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dilettante

Ryan Bitanga
Hi, I am dilettante and I create System Runners, Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements and System Software.

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Last time active : Sep 11 2010
Joined : Mar 26 2007
fsrunner for KRunner

System Runners by andersaa 87 comments

Yes, it's possible to have actions shared by certain runners. The logical location would be in AbstractRunner. Maybe I'll add something for 4.3. :) I have other things planned as well. - Mar 02 2009
fsrunner for KRunner

System Runners by andersaa 87 comments

You might want to use actions from libkonq, you can use the addon runner pack: http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=98529 as basis for doing so. - Feb 27 2009
Addon Runners for KRunner

System Runners by dilettante 4 comments

Hey thanks for the idea... Sounds like writing a plasmoid would be the best way to go about this since docky is a frontend to gnome do similar to how quicksand is an alternative front end to krunner.

I don't really have the time to write a new plasmoid and the architecture of KRunner is rather different from gnome do this isn't such a trivial task. - Jan 31 2009
QuickSand

System Runners by dilettante 5 comments

Well, the application doesn't actually replace KRunner in 4.1. It's just another application that supports the same plugins and behaves otherwise identically to KRunner. So that means, that binding to Alt+F2 would require the user to change the shortcut for KRunner.

Alt+Space is also a historical shortcut. It was inherited from the Cmd+Space shortcut of Quicksilver which was passed on as Alt+Space to Katapult and now QuickSand. You can always change the shortcut to something like Meta+Space though :) - Oct 23 2008
Lithium Power Manager

System Software by dilettante 22 comments

Kevin, install kdebase-workspace-dev in adept. This should solve your problem. - Aug 13 2008
Lithium Power Manager

System Software by dilettante 22 comments

Hmm... You'll need a dataengine for that. I suggest you use kde4powersave as your starting point if you want to make a plasmoid. :) Try svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/playground/utils/kde4powersave
- Aug 12 2008
Lithium Power Manager

System Software by dilettante 22 comments

Try installing libxss-dev if you are on Ubuntu (and I'm guessing on plain Debian as well). Not sure what rpm provides it for Mandriva, Fedora and openSuse though. - Aug 11 2008
Lithium Power Manager

System Software by dilettante 22 comments

Do you by any chance of a libXss.so in /usr/lib, /usr/X11R6/lib or any other library directory?

On Gentoo this is provided by libXScrnSaver. I'm looking for the corresponding debian package. What distro are you using? - Aug 11 2008
Lithium Power Manager

System Software by dilettante 22 comments

Haha:) No prob man :D Still got a lot of work to do on it though - Aug 11 2008
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Could you send me a backtrace? - Jul 05 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

When you uninstall, it only deletes the files that it installed itself, not the files you copied manually.

Instead of /usr you can use `kde-config --prefix` so the command will look something like cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde-config --prefix` -DREALTRANSPARENCY=1 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull .

I added the -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debug full switch so debugging info will be included.

Could you run a gdb katapult command for me? Then type run at the prompt and if the program crashes, type bt. You can mail me the stuff to avoid flooding this page with comments. - Jul 04 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

>>I get random crashes when typing text.

>>I am able to reproduce this pretty consistently,
Unfortunately, I haven't. I rarely get crashes but I'm unable to consistently reproduce them.
>>especially if I type in a bunch of garbage, then hold down the backspace key.
Why are you typing garbage? ;) I tried that too with the previous releases but you're the first to report the problem so I thought it was pretty isolated.
>>Maybe it has problems keeping up with rapid key presses?
Yes, apparently sometimes it does... Except without a definite set of keystrokes or normal program usage that causes it to crash it's difficult to identify what's wrong. - Jul 04 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Yet another misinstall. What prefix did you use to install it in?

The command for cmake should look something like `cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DREALTRANSPARENCY=1 .`

My prefix (as used in gentoo) is /usr/kde/3.5 but /usr also works. It should be the directory returned by `kde-config --prefix`.

I'm not sure about Kubuntu though. I think it's kde3-config in Kubuntu. - Jul 03 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

You appear to have the same problem as above. Where were the files installed?

$KDEDIR should be the directory returned by `kde-config --prefix`

Your system isn't detecting the libraries used by the program. - Jul 03 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Where were the files installed? i.e. what was the prefix used for installation? Is it the same as `kde-config --prefix`?

It appears that the libraries are not in your system path. So the program bails out when it can't find the display plug-ins.

My motherboard gave up on me last night and I don't have the money to fix it right now so sorry but I can't really do additional testing at the moment. - Jul 03 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

In the description above I mentioned that currently only the amarok catalog has multiple actions.

I didn't remove the localization support, it's just that no translations have been written for it. I suppose I could reuse the translations for the old katapult but they'll need updating. - Jul 01 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

I think it's best to e-mail me. If someone could suggest a new name, I'd open a new project in sf.net then handle the rest from there. - Jun 28 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Doesn't the amarok OSD only show the current playing track? The DCOP function doesn't have any arguments.

Anyway, for programs, check the options for the programs catalog. Maybe you didn't have icons and had "ignore applications without icons" checked. There really shouldn't be any difference in the programs it finds because I didn't modify anything there.

With regards to the IM catalog, I haven't really touched code that didn't cause problems except if I needed to add features. So I guess I'll take a look at it after I finish the stuff I want to do first (maybe in a month or so). :) - Jun 27 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Actually, from what I was told, the lead developer for katapult left sometime last year. The development version was left unusable by several bugs and no one else picked up the slack.

The project manager stopped replying after my first three e-mails and I got tired of waiting so I fixed most of the bugs myself and released this. :)

But I do agree KRunner will fulfill a lot of what this program tries to do for KDE4. I still think there'll be a niche for a Katapult-like program in KDE4 given that not everything I plan for it will be done by KRunner. Of course, I could just hack on KRunner instead so right now I'm not really sure what to do after I finish the next two feature releases for this. - Jun 27 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

But it still crashes?

I'll have a fix it up sometime tomorrow which should theoretically fix the crashes as well as other reported bugs. - Jun 27 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Try the same thing with the original katapult. It doesn't work either. It's an inherited katapult bug but I'll fix it soon :) - Jun 27 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Hi sango,

It appears that the program launch counter in Katapult-Fast Track is passed deleted items. Are you receiving "Ignored duplicate item" messages for programs?

Also, how large is your amarok database? Have you tried running without the amarok catalog? If so, does the freezing behavior still occur? - Jun 27 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Do you by any chance shutdown your computer or restart your session every now and then? If not, does that mean you left Katapult running since you installed it?

The old Katapult and this fork don't detect changes to the menu made when Katapult is running. The work around is to go to the settings dialog and press ok.

The code for detecting programs hasn't changed (except ignoring duplicate items became silent for programs). I only modified the way the rankings they are given based on user launch preferences.

Btw, fixed real transparency support. Will be adding it, along with bugfixes, within the week. Stay tuned. :) - Jun 26 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

No, it's not that negative at all :) Actually like I said, it lacks testing so any feedback will help improve the program.

I've been unable to reproduce the shortcut problem.

Is there another Supertux desktop file available? The default behavior of the program catalog is to ignore duplicates because adaptive search currently doesn't work properly if duplicates are found.

The clear query after a delay bug is one I didn't notice. I'll look into it. :) Hopefully I can have a patch ready in a couple of days. - Jun 25 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Give me your system specs.

If you run gdb katapult it will tell you were the program crashed. I could use that information.

The activating/deactivating catalog issue is a QDict/thread related issue. Display crashes usually come from missing plug-ins. - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Like my reply to one of the messages above, if you were using the o2 display plug-in get the new version.

A backtrace would also be helpful. configure it with ./configure --enable-debug=full. - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

If you were using the o2 display plug-in try downloading the new version. Removing the ~/.kde/share/config/katapultrc might help.

What does the backtrace look like? - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Well, I'm running a 5-year old thunderbird at 1400MHz with just about the same amount of RAM so your system should be able to run the program fine based solely on your hardware.

>> You'll have to explain 'disabling catalogues' a bit more
Go to the settings dialog box. Click on "Catalogs". You should see two list boxes. Select catalogs from the right list box and click the arrow pointing to the left. I guess the design of the dialog box is a bit misleading because you tend to assume the Catalogs part is just a heading. I'll see what I can do about that in the future.

>> Um... maybe I'll do a 'strace katapult' later - if you could give me a hint how to grep the output (would be insane to put the whole output on kde-apps).
Hmmm... The original authors set a 20ms timer that wastes a lot of CPU. The strace output will most probably be mostly connected to the timer. Based on your system specs, the timer shouldn't be much of an issue though. You could clean up the output by removing all the "gettimeofday" calls. You could mail me the output. My address is in the AUTHORS file. - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Based on your error, I'm guessing you're using the 02 Display. I investigated and found out that the SVN version of katapult didn't build the o2 display plug-in so it crashes katapult when it tries to the load the nonexistent library. Unfortunately, I didn't test all display plug-ins so I missed this bug.

Deleting katapultrc should do the trick for now. I'll be fixing it in a while. I have to cram for a test first. haha - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Have you tried backing up ~/.kde/share/config/katapultrc and then deleting the file?

Had that problem before. I think it's because the configuration files aren't 100% compatible. - Jun 24 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Systems specs would help too (CPU, RAM available, etc.). I started monitoring User% usage for X and kicker. Nothing special was going on with kicker and X had a max of 48 User%...

You're system may end up just being an isolated case but no matter what I need to get to the bottom of this. What were the other open programs? Were any of them CPU intensive by themselves? - Jun 23 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Strange... the main thread is supposed to be responsive even if the catalog threads aren't done processing the query. I'm also not sure why kicker is consuming that much time from your cpu. There's nothing new in the code that should affect it but I'll look into anyway. Nothing new on X11 usage either... just the same old blend effects from the original Katapult.

Could you do me a favor and tell me what catalogs are active? Also try disabling catalogs one at a time to determine which one is causing the problem.

Also try backing up katapultrc in ~/.kde/share/config/katapultrc and then deleting it. There shouldn't be any problems migrating from 0.3.1.4 but I'd rather know for sure that's not the cause.

I run gentoo and it's been perfectly functional for the past couple of weeks. I can't really test it myself on Suse so your help would be appreciated. :) - Jun 23 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

It's my patch :) It's not that easy... I had issues with the amarok catalog using CMake. I'm clueless about the autotools so I used CMake to enable/disable real transparency at compile time. I also added support for enabling it at run time except I didn't upload that version because the amarok catalog compiled using cmake wouldn't work for some reason.

Wrt the name, I know Fast Track is a long shot because it's been used for other products (like a technology for FPGA's). I could end up getting sued for using it. Still preferred using something that expressed speed but had a 'k' in it. ;) - Jun 23 2007
Katapult-Fast Track

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 81 comments

Hey thanks :) I have been looking at KRunner... Actually I wanted to get a KDE3 release out first so more people can benefit from it first.

I'm working on something KRunner based now but it's far from complete. The mockup for the new KRunner interface looks sweet btw. - Jun 23 2007
Real Transparency for Katapult 0.3.1.4

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 21 comments

I've been an nvidia user for several years now and it works just fine in my PC. :) Well, except for the known issues I listed. - Mar 27 2007
Real Transparency for Katapult 0.3.1.4

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 21 comments

Have you tried playing a video while Katapult is running?

Faux transparency works well until the contents of the underlying windows change.

I've been a Gentoo user since the 1.4 days and I don't plan on shifting to Kubuntu so I really can't tell if real transparency is working there. Would be interesting to see the code though. - Mar 27 2007
Real Transparency for Katapult 0.3.1.4

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 21 comments

No prob. :) As soon as I fix the faux transparency I'll be sending it upstream so people won't have to download this patch anymore.

Hopefully they're working on the KDE4 version which should have native support for real transparency but its not in svn and I don't have access to the bazaar repositories. - Mar 27 2007
Real Transparency for Katapult 0.3.1.4

Various KDE 1.-4. Improvements by dilettante 21 comments

Hey thanks for the suggestion, that was the intention but somehow even the image that was blitted on top of the background had its alpha channel affected. I'm looking into it now.

Hopefully it'll be fixed in a while. - Mar 27 2007