Lancelot launcher

Posted by toma on August 7, 2009; This entry is filed under English.
Tags:

I decided to try out the Lancelot launcher. And I like it. I’ve even replaced the default KDE launcher with it. As I’ve limited needs to have a menu, I know what I want and I want it fast. And that’s what Lancelot provides. The first tab just shows everything I need:

[img_assist|nid=288|title=Lancelot|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=550|height=500]

On the right half it gives instant access to the menus where less used applications are at. In the center there are the favorite applications, which you can alter as usual with the Right Mouse Button. At the bottom there a row to lock and shutdown the computer and at the top you can search for applications. On the left are more tabs, the computer tab shows your favorite folders and the contact tab lists all your IM-contacts. The Documents gives you quick access to recent documents and a way to quickly start new documents, spreadsheets, etc.

But the first tab is the winner tab, it provides 90% of what I need on a day. The normal KDE launcher hides the favorites, applications and leave in three separete tabs. Also I still have problems navigating through the different applications quickly within that launcher, navigation is not intuitive for me. The simple way Lancelot does that is much better, the groups move to the left and you see the apps on the right. A screenie clarifies I hope:

[img_assist|nid=289|title=Lancelot Applications|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=550|height=500]

Yay for choice of application launchers. Yay for Lancelot.

7 Comments

  1. Harley Laue August 7th, 2009 at 17:18

    I think it pretty much hits the nail on the head. I will say the I overlooked the Leave submenu for System actions like reboot/shutdown/etc. Don’t know if that’s something that only I overlooked at it going to have a submenu attached to the button, or what. Perhaps they should give some kind of indication that there is a submenu attached to Leave…

  2. Birdy August 7th, 2009 at 17:25

    I’d vote for makeing Lancelot the default in KDE 4.4. It’s a lot better then Kickoff imho

  3. Ivan Cukic August 7th, 2009 at 18:15

    Hi,

    It’s cool to see a post on planetKDE entitled ‘.*Lancelot.*’ which I didn’t write :)

    I just wanted to say that if you don’t find the other sections (apart from Application) useful, you can make the menu show only that category:
    1. Go to the applet configuration
    2. Select ‘Show categories inside the applet’
    3. Select categories you want to be shown

    Cheerio!
    Ivan

  4. Cheko August 7th, 2009 at 21:24

    @Ivan: Can I get rid of the black border around lancelot?
    http://imagebin.ca/view/h1oGpJ.html

  5. Ian Monroe August 8th, 2009 at 17:42

    Personally I’m looking forward to the stuff they’re doing with the netbook launcher. I really prefer the krunner way of doing things. When I do use the launcher its usually to just use the filter bar at the top (which doesn’t work as well as krunner).

    My girlfriend similarly has trouble finding anything with the default launcher until she uses the filter.

    Menus are still handy for finding games, but thats about it imo. :)

  6. Anoniemoes August 8th, 2009 at 21:24

    That’s the theme. I’m on 4.3 and I don’t have that border

  7. Ivan Cukic August 16th, 2009 at 08:52

    The border is due to Lancelot being compiled without compositing support. File a bug for your distro.