GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 455537
Run Application should appear on the GNOME menu, somewhere at least
Last modified: 2020-11-06 20:20:49 UTC
It is really annoying having to explain to someone how to use the Run Application dialog when they say something like "everytime I want to run x I have to open a new terminal", the problem isn't that there isn't a run dialog, its that it isn't advertised anywhere on the menu. This is a fairly major usability issue for new users who see notes like, Run x and ... should happen. It just isn't sensible to have removed it in the first place. Other information:
Vincent this worth to build a patch for it or you have other plans for "run" ?
There are plans to make it possible to edit the whole menus. This would fix this bug, since it would then be possible to add this back.
Vincent, how do you then open the run dialog, I can't find an executable associated with it so I'm assuming its embedded in the panel. I think this should make it in as a default addition to gnome 2.22, its a necessity to make this feature visible to new users.
(In reply to comment #3) > Vincent, how do you then open the run dialog, I can't find an executable > associated with it so I'm assuming its embedded in the panel. > > I think this should make it in as a default addition to gnome 2.22, its a > necessity to make this feature visible to new users. > There's an alt+f2 shortcut for it.
Is it possible to fix this little bug for Gnome 2.24?
I guess this "run dialog" is integrated in gnome-panel, and not a separate application. Openbox has a gnome-panel-tool which can invoke this dialog. See: http://git.icculus.org/?p=mikachu/openbox.git;a=blob;f=tools/gnome-panel-control/gnome-panel-control.c;h=67aa0393c6bdf1566fd366bc94b9e2dc980f7ae4;hb=HEAD
Now I see that there used to be such a menu item, but it was removed in Gnome 2.12. I think it was a bad decision. Here are some examples of users that need this feature: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512290 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=65850 People moving from Windows will expect to see it, even if they won't be using this very often. KDE has it.
KDE has an enormous configuration system and the name "KDE", too. Neither of those threads are pointing at people who "need" this feature. They both go the same way: -Person is looking for feature because it has changed. -Learns it is not just himself, and the feature is indeed gone. -Thread ends. Not that I disagree there is a use for it! Someone mentioned on the Ubuntu devel-discuss mailing list that it is a handy dialog for launching processes which stick in the background, such as Compiz, since doing so with a terminal then requires that terminal window to stay open unless the user remembers to type the appropriate commands to do otherwise. However, weighing that one benefit against the loss of then having a bigger menu with a "forbidden" option, I think this would be problematic. I call it a "forbidden" option because, as the Run menu in Windows shows us, "regular users" just learn to ignore it since it is irrelevant to them, and when they try it seems to do nothing. They only use it when the tech support guy tells them to. We don't want users ignoring anything in GNOME's interface -- especially in the main menu. The result of people doing that not nice. Having said that, this could of course be fixed. Why not split the Run Application dialog into a separate package so that it can itself be launched by a command like gnome-run-application. As for the hotkey, I can't say I have explored that end of things, but we must have a better way to map Alt-F2 to the program than via the panel! I don't see how this is in scope as a part of GNOME Panel anyway, and having it as its own program would give users the power to simply create a normal Launcher for it. That launcher could go anywhere the user chooses. Problem solved. (After a few magic steps).
"Someone mentioned on the Ubuntu devel-discuss mailing list" That was me :) The main problem with this run dialog is not that it has been removed. It's that it can't be brought back! Suse used to have a patch "gnome-panel-2-11-bring-back-my-run-item". Even though it has been removed from default Gnome it should have been left as an option for distros. "I call it a "forbidden" option because, as the Run menu in Windows shows us, "regular users" just learn to ignore it since it is irrelevant to them, and when they try it seems to do nothing." I bet that users also don't care about "About Gnome" and "About Ubuntu" - thinking this way we should remove them too. I don't think having an option that many people don't use would hurt anyone. It's all about choice. Removing this menu item completely is a denial of choice. Users shouldn't be forced to learn about the "run" panel applet or to remember the alt+f2 shortcut. They should have a way to discover it. Also see the Openbox' gnome-panel-tool. Why do you think they've created it? They did it because they wanted to have the Gnome's run dialog without the gnome-panel. Integrating it with gnome panel is a violation of old rule of simplicity. Unix was created to have separate small simple tools. GNU/Linux follows that rule. I thought that Gnome followed that too.
More people writing about it: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/user/167129 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=68031 http://darkness.codefu.org/wordpress/post/152 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76150 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=506489 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=91454 http://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/32956 http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/redhat-fedora-linux-help/66659-run-command-gnome-desktop.html http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=593846 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=88695 Also there are lots of reimplementations of this dialog: grun, gnome-run-dialog, gmrun Having many people doing reimplementations of it proves that people still need it.
It would help to document the alt+f2 shortcut somewhere I guess. Or have we done that already?
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