KRunner behavior change

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Wednesday 02 April 2008, Matej Svejda wrote:
> >  >  * pressing tab in the SearchTermBox causes the next Match to be
> >  > highlighted (bash-like)
> >
> > this doesn't work here? i have to open the completion list first.. not so
> > hot really.
>
> That's weird, I removed the completion-box completely as IMHO it
> doesn't make any sense. The matches should be used as completion
> (after all, that's what they do: they find out what the user means by
> what he's typing -> completion. 

that's why i pointed out that matches != queries. the completion box completes 
past *queries*, not matches. so, for instance, i might have typed:

sftp /home/aseigo/path/to/my/file ktown.kde.org:/some/other/path

and this would get matched by the ShellRunner. it won't complete my last 
execution however (it could, though that would need to be very careful in 
doing so as an additional item.. and then how does it get ranked in exactly?)

this is even more true of things like how i launch firefox with krunner: i 
just type "fox", hit enter and firefox starts up. "fox" will appear in the 
completion box, but not in the matches for "fo"

so this is about completing *queries* not *matches*.

and finally, the use case for having a history that extends between sessions 
is so i can just do "alt-f2, up arrow, enter" and get my last execution.

> And they are a lot more intelligent 
> then the simple completion-box). The completion box isn't really
> helpfull therefore. It just slows the user down as he has to "get
> through it" to reach his matches.

which is why i suggested this instead:

i'd say simply setting the completion mode of the existing edit widget to 
KGlobalSettings::CompletionAuto or maybe KGlobalSettings::CompletionShell 
(i've never played with that one at all, tbh) should probably be enough and a 
lot easier to code than the hoops you've jumped though here =)

if you tried that, you'd see that it resolves the popup from showing (which is 
the real issue here) while allowing the user to still change that behaviour 
like in any kde box via the context menu.

> Also no other launcher interfaces (Katapult, GnomeDo, Quicksilver have
> that). 

interesting reference point, but not justification in itself. remember that 
krunner must also, unlike these other tools, also serve as the "run command" 
box without being annoying to use for this.

> Try it. IMHO it really makes KRunner more convenient to use.

i agree that the drop down box sucks. i left it there because i though we'd 
have a new UI for this thing months ago and so didn't want to spend too much 
time on it.

but fixing it by degrading other functionality is probably not the optimal 
solution =)

> > this really does not work in the case of the calulator runner however.
> >  clobbering the clipboard behind the user's back is also not very nice
> >  behaviour. so, i think we'll skip on this one.
>
> Ok. What about making it easier for runners to copy things to the
> clippboard, maybe through SearchContext.

that'd be fine... haven't really thought about the UI for such a thing.

> > ... which is intentional, so that you can do multiple calculations in a
> > row. i happen to use this on a regular basis, in fact, and was a
> > requested feature.
>
> Didn't know that. Maybe this can be made configurable?

i don't think that would make a lot of sense as it would just make different 
matches/runners behave differently from each other and/or make the 
configuration overhead even greater.

all to save a ctrl-c =)

> > i'm not sure we want to drag subtext into it ...
>
> Maybe we should add a method for runners to give matches a unique id...?

that'd work. it would mean a little more work on behalf of the runner writers, 
but probably worth it, esp since the visible text is supposed to be 
translated and we probably don't want to use that.

since several runners already use SearchMatch::data() as a way to store 
actionable information, perhaps we could extend the use of that as the unique 
id and require it to be set for ranking based on past selection to work?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Trolltech
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