Kupfer v204 (QuickLauncher) Released With New Gwibber Plugin, Lots More [PPA]

Kupfer is a quick launcher like Gnome DO or Synapse. Kupfer exists for quite a long time and thanks to this, it comes with a huge list of plugins: you can use it to quickly access any browser's bookmarks, control Empathy or Pidgin, Evolution, Thunderbird, Google Search, Gmail support, image tools, Rhythmbox support, Tracker search and well... basically it has support for half the applications you can think of.

Kupfer v204 was released a couple of days ago and today it was finally uploaded to the Kupfer PPA. The most interesting new feature in this new Kupfer version is a Gwibber plugin which allows you to easily send an update to Twitter, Identi.ca, Facebook and so on (all the services supported by Gwibber). I'll tell you how to use this later on.

Besides the Gwibber integration, Kupfer v204 also comes with a new Empathy plugin, a QRCode plugin, VirtualBox 4 and LibreOffice and more. Here are the rest of insteresting changes in Kupfer 204:

• Periodically save data from plugins so it's not lost if Kupfer can't exit cleanly at logout
• Commands: Add actions Pass to Command, Filter through Command, Send to Command which add a lot of shell script-related power to Kupfer. These actions, and Run (Get Output) as well, use a shell so that you can run shell pipelines.
• Search the Web: Fix bug in OpenSearch parser
• Thunderbird: Fix problems in the mork parser
• Fix "Y2011 bug" where the time parameter overflowed INT32 in keybinder
• Shorten Links: Use only services with stable API, added and removed services.
• Google Search, Google Translate and bit.ly in Shorten Links can use SSL for transport if a third-party plugin is installed.
• Allow plugins to use update notifications

Since the Gwibber plugin is very cool, I'll teach you how to use it:

• If you want to tweet some selected text you'll have to modify a setting in Kupfer: go to the Kupfer preferences, on the "Keyboard" tab and under "Global Keyboard Shortcuts", for "Show with Selection" enter a keyboard shortcut (I've entered CTRL + Shift + SPACE). Then, select some text in the browser (or link or whatever), press CTRL + Shift + SPACE, then TAB and select "Send Message To" and select to send it to Twitter or Facebook or whatever. In the same way you can shorten a selected URL.
• If you want to type some text in Kupfer and send it to Gwibber, you can't just start typing as that's for commands only. But you can easily do it: press "CTRL + ." and then start typing, press TAB when done and select "Send message to...", then press TAB again and send it to Twitter, Facebook, Identi.ca or whatever.

There are A LOT of things you can do with Kupfer, just try it out!

Install Kupfer v204 in Ubuntu

Kupfer v204 is currently only available for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and 11.04 Natty Narwhal (the Lucid version is still 202). Add the PPA and install Kupfer using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kupfer-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kupfer

Extra tip: want to remove the Kupfer titlebar? Check out the bottom of this post


Don't know how to use Kupfer? Check out its new HELP page and user manual. There's also a page with quick usage tips @ Gnome.org