Capturing keystrokes on launch

Bug #1080380 reported by Felix
14
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Slingshot
Confirmed
Wishlist
Unassigned

Bug Description

I love Slingshot! But,

As a user, I'd like to be able to start typing an application name straight away after issueing the Super+Space/Alt+F2 shortcut, so I can launch an application very quickly through Slingshot. It seems that the Slingshot process doesn't capture any keystrokes untill the GUI is showing. What I notice is that about 2 to 6 keystrokes are easily missed by Slingshot between a the issueing of the shortcut and the showing of the GUI.

The problem with this is that as a user I don't neccesarily need the GUI to show directly; in many scenarios I know what application I need, and would like to already start typing the application name while I wait for the GUI to initialize. The other problem is that these uncaptured keystrokes sort of fall into the application that still has focus, while the user has issued the shortcut and probably thinks they are captured by Slingshot. The effects of this ofcourse vary depening on what application was running. I've had it break code because I had an editor open and a few characters "leaked" in while launching an application.

Perhaps there should first be a seperate lightweight process launched that will immediately capture keystrokes, making calls to search throught the applications, and in the meanwhile let the GUI load. When it's ready it could fetch the results of the process that has already been busy and display them.

Changed in slingshot:
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in slingshot:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
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