Handbook
From Katapult
The Katapult Handbook
Richard A. Johnson <nixternal@ubuntu.com>
Revision 1.00.00 (2006-11-17)
Copyright © 2006-2007 Richard Johnson
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
Katapult is an application specially designed to provide quick and easy access to applications, bookmarks, music and more.
Contents |
Chapter 1. Introduction
Katapult is a KDE application that provides you with faster and easier access to your applications, bookmarks, and more. It is plugin-based and can launch anything it has a plugin for. Its plugin-driven appearance is completely customizable. Katapult was inspired by Quicksilver for OS X, and it is written in C .
Chapter 2. Using Katapult
Starting Katapult
Katapult, if not started automatically upon booting into KDE, can simply be started by Alt-F2. When the run dialog box opens, type katapult and press Enter. If Katapult started successfully, you will receive a pop-up message with instructions on how to use the launcher.
Launching Katapult
To launch Katapult, simply press Alt-Space. This will pop up the Katapult launcher, allowing you to type in the name of the application you wish to launch.
More Katapult Features
Katapult allows access to the following:
- All applications listed in KMenu
- Entire Amarok playlist
- All of you bookmarks (Automatic Mozilla import, or manual import of file)
- Use Katapult as a calculator
- Use Katapult to see if you are spelling a word correctly
- Easy access to all of your documents in the home directory
Chapter 3. Command Reference
The main Katapult window
When the main Katapult window opens, simply start typing the application you want to start, and then press Enter to launch that application. Example, to start Konqueror, you would do: Alt-Space Then start typing Konqueror Once you have typed in at least konq, you will notice the Konqueror title and icon appear in the main window. Once you see this, simply press Enter, and Konqueror will now open.
Configuration Dialog
In normal cases Katapult shows up in the system tray. Simply right click and choose Configure. This will allow you to change Katapult's default behavior and appearance.
If Katapult does not show up in the system tray, simply press Alt-Space. Once Katapult launches, then press Ctrl-C. From here you have the options to:
- Configure Global Shortcuts... - This will allow you to change the Alt-Space shortcut to one you decide to use.
- Configure Shortcuts... - This will allow you to change all shortcuts involved with the Katapult launcher
- Configure Katapult... - This will allow you to to change each individual catalog as well as Katapult itself to suit your needs.
- About Katapult - This will open the about dialog displaying information about Katapult, the Katapult authors, and the Katapult license agreement.
- Quit - This will shut down Katapult.
Creating a Catalog (Plugin)
Introduction
Purpose
This section of the documentation is intended for those people looking to develop catalogs (plugins) for Katapult. It will approach this as a walk-through for creating a text display catalog.
Assumptions
It is assumed that you are running KDE 3.5 or greater. Additionally, KDevelop will be the primary coding environment.
Overview
What you will be doing is actually something simple: you are making a library for KDE. This library defines a "Service" that is provided for Katapult and can therefor be used and called by Katapult. All of your code will be compiled and then combined into a library (.lo, .so) by KDevelop. It will be added into the $KDE_LIBS/kde3/ directory, and a .desktop "service definition" file will be placed in $KDE/share/services/ so that Katapult can load your plugin.
Catalog Structure
Common Directory
libkatapult.la
- ActionRegistry
- KatapultAction - events
- KatapultItem - the text that is entered
libkatapultcatalog.la
- CachedCatalog
- KatapultCatalog
- Match
libkatapultdisplay.la
- ImageDisplay
- ImageDisplaySettings
- KatapultDisplay
Plugin Catalog Structure
This is where your catalog's directory will go. The format is <name>catalog, where <name> is replaced by your catalog's name. You may want to copy over some of the files from one of the standard catalogs into your new directory so that you have a starting point or something to play with.
Credits and License
Katapult
Program copyright 2005-2007, the Katapult Development Team (katapult-dev@lists.sourceguru.net)
Developers:
- Martin Meredith (mez AT thekatapult.net)
- Bastian Holst (oculus AT thekatapult.net)
- Tobi Vollegregt (tobi AT thekatapult.net)
Contributors:
- Richard Johnson (nixternal AT ubuntu.com)
- Lee Olson (clearbeast AT gmail.com)
- Jean-Remy Falleri (jr.falleri AT gmail.com)
- Jonathan Riddell (jr AT jriddell.org)
Original Author:
- Joe Ferris (jferris AT optimistictech.com)
Documentation Copyright (c) 2006-2007, Richard Johnson (nixternal AT ubuntu.com)
This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Installation
How to obtain Katapult
KDE Subversion
Katapult is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org/.
Katapult can be found in the extragear package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main FTP site of the KDE project.
====Distribution
