Cinnamon - Enhancement suggestions for Runner (Alt + F2)

[anandrkris]

Hi - The current runner in Cinnamon is functional but very minimalistic.

May i suggest to incorporate some nice features into runner (similar to KDE's Krunner)

• Application launch - integration with Cinnamon Menu
• Shortcuts to features based on certain keywords - increase brightness, play / pause music, logout, restart cinnamon (current r does not show any tip that it is restarting cinnamon), etc.

http://www.maketecheasier.com/10-awesome-features-of-krunner-in-kde-4/2009/06/29 http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner

[stefan-niedermann]

good ideas, another feature i miss is autocomplete. for example: i type "gnome-ter" and then should "gnome-terminal" suggested.

[ManIVIctorious]

auto complete is integrated, just hit the tab-Button, like it is in a terminal.

[stefan-niedermann]

the difference is, that i can see what word is suggested, and i only have to type "enter". with the tab-button-method i can't see which program (for example not helpful if i know only how the program-name starts) and i have to make 2 inputs (tab + enter) i think in mate its like i suggested.

[ManIVIctorious]

then just use tab more than only one time and you can switch through suggestions

[stefan-niedermann]

you misunderstood me, i think a suggestion should be displayed without an user-action. would be more intuitive in my opinion.

like i said: compare to mate alt + f2

[saurjk]

the main thing I miss about kde runner is the calculator and unit converter... it would be great if they were incorporated into cinnamon's runner

[gauravjuvekar]

+1 Great idea. Also, setting custom aliases as suggested in #2223

[corbin-auriti]

I think is a useful addition, and I remember some of us were talking in the dev irc channel about possibly the ability to allow a keyword to be searched by the web.

[davcri]

+1

I agree also with stefan-niedermann :

good ideas, another feature i miss is autocomplete. for example: i type "gnome-ter" and then should "gnome-terminal" suggested.

[anandrkris]

Another enhancement suggestion - https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/3130

[anandrkris]

Linuxvoice journal in it KDE desktop review has listed Krunner has one of the killer feature.Thought it is pertinent to share here. :smile: Switch to desktop seems cool.

[martinrotter]

Any progress with integrating Runner with installed *.desktop items? This is must-have feature. Imagine you want to open libreoffice-calc. You just type "calc" and hit enter, this opens Libre Office Calc correctly on KDE. On cinnamon, nothing happens.

EDIT: The application menu applet seems to contain similar functionality.

[rijnhard]

+1 again, probably the only thing i miss from KDE, I used to live in KRunner, In Cinnamon I use the menu's search a hell of a lot because Runner doesn't have that integration.

[anandrkris]

@dalcde @mtwebster @RavetcoFX @clefebvre - How difficult or easy is to integrate search providers into Alt + F2 Runner? https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/pull/3928 https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/pull/3853

KDE has implemented its Krunner well, IMO. Will be a good addition to Cinnamon. Of course providers should be configurable.

[ghost]

@anandrkris i think that will be possible, but of course will need to be a different implementation and currently i will prefer stability instead, because what is added on the last days is more than what i expected. I think that will not be preferable to take risk, anyway +1

[anandrkris]

@lestcape Hmm, am not saying it should necessarily be implemented in the next release. :smile: But if it is implemented in generic fashion - perhaps it could be reused w//o much rework. In fact, i prefer it to be in runner than bloat the menu. Krunner supports plugins - unsure how Cinnamon runner is designed at the moment.

[corbin-auriti]

@anandrkris glebihan and I were mentioning the possibility of it, but its all still very up in the air at the moment what the plan will be

[anandrkris]

@RavetcoFX - Thanks for the update. Keen to see this in Cinnamon. I recall my initial days of Linux with KDE and used to show off people what Alt + F2 can achieve and how minimal Super + R in Windows...Apart from cool and fancy factor, many things are functional as well... (Nepomuk was slow and complex...then came Baloo...)...now am digressing :wink:

[anandrkris]

http://www.ocsmag.com/2015/03/13/plasma-is-my-new-favorite-desktop/ > Check out Krunner screenshots. Impressive. I am running Cinnamon and definitely not a KDE fan boy. Sharing here for interest / ideas !

[rijnhard]

This needs more upvotes.

[jadlr]

+1

[brunoro]

Any advances on this? I'm with @martinrotter, integrating the results from the search bar from the panel "Menu" button would be already a big improvement. I can take some time to try it out if someone else is also interested on such feature.

[marcociara379]

Definitely a killer feature. Why not also file search results? Even better if from a index service like recoll

[kubaceg]

+1

[Madh93]

I think it should run aliases too.

[JosephMcc]

Support for aliases was actually implemented here: https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/commit/94b9494ea64bedf8e960c5ecf99479ff0c5982ce

You can set them with the org.cinnamon.run-dialog-aliases gsettings key.

[anandrkris]

https://www.maketecheasier.com/albert-launcher-linux/ Seems interesting

[RossBrunton]

As mentioned in #5093, the ability to expand shell variables and ~ would be greatly appreciated.

[imperative]

Almost all of this functionality is basically already implemented in the open-source program called Launchy. It even works on linux. Not sure if it's easy, but you could just get it's code, polish a few things (if needed by rest of Cinnamon software) and include in the package. Both softwares are open source.

[well1791]

This feature is good to avoid searching through the main menu. Also as mentioned before, having the calculator ready to use in the runner is helpful as hell (miss that feature from KDE).

Perhaps if this integration is not feasible sooner or later (considering this issue exist from 2013), could you provide a good recommendation (preferably tested and approved) that can give us the same features without losing the smoothness of cinnamon?

[JosephMcc]

Many thanks for contributing to Cinnamon. Your suggestion was reviewed. Your job is done and we'll take it from here :)

For more information on our workflow and feature requests, read https://linuxmint-troubleshooting-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html

[rpxomi]

Sorry to put this here, but I do not know if it's the Arc theme, or this is related to Cinnamon. What is that bar that can be seen below the search box that appears with Alt + F2? (I marked it with red color). Is it something that works poorly or simply decoration?

If my message has to be deleted, I understand. But I did not want to open a new issue just for this.

Thanks and I'm sorry again.

[leigh123linux]

@rpxomi The arc-theme has broken cinnamon theme, using mint-y-theme (based on arc-theme) is a better choice.

[rpxomi]

@leigh123linux Using the recommendation you gave me as a guide, I found this theme in Cinnamon Spices that integrates well with the colors of the Arc theme and does not have that bar in the search box (for not have to activate AUR and download mint-y-theme).

If someone is interested, this is the link: https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes/view/Mint-Y-Blue

Thank you very much.

[Izaic]

Unit conversions would be extremely useful, as well as looking up timezone information, and being able to search files.