Info request on menu's recently used list

[Duncan]

gene heskett posted on Sat, 14 May 2011 10:01:49 -0400 as excerpted:

> Greetings;
> 
> How can I increase the number of common apps that show up in the
> recently used portion at the top of the text style kde menu?

Text-style kde menu?

> This current method apparently only keeps time stamp order, and by the
> time I have done half of my daily activities, the run once per boot
> stuff, because they run 24/7, apps have scrolled off the bottom of the
> list & I have to search through the menu's subdirs to find them again.
> 
> One feature I loved/hated about the later kde3 was that if you used a
> common set of apps, the list was kept over a reboot, so rerunning such
> as kmail, gkrellm and a few shells here & there were automatically
> restored as part of the kde startup dance.  That appears to be no more,
> or I have that option turned off someplace I can't find.
> 
> If it is available, how can I re-enable this behavior?

There are three "application launcher" menu style plasmoids available in 
kde by default, with others likely available from kdelook.org.  However, 
I'd not call any of them "text style", as they all have icons and text 
(name/description/both depending on your prefs).

Kickoff is the one that appears on the default panel.  It has a search-box 
at the top, a row of icons (favorites/apps/computer/recently-used/leave) 
across the bottom, and a center menu area that changes depending on which 
of the bottom icons is selected.

If you context-click on that with widgets unlocked, it'll let you change 
to the classic style menu, or you can add another "Application Launcher 
Menu" using the normal add-widgets functionality.

Note that the label and icon difference between these is very small.  In 
the widget list, one appears as "application launcher" (this is the new-
style kickoff), the other as "application launcher menu" (the classic 
menu), both with the same K/gear icon.  One other difference is that the 
description for the "classic" menu has the keyword "traditional" while the 
other one doesn't.

The third option is lancelot.  This one's somewhat different, with a 
layout initially looking like kickoff, but working differently and with 
different main categories, emphasizing email/IM contacts and unread 
messages, etc, in a separate category.  The add widget list has a wine 
glass icon (the holy grail... lancelot... get it?) for this.  Its 
interactivity design allows no-click (beyond the initial click-to-menu-
open) access, thru the use of little launcher arrows that launch that item 
if only hovered.  This one's definitely not my style, so I'll leave it at 
that.

Of the three menu types, the classic menu is definitely most flexible in 
the number of configuration options offered.  Individual categories can be 
activated/deactivated as desired from it's context menu, which makes it 
nice for adding various quick-access single-purpose menus, like the 
bookmarks menu (classic menu with only the bookmarks menu activated) I 
have configured right next to my kickoff menu.

But most of interest here, the classic menu allows configuring the number 
of recently used apps that appear in its recently used menu.  It defaults 
to the same 5 as kickoff, but the spinbox lets you set it higher, if 
desired. =:^)

As an alternative, the Favorites menu, available from both kickoff and the 
classic menu (if so configured), is user configurable.  In the apps menu 
on both kickoff and classic, you can context-click on an app and get the 
option to add it to the favorites menu.  Likewise, context-clicking on an 
app in the favorites menu gives you the option to remove it.  This isn't 
recently used, but it does give you a quick way to access the apps you 
want, without having to go thru the apps menu subdirs to find it.

Yet another alternative is to simply type a bit of the name or description 
in the search box at the top of the kickoff menu.  Pausing after three 
typed characters, the menu quickly changes to display matches only.  As 
the search box is focused when the menu is opened, you can simply hit the 
hotkey you have configured to open kickoff and start typing, without using 
the mouse at all.

krunner can of course be used similarly, typing in just a few letters and 
letting it do a match.  Again, simply hitting the krunner hotkey and 
typing should get the desired result.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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