iLaunch
Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work):
Description:
This program is designed to clear up clutter on your desktop by stacking icons in a scrollable format. (think deck of cards) Using the scroll wheel on your mouse (button 4 & 5) will cycle through the applications in the .rc file added by you the user from the first application to the end. Then it will loop to the beginning, being an endless loop cycling through your stack of icons.
Features:
o) Background image or no background image support(transparent background).
o) Maximizes desktop space by moving all your icons into one scrollable stack.
o) Drag and Drop support when dragging from the K-menu or the Kicker bar(no Desktop icons or devices yet).
o) No wheel mouse support, by right clicking the theme and selecting the No Wheel Mouse option in the Configure theme menu.
o) Alternate display text when adding applications to customize what is displayed to your needs.
o) Icon theme finding engine to locate your current icons being used by KDE.
o) Mouse over highlighting when on an application to launch.
o) Custom icons support by selecting the directory in which they are stored.
o) Drag and drop a file onto iLaunch and the application displayed will launch it for you if the type is correct.
o) Applications that support multiple files being opened via command line should be able to accept multi-file drops as well.
o) Ability to select a unique icon for the showing application and it is remembered when changing icon themes as well.
o) Automatic resizing to suit the icon theme selected when setting the Custom Icon Directory
o) Remove the current application by right clicking and selecting it from the Configure menu.
o) Middle clicking iLaunch displays the information about the execution command and the location of the icon it's using. Last changelog:
Features:
o) Background image or no background image support(transparent background).
o) Maximizes desktop space by moving all your icons into one scrollable stack.
o) Drag and Drop support when dragging from the K-menu or the Kicker bar(no Desktop icons or devices yet).
o) No wheel mouse support, by right clicking the theme and selecting the No Wheel Mouse option in the Configure theme menu.
o) Alternate display text when adding applications to customize what is displayed to your needs.
o) Icon theme finding engine to locate your current icons being used by KDE.
o) Mouse over highlighting when on an application to launch.
o) Custom icons support by selecting the directory in which they are stored.
o) Drag and drop a file onto iLaunch and the application displayed will launch it for you if the type is correct.
o) Applications that support multiple files being opened via command line should be able to accept multi-file drops as well.
o) Ability to select a unique icon for the showing application and it is remembered when changing icon themes as well.
o) Automatic resizing to suit the icon theme selected when setting the Custom Icon Directory
o) Remove the current application by right clicking and selecting it from the Configure menu.
o) Middle clicking iLaunch displays the information about the execution command and the location of the icon it's using.
version 0.17: 07/24/2006 - itemDropped callback format fix
version 0.16: 09/02/2005 - Bugfixes for the 0.37 release of SuperKaramba
- Reworked the icon theme finding code
- Made a .skz package
Ratings & Comments
63 Comments
Very nice - I might stop using KSmoothDock and start using this instead :D Although none of the icons are showing up in Crystal Clear. Great work!
Actually I was testing this with Crystal Clear so I would suspect that it depends on if the icon theme you have selected has the icons for you apps or not. Glad you like it!
I found out that all I had to do was change the custom directory to : /home/patrick/.kde/share/icons/Crystal Clear/32x32/apps But I'm still wondering where my KOffice and amaroK icons went...
Great script, very helpful. Only one small bug that I've found so far. I have a Windows application that I run using Crossover Wine. The command is: /opt/cxoffice/bin/wine "/home/sean/.cxoffice/dotwine/fake_windows/Program Files/QuickPar/QuickPar.exe" iLaunch will not run this no matter how I formatted it. I ended up having to create a shell script to run it, and that finally worked. Still though, great all around.
This has been discussed before.. it should work fine, the only trick that would need to be done is a icon named wine.png. http://kdelook.org/content/show.php?content=6708&forummode=2&forumpage=1&forumexplevel=0&forumthread=37345#c37371 Check out that link to see what was discussed before.. and if you can't get it, email me.
I've been trying to get a small script to run with ILaunch and so far it just ain't happening. It would be helpful if I could find the settings I've alreardy set so I can attempt to figure this out. Any Help?
They get saved in ~/.superkaramba/iLaunch.rc. Hope that helps..
I've just started playing with ILaunch.... This is just what I've been looking for! I run at a resolution of 1920x1440 here so everything started out very small.I have so far managed to resize it but I can't figure out how to reposition the text. It now seems to start centered on the icon. I'd prefer it to be either centered or started x pixles from the left. Can you help me out here?
I really like this iLaunch very useful :) just a question: how can I cancel an icon that it's not the last one?
This has been included now in version 0.14. =c)
There is no way to directly do this currently. It would be useful to implement this now though. Currently you would have to remove however many until you got to the one you want to remove, and then re-add your icons to it. I'll begin work on a way to do direct removal. Here's a question though, when the showing icon is removed, what should be displayed next? The very first one? or the next one in the rotation? or what?
Tnx p0z3r! :)
No problem! Knew you'd like this! ;-D
Hey, I really like you program, but I can't seem to get it to work on my SuSE 8.2 distro. It showed up on my screen, but the "Configure Theme" text is grayed out. I'm not really familar with python scrips, and so I don't know how to debug it. I did what you said in the README, and changed line 41 to: "debug" = 1. I then ran ./iLaunch.py in the terminal. I got this back: ./iLaunch.py: line 31: import: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 32: import: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 37: conf: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 38: font: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 39: fontColor: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 40: fontSize: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 41: debug: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 42: shadow: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 43: kdePath: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 44: iconDirectory: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 45: bg: no job control ./iLaunch.py: line 46: currentIconEffect: command not found ./iLaunch.py: line 47: syntax error near unexpected token `}' ./iLaunch.py: line 47: `}' Like I said, I don't know anything about python, but I do know some c++, and because of all the "command not found"s, I am figuring that I don't have the right python stuff installed. Please post a reply and help me get through this. Your program looks really cool. Hope you know what's up.
I just realized that you did a ./iLaunch.py That is not correct. It should have been: superkaramba iLaunch.theme That will produce the debug information I was referring. Try that and get back to me please. -p0z3r
I think that your hunch is right. Something is missing in your python install I believe. You could try running python from a terminal and try typing in something like 'import re' or 'import os' to see if they work. My Mandrake 9.1 box has python 2.2 installed, and it was tested on another box that is Mandrake 9.2 with python 2.3. Both worked without problems. Do any other themes work for you? Maybe stop by the irc channel later tonight or email me?
The patch above works nicely. Just one question Would a 3rd variable/question be possible. For example I want konqueror but I want it to launch via kfmclient openProfile webbrowsing so that I get it in the browser mode. Since the icon name is keyed off of the exec command I get the unknown icon instead of the konqueror icon. Would it be possible to have a 3rd question, call it icon name and a variable icon0 so that in the iLaunch.rc file I see app0=kfmclient openProfile webbrowsing display0=Konqueror icon0=konqueror.png That way items can be added to the menu that may not be in a users Path (say they installed OOo) But are otherwise launchable via a full path name. (/usr/local/Openoffice.org/soffice for example) But still be able to assign it an icon. On the other hand. The only problem I had with the suggested patch above is that the second line for me was 449 not 448. No sweat. It works works well and works clean. Keep it up .... so far this is one of the top uses of karamba or superK I've seen so far.
Small workaround would be to go into where your icon theme is and copy over konqueror.png to kfmclient.png. I was thinking about the best way to add this into the question dialogs, but I didn't want to have so many things required to go through just to add another icon. So, I'm still looking into this and should have some way to do this in the future. Glad to hear that you like it so much!
Hi! ive got a solution for peepz whithout a scroll wheel on their mouse. follow this steps: get this bg.png: http://peman.no-ip.org/tmp/bg.png edit the iLaunch.py file an replace this lines: line 413 if (x > 65 and x < 75) and (y > 15 and y < 27) and (button == 1): line 448 if (x > 65 and x < 75) and (y > 49 and y < 63) and (button == 1):
Peman: That sounds like a great workaround. I haven't tried to work on this idea b/c ageity had said that alternate keyboard events would be handled in an upcoming version, which would have included the up/down arrows on your keyboard. Mind if I include it into iLaunch for now?
no prob man.
I'll figure out the best way to add this to the current method so that they are both present, have a way to be turned on/off and are suitable for all size icons used.
what about making a version for 64x64 sized icons? that would be really cool ;-) thanks
It does support 64x64 icons. What you might be seeing is that when you load it up, by default it searches for your current icon theme and finds the 32x32 size icons just as it is mostly supported by the icons packages here on kdelook.org. BUT, if you right-click on it, go to Configure Theme and select Custom Icon Directory, it will bring up a kdialog where you can enter a directory with the icons you want to use instead. For example: /usr/share/icons/Umicons/64x64/apps That's what I've been doing, but I suppose I could put in a configure option to select the size you want, but the drawback is the first time users initial startup will require more configuring before they can use it.
Ok.. so I start it up, and it is blank. I try and right click on it, but the configure option is greyed out. I can't seem to figure out how to use this thing other then that. The VERY first time I fired it up, it did come up with a dialog box asking for an app. I put in Gimp, but it didn't show up. I have tried deleting the dir, and replacing it, but that dialog box doesn't come up even after that. I would really like to use this, but I can't seem to configure it. I am using iLaunce 0.08 and Superkaramba 0.32-1 Thanks