Bookmarks entry in KDE main (starter) menu

English Applications
1

I am a bit late in moving up from KDE 4.11.5 (on openSUSE 31.1) to KDE (no version found using the same way!?!) on openSUSE Leap 15.0. Still trying to find out how to bend my working environment to what I was used to for so may years.

One thing we used was the feature of the KDE starter menu to check the box Bookmarks (in the View item of it’s configuration). There is then an item in the Starter menu that folds out to the right (like the other main items do) reveiling your tree of bookmarks as maintained by Konqueror. Using an entry then starts your default browser (Firefox) with the bookmark as URL. Ease of use: no need to start a browser first and then go to it’s bookmarks. We use this all the time,
The drawback is that you have to use Konqueror and it’s Bookmark editor to maintain the list of bookmarks (that is the case since FF replaced Konqueror as default browser in KDE, before there was no drawback at all).

Now on the new KDE, I can not find this configuration item. Did I miss something (please then point me to where to find it), it there an alternative, or can I add this feature to the list of features dropped from KDE?

2

I do remember the feature but I think it went a long time ago.

3

Henk, take a look at the settings associated with KRunner/Plasma Search – <Alt-SpaceBar> – Search appears at the top of the screen – the Spanner at the left side of the mini-Window.

There’s a setting for “Bookmarks” but, I’m not sure which Bookmarks – it doesn’t seem to search my Firefox Bookmarks …

Definitely, simply typing part of a URL into KRunner definitely fires up Firefox and opens a suitable URL – it seems to be searching for “http://«What Ever»” in the Plasma “Places” …

4

I am afraid you are correct.

It is a victim of the “when it is newer it is better” adagium. >:(

5

I use the folder widget on the task bar. You have to create your own bookmarks unfortunately but I just created a folder of my main ones included as desktop entry links. I then configure the widget to show that folder.

6

I found wha you mean. It is a list of places where that Search function may search. Bookmarks is switched on here, but typing keywords of some of the Konqueror Bookmarks has strange results. One gives me a window to enter the root password (no idea what it thinks I want to start), another one starts LibreOffice with a Create new Database window., both not what I wanted or expected lol!

I do not know the URLs at all, I now the page descriptions, that is I see the page titles when I browse through that bookmarks tree, recognize them, click on them, but never have to know what the URL is.

Maybe describe in more details when I click on that item in the Starter menu. It folds open at the right with a list of e.g. Banks, Public Transport, Countries, Mountains etc. When I then hover to e.g. Banks, it opens up the next level with the different banks I use (not to many of them I am afraid) and then clicking starts up FF with the login page of that bank.
In fact about the same as using the Bookmarks button on a browser, but more direct without first having to start the browser.

Thanks for the hints in any case.

7

Sounds interesting, Could you elaborate a bit more (when I do not ask to much of your time)

E.g. what (or where) is the “folder widget” on the task bar? And “as desktop entry links”?
Maybe an example?

8

I empathise with you Henk…

By comparison to kde 4 the new version has, IMHO, been very much “dumbed down”, to use a term I don’t particularly like.

A lot of the less used features simply weren’t ported to the new (plasma 5) version.

A slogan regarding plasma 5 adopted by the developers (whom I have a lot of respect for, I may add), is “Simple by design, powerful when needed”… I find it difficult to agree with, my own slogan is “Simple by design, powerful in the past.”

I found plasma 5 takes a lot of getting used to…

9

That is why, until now, I had several show stoppers (inability to show date in ISO format, no difference between logical desktops, and a few more). But there comes a time that staying with the old product becomes undoable. And now we talk only about the things that threaten the user experience we had for years. Not the small ones (like my Kmail does not empty the Trash).

10

Sorry, you need to add the widget by unlocking widgets (right click anywhere in task bar) and add widget (right click again) choose folder widget. Right click the widget to configure.
Before configuring create your folder - mines in my /home folder called bookmarks;).
You populate the folder with links like this

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Amazon
Icon=/home/Other_Stuff/icons/amazon.png
Type=Link
URL$e]=http://www.amazon.co.uk

Put this code in a text file with appropriate changes to suit your links.

11

Thanks for the explanation peteh100.

I will at least try this out.

But it does not look as easy to maintain, specialy for the other user in the home here. :wink:

12

I tried.

Clicking on the entry gave me a pop-up window saying “What do you want to do with this executable file” Open, Execute, Cancel. When choosing Execute, FF starts with the URL (as I hoped for). But why does it call the file Executable? I allowed x-permission for the user, but that changed nothing. Thus it seems it has it’s own definition of Executable. I could click the box “do not ask again” and now it starts without asking, but probably I have to do that for al 100+ bookmarks I have to enter.

In any case translatink the bookmasks tree I now have into a tree of sub-directories of Bookmarks and Desktop files is a daunting task :frowning:

13

Henk, while searching for anything on this theme, I stumbled across the following:

  1. A package named “plasma-browser-integration” – KDE Documentation is here: <https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Browser_Integration>.
  2. A related plug-in for Firefox: “Plasma Integration” from Kai Uwe Broulik and David Edmundson.
  3. On this system, the package “kmozillahelper” was already installed.

I’ve installed the package and plug-in but, haven’t seen any change in the Plasma search behaviour – need to logout and login again – maybe that’ll help …

14

Actually you are more negative than necessary. When you open the applications menu and start typing, it searches for bookmarks. Bookmarks are bookmarks in your browser, but also the history in the browser. When you give it a little time, a list of bookmarks appear to select from. I visit a lot of sites, but usually typing three letters is enough to see what I am looking for.:slight_smile: It may be different, but is really helpful. I also tend to use it to start applications; typing “lib” shows all libreoffice applications. Down arrow one or a few times, enter and we are rolling.

15

What you quote is a general remark about people that always propagate that new versions of products are better then old ones. Only argument: because it is newer. My experience is that the first questions one should ask with a new version with new featuresa are:

  1. what about the old features, are they all still available;
  2. can the new features be switched off.

And that is not restricted to software, but is true for products in general.

And, as mentioned above, there are several features in KDE, apparently seen as unimportant by the designers (but how do they know that, do they ask around?), but that are dearly missed by the users, not only this one. And there are long, long KDE bugzilla and other discussions about each of them. I am not alone.

If I understand correct that was suggested earlier. But we do not seem to understand which browser’s bookmarks are used for this. In any case, when I type a word that definitely is part of a title and the URL that goes with it as they are in Konqueror’s bookmarks, this bookmark is not offered to me by the Search field. (in a post above I tell what all starts when I hit Rtrn, not what I want).

Also, as explained earlier, there was no need to know by heart any URL, not even any web page title, but only to browse through words understandable for any noob-end-user like Public Transport > Time tables > GVB Amsterdam. No pitfalls like what was the name, typos, etc.

The solution offered by peteh100 at least offers a tree to browse with titles that are self explaning. The problem is how to populate it and how to maintain it (remember that earlier was done by going to Konquerors Bookmarks, browsing through the tree to the wanted place and then click Add boomark. Removing was also simple, and editing (moving from subsection to subsection, creating/deleting subsections, etc), there was Manage Boomarks, which gave you anice window where all are in,open and close subsections and move up/down, etc.

Now it will be easy to delete items using Dolphin, but it is not easy to add new [Desktop] files for the noob-end-user from a page (s)he sees in her/his browser window.

16

Going to investigate, Thanks a lot for the hints.

17
  • I’ve enabled the “Expand search to bookmarks, files and emails
    ” in the KDE Application Launcher. - I’ve enabled the “Bookmarks
    ” in the Plasma Search.

Neither the Application Launcher nor the KRunner search find any of my Firefox bookmarks.

  • Are you using the Chrome Browser?

Typing “openSUSE.org” in KRunner triggers the following suggestion in “Places”: http://opensuse.org

On the other hand, KRunner lets me jump to a specific Firefox tab – that part of the Plasma/Firefox integration seems to be OK.

BTW, activating Baloo doesn’t help …
[HR][/HR]Other things in KRunner work perfectly: current Date; current Time; file search; spell checking; and so on …

18

I did say that I just pick 10 of the main ones I usually start with (I have the regular forums I use, amazon, bbc news etc). As you say it would be an almost impossible task to include them all but I suspect that, like me, you have regular favourites and the rest are available once you’re in.

19

If you choose to use the “Application Menu” rather than default “Application Launcher” there’s an “Expand search to bookmarks, files and emails” option.

http://paste.opensuse.org/view/raw/0b788708

Note though this is on a TW installation, I’m away from my leap 15.0 machine at the moment I’m afraid, and secondly, I don’t have Konqueror installed so I’ve no idea if it works.

But probably worth a look…

20

Just to point out: Once Konqueror was the webbrowser for KDE. It is no more. To get things working like on KDE2, KDE3, KDE4 the only browser to look at for KDE was Konqueror, which can be considered dead. These days we have FF, Chrome, Chromium ( and lots of derivates ), where users often use more than one browser. This would mean all those would have to be checked for their bookmarks contantly, at least on login. And know the way these bookmarks are being stored by all those browsers.

Why would a desktop environment’s kicker menu have to be aware of all those. I already see the posts arriving here “KDE slow on login …” . And then, opening FF and hitting the bookmarks item in the menus would give exactly the same results. Same for Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Brave, Qupzilla, and so on and so on.

My experience: If you move on with the flow, yes, you will miss something you used before, but it will never be a huge change. If you stick with one unsupported version, then upgrade to > 5 versions later, these changes will be huge, and will have an impact on your workflow.

Questions: did any of you do bug reports, feature requests at kde.org ? Or at the devs directly ?

Remark: every single functionality of software must be maintained. If it’s not, it IMHO should not be in the distro. And, what today is a harmless function, can tomorrow be a serious vulnerability. Things change, also functionality can move from one piece of software to another.