News and announcements

Looking for developers to take over Cardapio

Written for Cardapio by Thiago Teixeira on 2013-03-16

You probably noticed it has been a while since the latest Cardapio update. It has been-- wow, almost two years!

What happened?! you ask.

Well, what happened was that these past years the Cardapio team members got progressively busier with other projects, new jobs, and real life in general, until we simply had no time to devote to even the smallest bugs.

So we are now looking for developers who are interested in taking over Cardapio and pushing it to the next level. What do you say? Do you have what it takes?

   ~

Some ideas:

- Take advantage of the current XFCE and LXDE momentum, and make Cardapio integrate well with those environments. This could be huge!

- Work with the Pinguy OS guys, who have set Cardapio as their default menu, to integrate it more deeply into their system.

- Make Cardapio work as an Ubuntu HUD client! This way you could take the HUD to other DEs, such as Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXDE, and so on. I would love to see this happen! Please make it so.

- Port Cardapio to other widget toolkits. Imagine Cardapio running *inside* Gnome Shell, or Cardapio on Ubuntu phones.

...and so much more!

   ~

Any takers?

You can email me at thiagot@gmail.com

Either way, I think I speak for the whole team when I say thanks for your support over the years! Without your word-of-mouth, your feature requests, your bug reports, and -- yes -- even the occasional nasty attacks, Cardapio would never have gone past the 10000 users mark. (Which we did, according to Launchpad PPA stats. I still can't believe it.)

So keep on being vocal and awesome, Linux community. We'll be seeing each other!

Teaser: Cardapio on Gnome Shell

Written for Cardapio by Thiago Teixeira on 2011-07-30

Pssst! Hey you! Yes you! Wanna see something?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6125/5991068118_732b24f92b.jpg

Coming soon to a computer near you :)

Now all that is missing is to figure out a few smaller details, such as where to place the Cardapio button by default, and how to connect the icon/label settings from Cardapio's Properties Window with the button in the Shell. So stay tuned!

July 2011 update: Faster! Faster!

Written for Cardapio by Thiago Teixeira on 2011-07-09

New shortcuts
=============

Work faster than ever with new shortcuts:

- Use Ctrl+N to launch the Nth result (for example, Ctrl+2 opens the second result)
- Use Shift+Enter or Shift-click on a folder to peek inside the folder
- Use Shift+Enter or Shift-click on a file to open its containing folder

    ~

Showing/hiding Cardapio now two times faster
============================================

Showing/hiding Cardapio from Docky or Unity used to take about 550ms. This was a bit too much. Now, after reducing the loading-time of some Python libraries from 300ms to 1ms, this process takes only 250ms or so. This is twice as fast as before, and much more usable!

[ Note that this only applies to Cardapio in Docky or Unity. Opening Cardapio from the Gnome Panel, AWN, or when in stand-alone mode was always much faster than this, and has stayed that way :) ]

    ~

Added a Cardapio.desktop file, for use in Unity or other docks
==============================================================

To use Cardapio in your favorite dock, you can now just navigate to the /usr/share/applications folder using Nautilus, and then drag the Cardapio icon into the dock. Done!

And this method works pretty much anywhere. XFCE, LWDE, Docky, Unity, KDE, and so on. Whatever supports .desktop files!

Finally, this also includes support for a Unity quick-list for launching Cardapio's preferences window. A nice little touch :)

    ~

...and many bug fixes, as usual! One nice fix to mention is that Cardapio's core package no longer depends on Gnome libraries, making it a lightweight installation in other environments.

Spring cleaning, and many features!

Written for Cardapio by Thiago Teixeira on 2011-03-24

From December to January, Cardapio development became slow and boring due to some massive code reorganization. Thankfully, those days are over, and right now new features abound. Here are the latest news:

    ~

New Zeitgeist plugins
=================================

The Recent Documents plugin is back and smarter than ever! Now with three modes: "regular", "categorized", and "smart".

In "regular" mode, a single "Recent documents" category is added to Cardapio containing — surprise! — a list of the latest files you used. In a more interesting turn of events, in the "categorized" mode we get a hint from the Sezen way and show 4 categories: "today", "this week", "this month", and "all time". Finally, "smart" mode is a smart combination of both.

Go and give it a try! Your files have nowhere to hide :)

    ~

"Applications" and "Places" now optional
=================================

For those of you who are interested in Cardapio solely for its search features, but don't care for the fact that it is a full menu replacement, you may now rejoice. Head down to Cardapio's Properties window and, in the Plugins tab, deactivate the checkbox next to the "Applications" and "Places" plugins. Peace at last.

    ~

Non-modal "Rebuilding..." messages
=================================

Are you tired of getting those "Rebuilding..." messages when trying to access Cardapio? I was too, so I added a non-modal message bar that tells you when Cardapio needs to rebuild, and stays out of your way in the meantime. So now Cardapio is responsive when most you need it!

    ~

RGBA support
=================================

For the transparency enthusiasts using an RGBA-capable GTK theme: you can now turn on Cardapio's RGBA support with the new hidden setting "allow transparency" in Cardapio's configuration file. (This setting is off by default because RGBA windows don't currently get shadows in Compiz, which I find a bit unpleasant-looking. But if you have RGBA on you are probably used to this, so fear not and proceed with confidence!)

    ~

Example GTK theme for Cardapio
=================================

And lastly, after quite a few requests I have decided to create a GTK theme to showcase Cardapio's themeing abilities. Now, I may be a bit biased but I think it turned out really nicely. Have a look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56377980@N02/5555863052/

To install this dark theme, follow the instructions in the link above.

More importantly, though, if you're a GTK theme writer yourself, give Cardapio themeing a try and send me a link to your creation. I will be adding all Cardapio themes to a common gallery for easy access.

    ~

...and that's it! Hope you enjoy these changes!

PS: For those who don't know it, here's a screenshot of Cardapio's "subfolder search" feature: http://www.flickr.com/photos/56377980@N02/5555276311/in/photostream/ .

You should really give it a try. It can be quite magical. Here's how: https://answers.launchpad.net/cardapio/+faq/1238