Allow search of application menu (like Unity HUD)

[brx75]

It would be great to Synapse to implement the search through applcation menu, in a way similar to Unity HUD (see: Unity/HUD - Ubuntu Wiki - http://goo.gl/tnmCK). This should not be too complex for applications exporting menu though Appmenu or DBus.

[brx75 (brx75x)]

I found that in "libindicator-appmenu" there are some tools written in Vala and one of this is a stand-alone hud client. I'ld like to start from this to develop a Synapse plugin.

[CruelAngel (hendricha)]

@brx75: That's great news. Can't wait for it to happen.

[Laszlo Boros (semmu)]

That would be awesome. Please make it happen! I'm personally using fallback session, but I miss HUD. A Synapse plugin would be just perfect.

[brx75 (brx75x)]

I've to communicate that no much progress has been done on this.
Sorry all.

[steve (b6111282)]

Would be great to see such a feature. Note that there are multiple requests on stackexchange about such a thing:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/106365/is-there-a-way-to-search-a-menu-bar-in-debian
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/90247/how-can-i-access-menu-bar-items-alike-hud-unity
http://askubuntu.com/questions/138657/is-there-a-shell-independent-hud-like-menu-search-tool-for-gnome
http://askubuntu.com/questions/202117/xmonad-with-unity-hud
http://askubuntu.com/questions/165888/hud-in-other-window-managers-especially-xmonad/415100#415100
http://askubuntu.com/questions/261919/using-unity-with-i3-wm
https://faq.i3wm.org/question/1845/make-hud-work-together-with-i3/

[Redsandro (redsandro)]

This would improve the lives of so many people, I can't believe none of them figured out how to do this yet. :D

[Ads20000 (ads20000)]

Just use Unity? :P

[pa83 (pa83)]

@ Ads20000

I think people want to choose which WM to use. However I think HUD is a killer feature which should be available completely independent of the WM.

[Franko Burolo (fburolo)]

HUD is indeed a killer feature. It is hard to believe it is still present only in Unity...
I am still using Unity mostly because of the HUD. But I have an old computer and I am afraid it is a matter of time until Unity becomes to hard on resources for it. I would love to have a more lightweight WM-agnostic alternative and Synapse seems to have the most potential.

[Dan (the-dark-aardvark)]

Has there been any progress on this? This is an incredible killer-feature of Unity, and I am shocked that it seems to still be unavailable on any other desktop environment. It's very useful for a keyboard-driven approach to computing.

I see that KDE Plasma is getting this feature soon, likely in their next version: http://blog.broulik.de/2016/10/global-menus-returning/

Perhaps there could be some collaboration with them, or you could just look at their code and get some ideas on how to do this?