Re: [Ayatana] Dash search vs Alt+F2 in 11.10

[Evan Huus <eapache@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 6:28 PM, James Jenner <james.g.jenner@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 27 September 2011 02:19, Jo-Erlend Schinstad
> <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> I have not proposed anything like that. That was someone else, and I
>> completely disagree with it. I don't want commands in the dash at all. They
>> do not belong there. I like it just the way it is, but having an output
>> section in the Alt+F2 screen would not be too bad. I don't think it's
>> important.
>>
>
> The examples that I've seen given here for using the Alt-F2 would require an
> output section. For example, how do you know the results of a ping or how do
> you terminate it once you're happy with it? How do you know the PID of the
> process to kill without first searching for it (someone gave killing a
> process as an example) and how do you know if the kill command was
> successful (presuming non-gui process here)? If you have a window that is
> dead then you need to search for the PID first before killing, this would
> necessitate a terminal (unless you have a gdesklet or similar app that shows
> you the top processes, then I could see the use of Alt-F2).
>
> I tried the Alt-F2 and disliked it mainly because I have no way of knowing
> if it worked and I have no way of stopping it if it's a process like ping.
> One area I can see it being useful would be to restart a service or
> stop/start a service. But when I'm doing that I'm generally doing a number
> of related activities that would necessitate the use of a terminal (e.g.
> reconfiguration of a service and need to restart).
>
> Perhaps an option next to the command line in Alt-F2 that states, run in
> terminal. Thus if selected then a terminal window could open and the command
> is executed in the terminal. Just a thought, but I think that I would find
> useful.
>
> I'm also curious if anyone out there actively uses Alt-F2 and if so, what
> type of commands are we talking?

I use it regularly to kill or restart processes using the killall
command, which allows you to specifiy a name rather than a PID. I also
use it to spawn firefox with different -P profile options for testing
add-ons. Neither of the cases I've mentioned are common, but they do
exist.

Cheers,
Evan