Synapse hijacks shortcut

[MochiMoppel]

I do all my coding in Geany, and one of my most often used keyboard shortcuts is Ctrl+Space ("Complete word"). Extremely useful to avoid typing mistakes and find potential names for variables. So while running BW64 for the first time I didn't know what hit me when suddenly a strange "Type to search" message popped up instead of the usual selection box. No window decoration, no identification, never seen before. I looked into JWM settings to search for a keyboard assignment associated with Ctrl+Space and couldn't find one. Finally I noticed the little icon in the tray that triggers what looks like just another launcher, and there I found that Ctr+Space is set to activate Synapse.

That's a bad default. IMO system wide shortcuts should never use Ctrl+<character> combos. Such combinations have precedence over application specific shortcuts and effectively "steal" them. For example Gnumeric assigned Ctrl+Space to the "Select column" function.

For system wide shortcuts the Alt+<character> combo seems to be a much safer choice, so in this case Alt+Space would be more appropriate.
Personally I avoid Synapse all together. Removing it from the tray is the first thing I do when booting BW64 After testing and seeing what it can do (at one point it completely froze my computer) and what it can not do I decided that there are better choices available.

[radky]

Re: Synapse hijacks shortcut

The Ctrl+Space shortcut is the default (system-wide) hotkey sequence used by many application launchers such as Albert, Kupfer, Launchy and Synapse, and by common desktop applications such as Blender, Opera, Textmaker, CherryTree, ChromeOS, Midnight Commander, Scribus, Gnumeric and Geany.

In the case of Synapse, the default keyboard shortcut is easily changed to one that does not potentially interfere with other applications:

Right-click Synapse tray icon -> Preferences -> General tab -> Shortcuts

If Synapse is not your cup of tea, it is very easy to remove the tray notification icon and/or disable the auto-start option.

Right-click Synapse tray icon -> Preferences -> General tab -> Behavior & Look

Some users may have little interest in the Synapse application launcher, but many others may find it quite useful -- including me. I have no plans to remove Synapse from BW64.

[tosim]

@radky I've used Synapse in the past, but when I came across uLauncher several years ago, I switched to it.
If you may be interested, here is a comparison: https://www.slant.co/versus/11686/20264 ... _ulauncher

[radky]

@tosim

The review article (which evaluates about 28 linux launchers) suggests Synapse is bound to the Ctrl+Space shortcut and is unable to search files in the entire system. This is misleading since the most recent Synapse release (2018-04-08) supports changing the keyboard shortcut (if necessary) to a hotkey sequence that does not conflict with other applications. Additionally, as implemented in BW64, Synapse integrates with the versatile plocate utility to quickly find files system-wide.

Your preferred launcher (Ulauncher) is certainly popular and functions in a manner very similar to Synapse (and uses the same default Ctrl+Space shortcut). However, when installed to BW64, Ulauncher requires many dependencies and is significantly larger than Synapse.

Ulauncher: 40.1M added to ISO (150M installed to filesystem)
Synapse: 0.8M added to ISO (3.4M installed to filesystem)

BW64 is now very close to final release and the included applications will not change significantly, but you can easily install a different launcher.

Thanks for your comments.

[tosim]

@radky You are very welcome, and thanks for your info re the size comparisons, plus, ALL you do here
helping us out. I'm reasonably sure many others also appreciate your work. Thanks again.

[MochiMoppel]

Some users may have little interest in the Synapse application launcher, but many others may find it quite useful -- including me. I have no plans to remove Synapse from BW64.

@radky OK, you find it useful and I find it almost unusable. No problem. You may see it primarily as a launcher and not as a file finder, which Synapse also tries to be and in which I'm more interested. Apparently it uses plocate, which I never used and haven't seen in a Puppy preinstalled. A phantastic file finder. Just deserves a better frontend than Synapse

Will plocate be a standard tool in woof-CE or is it a BW64 specific tool?
The only problem I have is that in its current configuration it its unable to scan files on my boot device. My USB stick is mounted as /mnt/home, a symlink to /initrd/mnt/dev_save. Since plocate doesn't follow symlinks, /mnt/home will not be scanned. Unfortunately /initrd/mnt/dev_save also is not scanned because /initrd is -for good reasons - "black listed" in the PRUNEPATHS list of /etc/updatedb.conf
So for my boot device I have to resort to the find command. Apart from that, everything is fine. Thanks for that. And should you ever change plans and remove Synapse, dont' remove plocate

[Edit] Found that plocate is able to include /initrd/mnt/dev_save in its database despite /initrd contained in PRUNEPATHS.
Command is updatedb.plocate -U /initrd/mnt/dev_save

[Edit2] No, this doesn't work. Discards the old db and creates a new one, consisting of just /initrd/mnt/dev_save.
What does work is to be more specific in the PRUNEPATHS. I changed /initrd to /initrd/mnt/tmpfs /initrd/pup_a /initrd/pup_b /initrd/pup_ro2 /initrd/pup_z, which allows plocate to scan /initrd/mnt/dev_save

[radky]

@MochiMoppel

Yes, as implemented in BW64, Synapse is primarily an application launcher. Other capabilities are available but are of secondary importance.

Please see Menu -> Help -> HOWTO use the Synapse Application Launcher

• When used as an application launcher, Synapse parses files with the .desktop extension - typically those in /usr/share/applications.

• When used as a run-dialog application to call and execute system commands, Synapse parses all files in the executable PATH. However, some users may find a dedicated run-dialog application more useful, such as gexec or prun (both of which are included in BW64).

• When used as an internet search portal, Synapse defaults to the DuckDuckGo engine. If you prefer Google or Google Maps, simply right-click the search item (or press the TAB key) and choose the alternate search engine.

• When used as a file-finder, Synapse accesses a local file database generated automatically by plocate when booting. During the subsequent desktop session, if you mount data drives not previously indexed by plocate, it is possible to manually update the file database on demand: Go to Menu -> Filesystem -> Synapse update. However, some users may find a dedicated file-finder more useful, such as pfind or Fsearch (both of which are included in BW64). Note: the plocate utility is not a standard Puppy application, but it is included in BW64 specifically to extend the file-find functionality of Synapse.

If you have no interest in an application launcher, but are interested in a GUI for a versatile dedicated file-finder, BW64 includes FSearch (menu -> Filesystem -> FSearch) which indexes all system files (similar to plocate) and also searches quickly system-wide.