I recently switched over to KDE after using Xfce for some years now and I noticed that searching in the start menu takes a bit too long for most things I frequently start from there.
E.g. starting vscode is usually hitting super, typing “cod” and hit enter, which works quite well on most machines I’m working with (at work and home), but since my KDE takes about a second longer to find “code” as best match, I’m constantly opening “Connection Preferences” instead.
I could configure a shortcut for all the tools I work with, but since I’m frequently working on other peoples machines, that’s not a solution. Hitting super and typing works on nearly every PC (even windows, which is also faster in this regard). And Xfce is orders of magnitude faster, atleast on the machines I work with.
Is there anything I could do to improve the performance of that search?
trying to reproduce your results on my plasma 5 install.
just to be sure, are you typing into the application menu search box or onto the desktop to get a krunner search box?
for me meta key opens up the application menu.
and from there “cod” takes me right to vscodium which i can start by hitting enter.
now i’ve just installed vscode (snap) and typing “cod” still takes me to vscodium, typing “code” will get me to vscode.
removing vscodium, and now “cod” takes me directly to vscode, but reinstalling vscodium makes it go directly to vscodium again because of the missing “e”
when i right click on the application menu and choose “edit applications”
i can change the name from “Visual Studio Code” to just “Cod”, no “e” and then the search will take me right to it… tho i have no idea why yours is taking to you to connection preferences, that’s not even close unless you are just typing really fast.
nor does it make sense for there to be any lag… all of this was very fast on my machine, no lag at all.
I start typing right after pressing Super, so I meant the application menu. I’m typing quite fast and by delay I meant something like half a second until “cod” finds vscode (not a second, as I said earlier, that was a bit overestimated).
I just tested this on some other machines and the one with KDE is the only one where I have to wait a moment before hitting return.
It’s just that 0.5s, so it’s still finding my stuff “relatively fast”, but every other setup I tested is faster.
Just tested and it makes no difference.
I think the problem is that the search field on Xfce searches while typing and the one on KDE starts searching after you stop typing for like 0.2s or something.
I guess I just have to get used to slower typing on KDE machines…
Has the same tiny delay there, and doesn’t work if I’m not on the desktop.
The main problem I have is that I’m quite used to start a lot of things that are present on all the machines I work with over the application menu (or whatever you call it on the particular OS/distro), because that’s the only uniform way that works on Windows and all the Linux distros I know.
I don’t want to get used to keyboard shortcuts or desktop/taskbar icons, because that would only work on my machine.
meta + typing + return worked well for the last 10 years even though I’m quite fast.
The Windows GUI is a bit slower but it actually accounts for what was typed instead of what is currently shown, so even though the GUI lags a bit behind, if I type “cod” or “code” and hit return immediately it runs vscode.
The Xfce search feels instantaneous, I can’t type faster than the search works.
Just KDE has this tiny little delay and while some program that starts with “co” is still shown as the top match, even though I typed “cod” it starts what’s displayed instead of what’s typed. And after ~10 years of being used to just type and hit return, I frequently end up opening some other stuff.
This is such a little detail in the overall experience but it drives me nuts
