ANNOUNCE: xfce4-appfinder 4.9.0 released

[Nick Schermer]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Harald Judt <h.judt at gmx.at> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Am 21.09.2011 20:54, schrieb Nick Schermer:
> [...]
>>
>> What is xfce4-appfinder?
>> ========================
>>
>> The Xfce application finder is a program that searches your file system
>> for .desktop files, and displays a categorized list of all the GUI
>> applications on your system.
>>
>> Website:
>>   http://www.xfce.org
>>
>>
>> Release notes for 4.9.0
>> =======================
>>
>> This is the first development release of the combination of
>> xfce4-appfinder and xfrun4.
>>
>> Please give it some early testing, it might have some rough edges, but
>> this is the time to suggest improvements! If you have some, please go to
>> bugzilla.xfce.org and report them.
>
>
> I did some quick tests and found it has some nice ideas and the search
> function and custom commands are really nifty, but it is currently not on a
> par with xfrun4.
>
> A few suggestions and things I noticed (I'm sorry if I mention only negative
> things here, but you asked for improvements):
>
> * Bug: In collapsed mode, enter a command which does not exist => error. Now
> clear the field and enter a correct command and try to launch it => Nothing
> happens.

Already fixed in master, was quite stupid indeed.

> * It does not allow you to run commands in the easy way xfrun4 does, e.g.
> try entering 'xscreensaver-command -lock' => Command not found.

I think that was fixed as well in the same commit, will verify.

> * It doesn't go together well with some .desktop files, e.g. LibreOffice.
> The problem here is that the 'Exec' entry has parameters, e.g. libreoffice
> --writer, which seems not to be supported by xfce4-appfinder.
>
>  - I expected it to show me 'LibreOffice Writer' and 'LibreOffice
>    Calc' when I entered 'lowriter' and 'localc'. Unexpectedly, it
>    did not, but comes up with 'LibreOffice Writer' and 'LibreOffice
>    Calc' when I enter libreoffice. That is because lowriter and
>    localc does not exist in any desktop files, only in /usr/bin.

Not much we can do about that.

>  - Entering 'l' in collapsed mode shows me many entries for completion
>    named 'libreoffice'. If I select any one of these from the
>    suggestions list, I always get the same icon. Of course, I can't
>    launch them either.
>
>  - Related issue: Enter libreoffice in expanded mode, select one of the
>    many LibreOffice entries (Writer, Calc,...) => It's always
>    'libreoffice' which appears in the entry field, though it starts
>    the right application.

Mm ok, I need to check this, see if this can be improved.

> * Switching between collapsed mode and expanded mode is possible via
> keyboard up and down keys, but only when the text box is empty. Is there a
> reason why it can't work all the time?
>
> * Auto-completion for commands (not only for history) would be a really
> nice-to-have feature. Please make it use PATH for searching applications,
> too, not only desktop files.

Thought about that, but it will import more crap then useful commands,
so I left that out on purpose.

> * 'http://www.xfce.org' doesn't work, though there's an entry in custom
> commands?

Will check that as well.

Thanks for testing and your comments and ideas.

Nick