
Ivan, if you want any help getting started with the Build Service, drop by #opensuse-kde and we will help you out. We already package Lancelot for our openSUSE KDE trunk packages (KDE:KDE4:UNSTABLE:Desktop) as part of kde4-plasma-addons, but if it builds vs 4.1 you could make separate packages too.
Comment by wstephenson — 26 August 2008 @ 13:39
@Ivan: yes i did have installed the old before, and yes my nick means ‘the devil’ it’s from turkish, but writed in english style
Comment by sheytan — 26 August 2008 @ 13:40
forgot the version: 1.6
KDE 4.1.62 (KDE 4.1.62 (KDE 4.2 >= 20080814))
Comment by sheytan — 26 August 2008 @ 13:44
@wstephenson
after that is resolved, I’ll visit the opensuse-kde also 
I’m ATM at the openSUSE-buildservice channel – problems with login
@Sheytan
I should have supposed that is is a word from Turkish – it sounds like it is
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 13:45
and what about the look?
Comment by sheytan — 26 August 2008 @ 13:48
@sheytan
As I said “Should be fixed now”.
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 13:51
Thanks for the nice work!
I would do a package request for a binary packaged version for Mandriva.
Keep up the good work!
By the way, would the next version add the support of akregator that makes the contact part can received the message/feeds from the akregator, and maybe KMess since it supports the MSN client better than Kopete.
Comment by Kira — 26 August 2008 @ 13:55
Ok, works now
Great work btw ;d
Comment by sheytan — 26 August 2008 @ 13:56
@Kira
There already is a request for a package for Mandriva.
As for Kmess, and others, it will be done for 2.0 I think.
@sheytan
Thanks
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 13:58
@Kira:
Once Ivan figured the Built Service out, packages will propably provided for all OBS-compatible distros. That’s openSUSE, CentOS, Fedora, Red Hat, Mandriva, Debian and (K/X)Ubuntu.
Comment by Markus — 26 August 2008 @ 14:39
Well, I just post a request at their bugzilla. I think it won’t bother much and may better fit their policy of backporting.
Comment by Kira — 26 August 2008 @ 14:57
“…launcher menu (or ALI) for KDE 4 designed to pr…”
The “KDE 4″ is a link, and this link is wrong as I described. Sorry that I haven’t stated this more clearly.
Comment by blueget — 26 August 2008 @ 15:22
@blueget
Thanks
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 15:43
Lancelot 1.0: Lanzador de aplicaciones para KDE4 por fin liberado…
Para todos aquellos que no se sentían cómodos con los lanzadores de aplicaciones de KDE4 (kickoff o kmenu) ya tenemos alternativa estable: Lancelot. Lancelot nos aporta una manera rápida de acceder a nuestras aplicaciones más usadas, a nuestros dis…
Trackback by meneame.net — 26 August 2008 @ 16:53
How did you count lines?)
Comment by AlexeiSergeev — 26 August 2008 @ 18:41
@AlexeiSergeev
By using this (in ZSH – don’t know whether BASH has the **):
$ wc -l **/*.cpp
I know I should have made something that skips comments etc., but I have no time for that
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 19:03
Thank you. Wow, I have 9000 lines in cpps and 5000 in hs, seems like I’m doing well)
And one more thing, how did you solve that Qt feauture when events ignore ItemClipsChildrenToShape flag?
Comment by AlexeiSergeev — 26 August 2008 @ 19:15
@AlexeiSergeev
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 26 August 2008 @ 19:21
Awesome job with this menu. I’ll be installing it later today, although right now I’m playing with Enlightenment E17.
Comment by Josh Rickmar (jrick) — 26 August 2008 @ 20:54
[...] I saw the blog post for the 1.0 release of lancelot. Today, I felt like a small contribution so I created a slackbuild [...]
Pingback by The Blog From Hell » Blog Archive » Slackware/Bluewhite64 packages for Lancelot — 26 August 2008 @ 21:10
Excellent work. I have been waiting long time for you to finish. Now installed and Enjoying your work and contribution.
Much Appreciated
Sam R. CEO of SJR Linux
Comment by Sam Robins — 26 August 2008 @ 21:51
2 things:
a) when i drop something to desktop i get a lancelot applet, but its empty… any clue what could cause this?
b) What *really* bugs me, is the fact that i cant just use arrow keys + enter to select the search result i want. i always have to use the mouse to finally start the program i searched for.
Comment by Rasi — 26 August 2008 @ 21:52
I might be switching to this; seems the PPA for kubuntu is broken, well i’m on hardy not intrepid…hmm
Keep up the good work!
Comment by DreadKnight — 26 August 2008 @ 23:34
Nice Menu Launcher!!
Some details need to fix, like arrows being under the name of the apps groups…
And, a little detail, i didnt saw the “add to desktop…” on right click in on app icon, only “add to favorites…” Or did i missed something?
Great work!
Cheers.
Comment by Gustavo A. Díaz — 27 August 2008 @ 01:55
hay, compile lancelot but when drop some part to the desktop, only show a something like a text file???
Comment by rudoolph — 27 August 2008 @ 03:02
@Sam and DreadKnight
Thanks, I like it when people praise me
@rasi and rudolph
a) have no idea. Try resizing it, does anything happen? Can you post a screenshot somewhere
b) yes I know, the keyboard support is a primary feature on the TODO list for 2.0.
@Gustavo
Basic usage: Parts applet
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 06:36
Really Nice Menu!
I was very unhappy with the KickOff Menu.
I was trying to have KBFX on Kde4.
But this menu is awesome.
KDE4 Rocks!
Comment by Himal Rana — 27 August 2008 @ 06:59
Ivan:
http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs230&d=08353&f=bla899.png
Comment by Rasi — 27 August 2008 @ 07:48
@Rasi
No idea. You drag something from the menu and you got that? What about dragging something and dropping on the existing (empty) plasmoid?
Do you have some files that have the lancelot in their names in your user’s temp directory (it is under /tmp)? And if you do, what are the contents of the files? (be sure that you haven’t restarted the system after trying to drag something from L)
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 08:00
Can Gentoo users expect an ebuild (possibly in kde4-overlay repository)?
Comment by Ravak — 27 August 2008 @ 09:40
@Ravak
Not by me. I know nothing about Gentoo ebuilds, and am too lazy to even make a package for my beloved Debian.
If someone is willing to make it, I’ll publish it on the download page like I did for other distros.
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 09:48
I cant drag anything to those empty plasmoids. And no tmp files associated to lancelot, it seems
Comment by Rasi — 27 August 2008 @ 10:33
@Rasi
Well, if you don’t have any temp files related to L, then no surprise you have empty parts. Probably some issues with not being able to write a temp file… unfortunately, that is all help I can give.
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 10:41
Hi, i would like to write ebuild (which is going to hit portage), but i am somehow unable to find download link on sources. Cause i can’t write it with using svn but some tarball.
Comment by scarabeus — 27 August 2008 @ 11:18
@scarabeus
Cool. As soon as Lancelot project at sourceforge is approved, I’ll upload the tarball there. I’ll send you an e-mail when I do.
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 11:22
Great, I will be waiting for email :]
Comment by scarabeus — 27 August 2008 @ 11:25
Hey, thank you for this great ALI. I have built packages for openSUSE 10.3 and newer.
http://software.opensuse.org/search?baseproject=ALL&p=1&q=plasmoid-lancelot
Comment by Buschmann — 27 August 2008 @ 21:11
@Buschmann
Thanks, then there is no need for me to continue setting the build service
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 27 August 2008 @ 21:25
here you have ebuild: http://hlukotvor.no-ip.org/~scarab/kde4/lancelot-menu-1.0.ebuild
in some time it gets into tree. Btw thx for that email, that way i could react really fast
Comment by scarabeus — 27 August 2008 @ 22:09
Lancelot──KDE 4 菜单替代品…
如果你不喜欢 KDE 4 中现有的 Kickoff 或 KMenu 菜单，不妨考虑 Lancelot 这个替代品。Lancelot 专为 KDE 4 桌面环境而设计，使用它你能够快速打开应用程序、文档、位置、系统信息等项目。
（点击可…
Trackback by LinuxTOY — 28 August 2008 @ 00:00
“Well, if you don’t have any temp files related to L, then no surprise you have empty parts. Probably some issues with not being able to write a temp file”
in /tmp have “lancelotVk5856.lancelotpart”, and have the same ploblem with lancelot_part, any option to check what is wrong ??
Comment by rudoolph — 28 August 2008 @ 03:06
The recent documents part doesn’t seem to have the correct icons in them. Plus you could make a distinction between recently used docs and apps, perhaps? That would be uber kewl! Username at the top left edge of the menu? Do you plan to make this themeable or adapt the the current desktop theme soon?
But hey, this menu is GREAT! I am using it right now and set aside Kickoff. Really awesome work on this dude! Kudos to you!
Comment by zing — 28 August 2008 @ 04:01
@scarabeus
Thank you for doing an e-build
@rudolph
I have absolutely no idea what is wrong then. I’ll add some debugging info in the sources for you to test and send me back, but I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be able to do so. I’ll send you the patch by mail.
@zing
Just joking, the Favourite applications section will be modified to count in the recent applications, most used applications… something like amarok’s auto-scoring system.
Well, at the moment, there are no recent apps, so the distinction exist
I’m not sure what’s the purpose of having a username in the menu… but maybe one day
As for the theme, Lancelot follows the curent Plasma theme if the current theme has the needed files for Lancelot. Unfortunately, there is no theme that does so… yet. (my themes included
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 28 August 2008 @ 06:34
wow instant reply. well almost… hehe
ok apps or docs doesn’t really matter, but it would be great if you could fix the icons to show up properly. right now it’s just a question mark for all types. some filenames are too long that it would really help identifying the file @ first glance if there is an icon associated to it.
also in the Documents tab there are 2 columns, the right column is the one where all Recent Docs appear. on the left side, in my case, there is a header saying NEW with The Gimp under it. i didn’t install this app lately. what is this? i don’t get it.
well i admit it might be too Windows XP to have a name in the menu, but it gives my desktop an identity as to who is currently logged in. i may have more than one user/profile. sometimes i build from SVN repos just to see how the apps look like, and without messing anything, i do this on another user and just change the user files/libraries that KDE will use.
Comment by zing — 28 August 2008 @ 08:10
@zing
Here’s another one
Ok, I’ll see what is wrong with the icons
Concerning ‘new’, it is supposed to contain links to office applications. Now, OpenOffice + Gimp + Inkscape is the only one supported. When KOffice2 comes out, I’ll add it too.
It will be possible later to put plasma applets in the corners (maybe even somewhere else) so that you could add a clock, or whatever. So, I (or someone else) could create an applet that shows your name so that you could put it there
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 28 August 2008 @ 08:22
Hey. Relay nice menu! I much prefer this one over kickoff.
I have two requests for making this one perfect to me:
1) I would like the panel on the left (with the categories) to bee resized independent. (Then i make the menu wide I think the panel gets to big.)
2) When I open the menu it remember the way I left it the last time. I would like the opportunity that the menu starts by showing the “Favorites” each time I open it.
Comment by Mar — 28 August 2008 @ 12:24
1) I don’t understand. The width of categories panel is constant. (it should be)
2) I agree
Comment by Ivan Čukić — 28 August 2008 @ 14:57
1) I’m sorry my mistake. The width is constant, I haven’t notified that. But I would like the opportunity to make it smaller.
2) Looking forward to this
Comment by Mar — 28 August 2008 @ 15:20
Nice menu! Works great in KDE 4.1!
I was wondering if it was possible to have item in menu in alphabetical order (like kickoff does). It’s easier to find an application when they’re alling from A to Z!!
Thanks!
Comment by danym — 30 August 2008 @ 00:09
Thanks for this great ali!
The best one I’ve seen so far for KDE 4.
Is it possible to manually change the text color of the parts applet? On my desktop it is black text on black background
Or is something wrong with my installation?
I have opensuse 11.0 KDE 4.1 plasma theme Eleganz (should be style or elegance in English) and compiled Lancelot myself from the 1.0 source.
The rest of Lancelot works like a charm
Thanks!
Comment by hanjo — 30 August 2008 @ 13:55
Hi.
I absolutely love Lancelot! Great work!
However – I noticed it doesn’t follow the Plasma theme. Is theme integration with Plasma planned?
Comment by th — 13 September 2008 @ 14:51
[...] się także wersji 1.0 alternatywnego menu znanego jako Lancelot (dostępne w module kdeplasma-addons). Główne [...]
Pingback by Krótki przegląd nowości w KDE 4.2 - Plasma | aiden marshall — 28 September 2008 @ 20:36