Runners KCM

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 30.06.2014 16:03, Hans Chen wrote:
> Was it decided that KRunner will be used as the default search interface
> in Plasma 5?
>
> I personally still think that it's misleading to use the term "search"
> when referring to KRunner.
> Sure, it does search for some things, but to me it's defined by the
> actions it can perform, and those are not restricted to searching.
> (For example, why is "Calculator" a search plugin? Unit converter? Those
> runners that let you control your audio player?)
> An analogy would be Wolfram Alpha, which is used to search for
> information and solutions; however, I wouldn't call it a "search site".
>
> What I'm getting at is the following:
>
> 1. From the screenshot it looks like the dialog is located within the
> Search KCM (if that's incorrect, you can safely ignore this point).
> That can easily give the wrong impression, since KRunner works perfectly
> fine without having Desktop Search (Baloo) enabled.

No, it's a separate KCM. The current idea is to name the Baloo KCM 
"Search Backend" and the KRunner KCM "Plasma Search".

We are aware that runners like calculator, unit converter or command 
line don't really fit the name "Plasma Search".
Maybe "Plasma Search and Run"?

> 2. Instead I propose to give KRunner its own KCM module (not sure what
> to call it) with the following:
> - Short description of what it does (probably not possible now due to
> string freeze?).
> - Ability to configure the shortcut to activate it.
> - List of plugins to enable/disable.

Except for the description, this is already the plan.

> KRunner is in my opinion one of the "killer features" of Plasma Desktop
> and is so good that people should use it in other
> workspaces/shells/desktop environments/window managers.
> Point 2 will make it easier for new people to discover the benefits of
> KRunner, while clearly showing that it can be used without having
> Desktop Search enabled
> (many people seem to be of the opinion that the indexing takes up
> computer resources for features they don't need).

Yes, KRunner is an awesome feature which presumably many users know way 
too little about and we plan to change that by making it more prominent 
and accessible in the future.