Functional Programming in C++

Lancelot 1.7: I just get carried away...

Published by Ivan Čukić in the KDE development: Plasma section, on 22 May 2009

It is the time to announce the new version of Lancelot that will be shipping with KDE 4.3.

Most software has code-names for different releases. Lancelot doesn’t, but I’ve decided to dedicate a new tagline to this version - “I just get carried away…”. It is still from the same motion picture as the last one (“In my own idiom” - for Lancelot 1.0).

The news of a new version can never be as grand as the introduction to a new program (especially when a lot of hype preceded it like it was the case for L1.0), so I’ll not bother to make it more grandiose than it is.

Themes

The first thing you’ll notice is that the themes have changed. All themes but Aya which kept its Spartan look.

You can see the Air theme in the main picture above, Slim Glow in the first screenshot and Aya in the second. The other “dark” themes such as Heron and Elegance look similar to S-G.

I’m aware that there will be complaints, so I’ll prepare a “classic” theme pack for the complainers.

Features

There are no ground-braking new features - most of them are related to configuration options. So, if you want to see what’s new in that area, just open the configuration dialogue.

A lot of small improvements have been made - finished keyboard support, some usability improvements, some fixes, better Kopete and KRunner integration, better Parts applet (ok, this one can be considered a grand improvement since the Parts applet has become useful yet again), sorting of the applications in the list according to the XDG specifications…

And, as a topping on a cake, the Contacts section now supports plugins, so you can write them for your favourite mail/chat application. This feature is hidden from the user, and will be until it stabilizes for KDE 4.4.

The continued development - for KDE 4.4

Since the known bugs are sparse (or to be exact, I have only one that I need to investigate), I have continued the real development in a branch in SVN (hard feature freeze is upon us, so I can not do that in the trunk). The liblancelot is now much lighter memory-wise - a couple of bytes per Lancelot::Widget (and that is a lot of bytes per Lancelot application), it is refactored and is a step closer to the API stability and maybe even ABI stability.

That’s all for now - I’m bored and I need to prepare for my talk about Free/Libre software and KDE that is due later today…

Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-8203" rel="nofollow">Zeke</a>: The duplicates are most probably due to wrong system setup. For example, I know it appears in Gentoo, but not in Fedora nor Debian.
@<a href="#comment-8204" rel="nofollow">dean</a>: 1. collapsing the categories (that is making them smaller) will be possible in the future. For the time being, you can set the categories to be shown in the applet instead of the menu,
2. I have absolutely no idea what you tried to say here.
@<a href="#comment-8205" rel="nofollow">David P H</a>: Organizing in what sense?
manny
great menu, this the one i use most of the time
just needs 3 things to be better:
1- recent applications used (could probably be merged with the documents tab since i barely use that) 2- search with less than 3 characters typed in the search bar 3- ability to hide the contacs tab (some ppl may not use it, but this is more of low priority, just an idea)
am using the one that comes in kde4.2.3 in kubuntu so i am not really sure if u have already added them, anyway great job so far :)
frustphil
"2. I have absolutely no idea what you tried to say here."
Maybe he meant merging Favorites category and right-most category. What he meant with unintuitive could be that the right-most category should be beside the navigation tabs which, IMO, makes sense because you would be expecting the results to be beside the navigation tabs. So if you click the Contacts tab, the list of contacts should be next to/beside it instead of Favorites.
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-8207" rel="nofollow">manny</a>: 1 - recent applications will be merged with favourites - it will be a smart favourites list... something like amarok does. It really makes no sense to me to put recent applications in documents. 2 - that is a KRunner limitation (the Alt+F2 dialogue) - Lancelot is using KRunner as backend for searching. 3 - in the trunk (soon to be 4.3), if you are displaying the categories in the applet itself and not in the menu, you can choose which ones you want to display.
@<a href="#comment-8208" rel="nofollow">frustphil</a>: Again, I don't get it. If you open the 'Contacts' section, you don't get Favourites at all.
Could you make a mock-up of your idea?
Mladen Drobnjaković
He he, there I am in the third picture (amongst the contacts) :)
frustphil
Swap the Favorites and the Categories position... But I could be wrong...
Bora Corba
I still think the goblet graphic doesnt look as hot when its on a smaller screen like a netbook.
Instead of using a K button/Start/Lancelot goblet, Id love to be able to right click on the deskto and have one of the options be Lancelot. That's how I turn off the computer most time since it takes about 4/5 clicks to turn it off once I click on K.
The contacts section with inbox, bug updates and IM contacts is genial.
Bora
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-8211" rel="nofollow">Mladen Drobnjaković</a>: Heh, yes you are. :)
@<a href="#comment-8212" rel="nofollow">frustphil</a>: Ok, I see now what you meant. I honestly don't know why would anybody want favourites to be shown when contacts section (for example) is open.
Since the applications section is being opened by default, the favourites are the most accessible part of L. If you decide to browse the applications, it implies that the application you're browsing for is not in the favourites, so there is no need to show them anymore.
The same goes if you go to /other/ sections.
@<a href="#comment-8213" rel="nofollow">Bora Corba</a>: There will soon (4.4) be an option to choose what happens when you (left|right|middle)-click the desktop. So, it will be possible to open Lancelot on any of those actions.
p.s. As for the icon, I am aware of that, but I'm reluctant to change it. That was the main reason for the option to set a custom icon.
Bruno Cabral
Oh god. I really want to this replace the Kickoff menu !
Lincoln
I'm eager to see Lancelot 1.8 "I just can't get enough" ;)
Ivan Čukić
@<a href="#comment-8200" rel="nofollow">Bruno Cabral</a>: Heh, there's no need to get drastic :)
@<a href="#comment-8201" rel="nofollow">Lincoln</a>: Hmmmm, that's not from Monty Python and the Holy Grail :)
Zeke
Yeah I love lancelot, The only issue I see are that the custom icon doesn't resize and some desktop files appear twice in the categories. But good job on it. thank you Ivan.
dean
There are two I hate about Lancelot:
1. The navigation bar(Documents,Contacts,Computer,Applications)is too wide. I think it doesn't have to be. Because of it Lancelot, to me, has this kiddy aura and I don't like it.
2. It is very unintuitive. When clicking Applications, first you would think that the results are next to it but they are not. The Favorites between the navigation bar and the Results creates confusion IMHO.
Suggestion: There should only be two vertical parts of the menu for clarity sake. So when you click Applications, two parts will be displayed; on the top would be the favorite applications and on the bottom would be the applications category. Same goes for the others---Documents, Contacts, Computer.
David P H
Great job thank you. Lancelot is now my first choice. In my opinion it has a clean look, is intuitive and easy to use. Seems to me like th one person with negative feedback needs to get better acquainted with how to configure the menus. The one thing I would like to maybe see in future versions is methods or options of organizing items in each category.
MrE
First of all, thanks for this excellent application launcher. Of all the attempts made in recent years to replace the traditional start menu design, only Lancelot actually innovates.
The only thing I miss really is the ability to sort the applications list and the application shortcuts themselves. At the moment, the order seems to be completely random, with applications I hardly use at the top while others I use more frequently appear at the bottom or somewhere in the middle. The order in the Menu Editor is completely ignored.