Introducing Homerun

[Nuno Pinheiro]

A Sexta, 9 de Novembro de 2012 23:09:35 Aurélien Gâteau escreveu:
> Hi all,
> 
> Some of you have already heard about Homerun, but it has never been properly
> announced on this mailing list. Time to fix this.
> 
> # What is Homerun?
> 
> Homerun is an alternative launcher for KDE Plasma, built using QML Plasma
> Components. It has been developed by Shaun Reich and I during the last 6
> months. It originally started as a QML port of the Search and Launch
> containment, but rapidly evolved into something different.
> 
> Homerun currently looks like this:
> 
> http://wstaw.org/m/2012/11/09/plasma-windowedy27414.png
> 
> As you can see, it is a fullscreen launcher with content organized in tabs.
> A tab is made of several "sources". A source can provide one or more
> sections to a tab. Homerun comes with a few built-in sources, but custom
> sources can be written using libhomerun.

Don't take my criticism the wrong way.

I hate full screen launchers they they remove focus from your task and force 
you to mentally remap an entire new screen...

They are useful in touch interfaces were hit area need to be substantially 
larger and were moving from A position to B position is mostly efort free 
depending on the device and how  you old it....

On the desktop I positively hate the concept specially in large enough screens 
were moving from A to B might require-me to lift my mouse in order to finish 
the movement...

I believe much more in non intrusive launchers such as krunner, me notes is 
don't like kickoff all that much. That's as i have pointed out is deeply 
unmarkted by us all and most users wont find out about it being berried under 
an alt-F2.
I personally believe that that's path kde should take as far as traditional 
mouse/keyboard driven desktop is concerned. Focussing on what "it works" for 
that paradigm making the desktop less and less cluttered and open for the apps 
the user uses with great support for multitasking and integration of helpful 
services. 

With all of that said allot of people use their desktop in deeply different 
ways than what I do, so :)  probably allot of people will like it.... so ;) 
take what I say the same way i take it,,,

2 cents from a visual perspective. 

Drop the plasma frame on the launcher, remember to extend hit areas t the 
edges of the screen so that it gets to use the infinite hit area there... 
think about the way you present your items (the animation), if well done it 
helps the user compose a mental map of what you are showing...  


> Homerun allows you to start applications, but also to browse hierarchies:
> for example clicking on an item of the "Favorite Places" section won't
> start Dolphin in this folder: it will list the folder content in Homerun
> itself, making it possible to explore the filesystem and directly open the
> file you are looking for. In this aspect it can be seen as an alternative
> to the Folder View applet.
> 
> Homerun can either be used from a launcher button in a panel, like Kickoff,
> or as a containment, like the Search and Launch containment.
> 
> # Sources vs Runners
> 
> One of the main differences between Homerun sources and Plasma runners is
> that sources can provide default content: A source exposes a list of items
> through a Qt model. This model may or may not support additional features
> such as searching/filtering, multiple sections or browsable content.
> 
> Sources and Runners are two ways of accessing content. While I haven't tried
> it yet, it should be possible to write a plugin which implements both the
> Runner and the Source interfaces. This could be handy as there is quite
> some code which can be shared between a Runner and a Source.
> 
> Note that Homerun ships a "Runner" source, which uses Plasma Runners to
> provide content. This is the source used to perform all "real" searchs (as
> opposed to filtering results).
> 
> # Getting it
> 
> Homerun code is hosted on KDE Git, get it with git clone kde:homerun
> 
> # Schedule
> 
> We are planning the release of version 0.1.0 for next week. For now we are
> happy with it staying in playground until it gains maturity. It has been
> quite stable and usable for the last months, but it still needs real-world
> use.
> 
> When we feel it is ready, we will probably ask for it to be moved to either
> extragear or the KDE SC, based on the user feedback we get.
> 
> Looking forward to hear your opinion on this new project.
> 
> Aurélien

cheers

> _______________________________________________
> Plasma-devel mailing list
> Plasma-devel at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/plasma-devel