Kupfer v206 Released With Improved Runtime Memory Usage, PPA Now Available For Lucid Too

After finally getting themes support about 2 weeks ago, another Kupfer version (v206) was released today bringing a huge list of bug fixes and more importantly, reduced memory usage. The changelog says the Kupfer runtime memory should be reduced by 10-30% thanks to the reimplementation of icon cache.

You can check out all the bugs fixed in the latest Kupfer v206 @ kaizer.se.

With this release, there's also good news for Ubuntu 10.04 users: the latest Kupfer has finally been packaged for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx too so you can finally install it from the PPA (until today the PPA provided a very old Kupfer version for Lucid).

Add the Kupfer PPA and install the latest v206 in Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 using the commands below:

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

Tip: Kupfer comes with 2 extra themes - to change the theme, go to the Kupfer Preferences and on the Plugins tab enable the "Custom Theme" plugin, then select among the other 2 themes: dark or square. If you want to create your own theme, see HERE.

Kupfer (v205) Gets A New User Interface. Finally!

Kupfer is a quick launcher (like Gnome DO or Synapse) which comes with many very useful plugins but always lacked a nice user interface. Well, an update today finally brings some UI love for Kupfer. Check out the new Kupfer interface:

Further more, you can theme it however you want - see this page for info: http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/GTKTheming.html


You can also select the icon style you want Kupfer to use: GTK+, Ascii or Unicode:

The icon set can be changed from the Kupfer Preferences (no, I don't know who the dude in the Kupfer Preferences window is):

Besides the interface changes, there are some other new features in the latest Kupfer v205 worth mentioning:

• Add context action "Set X as default action for object Y"
• Implement a preedit widget for input methods, also resolving the incompatibility with ibus so it should fix the issues with non-English languages

Install Kupfer v205 in Ubuntu

Add the Kupfer PPA and install the latest v205 in Ubuntu Maverick and Natty using the commands below:

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

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.

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

Kupfer v202 Adds Ubuntu AppIndicator Support

Kupfer is an alternative to Gnome DO, heavily inspired by Quicksilver (Mac). What does it do? It's a quick launcher - an application you can use to easily control different applications and/or actions via plugins.

Kupfer v202 has been released today, finally adding AppIndicator (application indicator) support for Ubuntu users.

Kupfer v202 also adds an option to hide Kupfer when focus is lost - this is now enabled by default, as well as other minor tweaks and updated/new translations. Full changelog.

(Kupfer AppIndicator)

Add the Kupfer PPA and install the latest Kupfer in Ubuntu using the following commands:

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

And two Kupfer tips:

1. Download and install Kupfer monochrome icons

2. To remove the titlebar (and make Kupfer look like in our screenshot), run the following command in a terminal:

sudo gedit /usr/share/kupfer/kupfer/ui/browser.py

Then search for "self.window.add(widget)" and under it, paste this:

self.window.set_decorated(False)
self.window.set_border_width(6)

This last tip is thanks to Pablo @ glatelier.

Kupfer Monochrome Icons

WebUpd8 reader Nasser Alshammari sent us some nice Kupfer monochrome icons that go well with the Ubuntu Ambiance and Radiance themes. He writes:

The only side effect of this is that it'll replace the colorful logo in the menu entry and in the "About" dialog of Kupfer. So until this issue is solved and for all the monochrome fanatics out there, they can do it this way for now.

To install them, replace the ~/.icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/kupfer.svg icon with one of the icons below.


Download Kupfer Monochrome icons

Many thanks and credits for the icons and screenshot: Nasser Alshammari

Kupfer 201 Released With New Plugins, Authentication Bug Fixed [GNOME Do Alternative]

Kupfer is an alternative to Gnome DO, which will remind you of Quicksilver for Mac (if you used a Mac). In fact, even Kupfer developers say it's heavily inspired by Quicksilver. What does it do? Well, it's basically a quick launcher - an application you can use to easily control different applications and/or actions via plugins.

One of the major differences between Kupfer and GNOME Do is that Kupfer comes with a lot more plugins and is actively developed as opposed to GNOME Do (unfortunately). Also, Kupfer is not developed in MONO (unlike GNOME Do), but in Python.

After getting the famous comma trick back in February, Kupfer got lots and lots of new features and plugins such as Twitter (browse friends and timeline), Gmail, Picasa, Google Search, Evolution and many more, but because the plugins which require authentification didn't work for some users (Twitter, Gmail, Picasa), we didn't post about it.

But now Kupfer 201 has been released featuring loads of new plugins but also some important bugfixes. An important bug fixed in Kupfer 201 is the one I was telling you about above, so the Twitter, PicasaWeb and Gmail plugins finally work - just make sure you give it some time to authentificate after entering your credentials. Unfortunately this bug is only partially fixed.

New plugins in Kupfer 201 include Opera Mail, SSH Hosts, Filezilla, Getting Things GNOME, Vim, and also some new options for already existing plugins such as Firefox: options include visites sites, Thunar: action Send To..., support for Traker 0.8 (which you can install in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid via Tracker Stable PPA) and many more which you can see here. Kupfer 201 also got a new icon and a preferences dialog for the catalog items.

Install Kupfer 201 in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx:

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

Kupfer Pandora's Box 1 Released, Finally Adds The Famous Quicksilver "Comma Trick" And Global Hotkeys [Ubuntu .deb Download]

Kupfer Pandora's Box 1 had been released. We haven't talked about Kupfer on Web Upd8 so I would like to introduce Kupfer first.

Kupfer is an alternative to Gnome DO, which will remind you of Quicksilver for Mac (if you used a Mac). In fact, even Kupfer developers say it's heavily inspired by Quicksilver.

But what does Kupfer do? Well, you ca use it to summon an application or document quickly by typing the first parts of its name. It can also do more than getting at something quickly: there are different plugins for accessing more objects and running custom commands.


Kupfer Pandora's Box 1 finally introduces some of the advanced features found Quicksilver such as commands with many objects and global hotkeys to any custom command.

Let's take a look at the important changes in Kupfer version Pandora's Box 1:

• Implement the famous "comma trick": Press , (comma) in the first or third pane to make a stack of objects to perform actions on. This allows actions on many objects and even many-to-many actions.
• New plugin: Triggers: Add global keybindings to any command you can perform in Kupfer.
• New plugin Skype
  
• New plugin Thunderbird (or Icedove)
  
• Implement merging of contacts and hosts: All contacts of the same name are merged into one object.
  
• New plugin Higher-order Actions to work with saved commands as objects
• The Favorites plugin was reimplemented: you may favorite (almost) any object. Favorites get a star and a rank boost.
• Window List plugin was improved, most notably a Frontmost Window proxy object was added
• New proxy object Last Command
• The Firefox plugin now includes most-visited sites from browser history
• The list of plugins has a field to allow filtering the list
• New Czech localization
• Many smaller changes.

I especially like Kupfer for not using Mono and because it uses less memory than Gnome DO. One of the important things I take into consideration when deciding to use an application is how active it's development is, and Kupfer is great at this too being under very active development, with the previous version being released just a month ago (in fact there were 2 versions released in December alone). The HUGE list of plugins is also nice and basically those should be enough to cover almost anyone's preferences for different applications:

Download and install Kupfer Ubuntu .deb

Kupfer is not yet available in its PPA, but I've created (I'm starting to like this! =) ) Ubuntu .deb files and uploaded them to the Web Upd8 PPA. Update: Kupfer is now available in it's official PPA so add the PPA first:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kupfer-team/ppa

And install it:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install kupfer

Once installed, you will find Kupfer under Applications > Accessories.


Read more about Kupfer Pandora's Box 1 and download source packages: HERE. Also, you can find a lot of Kupfer tips @ live.gnome.org