Something to think about for gnome-do

[Sean Dague]

I played around with kupfer and synapse yesterday just to see what else
is going on in the awesome launcher space. Synapse was pretty
uninteresting because it has so few integration points to other things.

Kupfer was more interesting, especially with one action that bubbled to
the top, which was "Go to". To explain, if I don't have firefox running
and I type "fi" it would suggest "Run". But if I did have it running it
would suggest "Go to". The go to actions seemed pinned to the top,
though I didn't experiment for too long.

This was a really great feature, and I'm curious how hard it would be to
do with the existing do infrastructure. Can an action have priority
over others? Can we filter out command start for applications that are
already running (or at least lower the priority)?

-Sean

--
__________________________________________________________________

Sean Dague Mid-Hudson Valley
sda...@gmail.com Linux Users Group
http://dague.net http://mhvlug.org

There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors
than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down.
__________________________________________________________________

[Robert Dyer]

On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Sean Dague <sda...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I played around with kupfer and synapse yesterday just to see what else is
> going on in the awesome launcher space.  Synapse was pretty uninteresting
> because it has so few integration points to other things.
>
> Kupfer was more interesting, especially with one action that bubbled to the
> top, which was "Go to".  To explain, if I don't have firefox running and I
> type "fi" it would suggest "Run".  But if I did have it running it would
> suggest "Go to".  The go to actions seemed pinned to the top, though I
> didn't experiment for too long.

This is already possible in Do. Just has a different name.

Enable the Window Manager plugin in preferences. Then you can see new
actions for launchers (that it can match), one of which is 'Focus'.

> This was a really great feature, and I'm curious how hard it would be to do
> with the existing do infrastructure.  Can an action have priority over
> others?  Can we filter out command start for applications that are already
> running (or at least lower the priority)?
>
>        -Sean

I don't think it can give higher/lower priorities to Run and Focus
based on if the app is running. It definitely doesn't do that now,
but I am not sure it even could do that. At any rate you can type
'firefox' <tab> 'focus' and get it.

- Rob

[Sean Dague]

On 12/03/2010 01:43 PM, Robert Dyer wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 10:32 AM, Sean Dague<sda...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I played around with kupfer and synapse yesterday just to see what else is
>> going on in the awesome launcher space. Synapse was pretty uninteresting
>> because it has so few integration points to other things.
>>
>> Kupfer was more interesting, especially with one action that bubbled to the
>> top, which was "Go to". To explain, if I don't have firefox running and I
>> type "fi" it would suggest "Run". But if I did have it running it would
>> suggest "Go to". The go to actions seemed pinned to the top, though I
>> didn't experiment for too long.
>
> This is already possible in Do. Just has a different name.
>
> Enable the Window Manager plugin in preferences. Then you can see new
> actions for launchers (that it can match), one of which is 'Focus'.

While this is true, there is a huge difference in seemlessness between
"fi<enter>" and "fi<tab>f<enter>". In playing with kupfer for a couple
hours the behavior was just straight up brilliant.

>> This was a really great feature, and I'm curious how hard it would be to do
>> with the existing do infrastructure. Can an action have priority over
>> others? Can we filter out command start for applications that are already
>> running (or at least lower the priority)?
>>
>> -Sean
>
> I don't think it can give higher/lower priorities to Run and Focus
> based on if the app is running. It definitely doesn't do that now,
> but I am not sure it even could do that. At any rate you can type
> 'firefox'<tab> 'focus' and get it.
>
> - Rob

-Sean

[Alex Launi]

It wouldn't be hard to hack up a 'go to' plugin that combined run with the wm plugin to focus if open. Do it up.


--
-- Alex Launi

[Christopher James Halse Rogers]

On Fri, 2010-12-03 at 21:51 -0500, Alex Launi wrote:
> It wouldn't be hard to hack up a 'go to' plugin that combined run with
> the wm plugin to focus if open. Do it up.
>

Another option would be to fix up the Relevancy engine to be smarter, so
it could learn that when both “focus” and “run” are available you tend
to choose “focus” on firefox.

Wouldn't that be rad? :(

[David Siegel]

The simplest approach would be to make the Run action aware of
already-running applications, so that calling Run opens the
application if it isn't already running, but activates the application
if it is already running. If Run behaved like this, it should probably
be renamed, or split into two commands. Perhaps "Run" for the old
behavior, and "Open" for the new.

David