Comments on: Online Search Results in the Shell

By: jk

jk — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:06:33 +0000

well, KDE Homerun Launcher does integrate Krunner
and this is a great step ahead for the desktop, can replace Kickoff and Search&Launch palsmoid,
so I’m expecting to see this QML menu as a default very, very soon :)

another thing: it’s quite silly how “meta” button can’t be set as shortcut., à la unity/gnome3

anyway, thumb up for the post

By: Alejandro Nova

Alejandro Nova — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:55:20 +0000

You can try with a Lens menu a la Ubuntu. The tech is there, the underpinnings are there, but the frontend is not.

By: sebas

sebas — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:06:11 +0000

KRunner is definitely designed as a feature for power users, and that’s OK.

One could indeed turn the technology into something more discoverable, for example a Plasmoid, but I’d think of this as an alternative, rather than a replacement. Kickoff, by the way uses KRunner plugins for its search box, it just has most of them disabled (some whitelisted) for stability and performance reasons.

The discoverability of the KRunner features could definitely be improved, agree.

By: sebas

sebas — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:03:54 +0000

Ah, right. I’ve changed ddg in the article to dd. Thanks!

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:41:13 +0000

The default shortcuts for duckduckgo are “duckduckgo”, “dd” or “dukgo”. Wasn’t aware of all these predefined shortcuts. Very handy!

By: Benny M

Benny M — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:32:17 +0000

Alt+F2 is a hidden feature. KDE should stop pushing it so much (it is developer centric) and make something discoverable for all users. Also, pressing Alt+F2 is something that hurts my hand :-)
And what normal users knows all the codes possible there? Clicking the ? at the moment here on my PC shows me the text ‘Creates characters from if it is a hexadecimal code or defined alia…’
Can you image what a common user thinks after seeing this??

Many people would _not_ mind automatically searching on amazon and such things, so for them a good way to not have to type wiki or amazon or whatever would be needed. Suggestion: A dropdown icon like in firefox search box, with desktop normal desktop, but with the added option of indicating via checkbuttons to automatically search different providers. I don’t mean the dropdown as now in settings, as that is much too long, just a short version with no more than 5 entries. Then in settings, people could add/remove to that list. As for settings, I have wikipedia checked, but nowhere visible I need to type wiki to use this.

Next, instead of Alt+F2, make a plasma widget that is on the default KDE that performs the search. A setup with a lens on Ubuntu is not that bad, or overlay as windows. And as said, make sure all developor type of searches are hidden from the normal user. It is easy to say Kubuntu and others are to blame for not making the final touches, but the KDE can do better here, and give us something sane for normal as default. I rather change once some settings for myself to see more developer stuff, than having to edit kde config for every normal user I install linux for.

By: Diederik van der Boor

Diederik van der Boor — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 04:16:20 +0000

I wonder, as KRunner is basically looking more like Spotlight on the Mac, would it make sense to change the shortcut as well? I find Alt+F2 a bit of a hidden feature, while Spotlight has a much more prominent space on the desktop. The Spotlight key combination Command/Meta + space is way more accessible compared to Alt+F2.

By: sebas

sebas — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:28:10 +0000

“wiki $QUERY and “wp:$QUERY” are different things, the former will search online and display the results in KRunner, the latter offers to surf to a page on Wikipedia called $QUERY. The latter ones come directly from the webshortcuts, and are basically bridged into KRunner, the MediaWiki and YouTube plugins are “native” KRunner plugins.

By: KyriakosBrastianos

KyriakosBrastianos — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:05:34 +0000

Sorry the correct link is https://plus.google.com/photos/111542399960172391393/albums/5791830266614307569?authkey=CIippoDE6KaSCg

By: KyriakosBrastianos

KyriakosBrastianos — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:03:01 +0000

in the Chakra distribution DuckDuckGo shortcut is dd and WikiPedia is wp users better lookup under systemsettings>AccountDetails>WebShortcuts and activate the ones they want or change the shortcut name.
Some issue (or maybe not) i faced is that when searching videos: and the desired name i get youtube video results integrated into my KDE search and launch activity (or under the krunner dialog) but with gg, dd, amz, wp and all others you just see a suggestion to use this service to search with your default browser and not the actual results integrated into your activity/krunner.
is something wrong with my distribution default settings or this is what is supposed to do?
to better understand what i am talking about i uploaded some screenshots into this album:

https://plus.google.com/photos/111542399960172391393/albums/5791830266614307569

Greetings
Kyriakos Brastianos