[ubuntu-uk] Launcher applets

[Alan Bell]

On 15/03/12 19:21, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 15 March 2012 19:12, Alan Bell<alan.bell at libertus.co.uk>  wrote:
>> On 15/03/12 18:56, Liam Proven wrote:
>>> Is it possible to write an applet that runs just as an icon in the
>>> Launcher and whose UI just consists of context menus?
>>>
>> kind of, this would be just a .desktop file with a list of commands to run
>> for each quicklist
>> http://mhall119.com/2012/02/contributing-to-unity-for-non-developers-quicklists/
> What I had in mind was an applet which, on a left click, displayed a
> hierarchical applications menu, picking it up from the categories that
> are still present and buried in Ubuntu somewhere.
>
> In other words, what you get if on Mac OS X you drag the Applications
> folder to the Dock: basically, a Start menu replacement. For all those
> who hate the Unity dash - and I am not fond of it myself - it would
> replace the lost functionality of the GNOME 2 panel menus.
>
oh, interesting. Sadly it won't work as the quicklists do not permit a 
hierarchical menu structure (yes, I tried)

One thing I can do with the quicklists api stuff is add quicklists for 
all the windows of an application. That means you can find and raise the 
one window you want from the set of windows of an application type 
without all the others rising to the top. This also stops you wanting to 
stab your monitor quite so frequently. If you want to try it out the 
code is here:
http://people.ubuntu.com/~alanbell/quicklists.py
and I have a badly made package of it here:
http://people.ubuntu.com/~alanbell/unity-window-quicklists.deb

I think the way to fix the unity dash is to just fix the applications 
lens so it uses the categories as categories like this 
http://people.ubuntu.com/~alanbell/applicationslens.png

Alan.

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