XFce4-Appfinder preview

[Jasper Huijsmans]

On Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 09:22:03PM +0100, Moritz Heiber wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 21:19:16 +0100
> Eduard Roccatello <xfce at roccatello.it> wrote:
> 
> > Hello!
> > 
> > This is a little preview of what i'm working on :-)
> > Please test it and report bugs/feature request/issues
> > 
> > http://www.roccatello.it/eduard/xfce4-appfinder-0.1.0.tar.gz
> 
> Hello Eduard,
> 
> what about importing this baby into the goodies' CVS?
> 

Well, actually, Eduard is trying to implement my idea of how XFce could
handle the system menu (GNOME/KDE/DEBIAN) and if it works out I'd ieven 
like to see it become part of XFce core.

The idea is that the system menu is the place where all installed 
applications can be found. Wading through hierarchic menus is not the 
xfce way, so I tried to think of something else.

The appfinder works similarly to the bookmark system of epiphany: there
is one flat list of available applications (.desktop files) and there is
a side pane showing 'categories' that may be  used to limit the list. 
Categories can include things like 'All' and 'Recently used'. 
Alternatively there is a search box that can be used to find a specific 
app.

Now, the appfinder can be used to run programs (perhaps as part of
xfrun), or to add programs with icon, to the panel or the menu. Panel
and menu-editor should accept drag and drop from .desktop files and/or 
we could turn the appfinder into a dialog that can be called from other
applications. 

This way, the panel and menu remain clean and uncluttered, containing 
only often-used applications, while the user still has easy access to 
all available applications.

I think this could work well. Opinions are very welcome, so let me know
what you all think.

	Jasper