One of the biggest navigational issues with any operating system is using program menus. Windows users have to open the Start Menu, scan for the program, realize that the program is probably in the subfolder under the programmer’s name, scan the appropriate subfolder, and then click on the program’s icon. Macintosh users must open Finder, find and click on the Applications folder, and then search for the program’s name. GNOME and KDE users have an advantage: they have categories in their respective Applications and K menus. However, it is still hard to find programs (and what if you look for Thunderbird in Office, and then realize it is under Internet?). One of the biggest reasons that the Quicksilver keystroke application launcher is so popular with the Macintosh users. All that is required is hitting Ctrl (or Command) + Space, and then typing a name to launch the program. Luckily, OS X users aren’t the only ones that have this great feature. KDE users have the great, free-as-in-speech, Katapult.

Katapulting yourself into action

Since many KDE distributions include or offer packages for it, Katapult is extremely easy to install. After doing so, open Katapult (under the Utilities menu in K Menu, or by typing Alt-F2 and then katapult) and it will display an “Application successfully started” message. To begin Katapulting, type Alt + Space (Bar). Type in a program name that is in the K Menu, such as Konqueror (Katapult will only index programs in the K Menu), and hit Enter when the Konqueror icon comes up. Voila! Konqueror will launch. You can also just type konq, wait for the Konqueror icon to come up, and hit Enter. To close the Katapult window (note that Katapult will stay open, so you can still hit Alt + Space to bring it forward), wait for a few seconds or click outside of the Katapult window.

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