11.4 KDE launcher/running applications in a terminal

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I’m a long time Ubuntu user that just recently switched to openSuSe. I’m loving it so far, but there are a few tiny annoyances that I want to find a way to fix. I’ve done a few google searches with no luck so I thought I’d give them here.

  1. I play minecraft fairly regularly and I’m looking for a way to create a “launcher” that automatically does XYZ terminal command inside of a certain directory. Preferably one I can stick into the kickoff launcher and just click it. It would be even better if it could be done without having the terminal screen stay open the entire time I’m playing also.

  2. Similar to the above. Since mangler no longer offers prepackaged versions and I couldn’t find one from the openSuSe community I had to compile it from source. That wasn’t a problem, but I tend to leave mangler open and running for hours (if not days) and I hate having both the app and the terminal I launched with the app appear in my dock. Is there anyway to launch it without the terminal staying open the entire time?

  3. More of a nitpicky thing, but in Ubuntu when I moved an app to a different desktop that app no longer appeared in the panel at the bottom. In KDE here they still do; and I often used that to keep programs I want running but have them not clutter my panels. I’ve dug around in the settings a bit, but I could not find anyway to switch it around. Does anyone have any ideas?

The fact that the above is the ONLY problems I’ve really had (and these are mere annoyances) says a lot to how complete and well put together this distro is. I can’t believe I never gave it a try before now. I’m certainly pretty happy right now and would like to thank in advance anyone who can help me out with the above.

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  1. I play minecraft fairly regularly and I’m looking for a way to create a “launcher” that automatically does XYZ terminal command inside of a certain directory. Preferably one I can stick into the kickoff launcher and just click it. It would be even better if it could be done without having the terminal screen stay open the entire time I’m playing also.

“Kickoff” sounds like KDE, so if that’s the case: you can easily edit the menu and add your own entries (just rightclick the menu button for that option). When creating a new entry, you will be asked for a command, which usually is something like ‘firefox’ or ‘/usr/bin/someprogramm’, but actual commands work as well. I don’t know whether Minecraft needs a running console, but you could try to run the executable (whatever it executes) either by calling the direct path or by using ‘cd’ to change the directory and ‘&&’ to call a file / execute it. For some reasons direct paths do not always work, so here’s an example for the latter way:

cd ~/.trine/ && ./trine-bin32

~ = home of the current user, ‘&&’ = execute this command after the last command is executed successfully]

I suppose you could also use ‘sh’ instead of ‘./’

In KDE here they still do; and I often used that to keep programs I want running but have them not clutter my panels. I’ve dug around in the settings a bit, but I could not find anyway to switch it around. Does anyone have any ideas?

There are several task switchers for KDE, but I suppose they will all offer you setting an option to show only the programs running on the current workspace when rightclicking it (on a free space next to a shown window).