Kupfer Tips

This page is a work in progress. Feel free to edit and improve upon these pages. It's a Wiki.

As of March 2011, most of the information have been included in Kupfer's user documentation which is located at: http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/ This page has been updated to link to our central user manual for most items.

If a tip on this page doesn't work for you, it can be that it will only work in the latest released version. Tips are not included here that only apply to unreleased versions of kupfer (unless explicitly marked).

Basics

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/generalusage.html

Command Keys and Accelerator Keys

Complete keyboard shortcut reference.

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/keyboard.html

Using Kupfer In Depth

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/moreusage.html

• Grab current selection
• Add applications
• Add your scripts
• Add your commandlines
• Command-line connection
• Managing Context and Current Selection
• The "Comma Trick"
• Save Commands as Files

  • See also GIF Screencast Illustration

  • See also 2009 explanation of compmosed commands

Calculator Plugin

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/plugin-calculator.html

Triggers

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/plugin-triggers.html

Store Objects as Favorites

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/plugin-favorites.html

Microblogging

Kupfer v204 supports microblogging via its Gwibber plugin. You can also use services such as twitter or identi.ca via Kupfer's Pidgin plugin, if you install pidgin-microblog a.k.a microblog-purple. Once connected to the service in Pidgin, you can use the Send Message... action from Kupfer.

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/plugin-gwibber.html

Modifying Kupfer's appearance

Kupfer v205 or later supports themes, see http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/Manual.html

Configuration files and paths

Kupfer cache, config and data are in ~/.cache/kupfer ~/.config/kupfer ~/.local/share/kupfer

Install custom plugins in

~/.local/share/kupfer/plugins/

Search the Web Search Engines

http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/help/plugin-websearch.html

"Dynamic Folders"

• You can bind a trigger to (A folder) → Search Contents. When pressing the trigger key, kupfer pops up with the directory listing of that folder, and you can search or browse it immediately.
• You can create a dynamic notes (Tomboy or Gnote) folder using the action "Get Notes Search Results..". Say your topic is "GNOME" you can create a trigger or saved command "GNOME" → Get Notes Search Results... If you use 'Save As...' to save this as a command file on the desktop, then you have a double-clickable dynamic notes folder. Double-click it and Kupfer pops open with a list of notes that match the topic (in this example it was "GNOME")
• The Tracker plugin supports the simplest kind of savedSearch files like dynamic folders. As of this writing, only the text query key is supported, like this:

Inside the file physics.savedSearch:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<query version="1.0">
   <text>physics</text>
</query>

Select in Kupfer

The action Select in Kupfer only has sensible use in Triggers. (Although, on second thought, it can also be used if you absoltely want an object to be inside the Command Results subcatalog). Just like the "Summon Kupfer with Selection" global keyboard shortcut, Select in Kupfer lets you make a trigger for "Summon Kupfer with X" where X is anything, for greatest effect maybe a Proxy object such as Fronstmost Window.

Hidden Gems

• Kupfer understands extended latin alphabets. You can find objects using either accented or unaccented letters in your search.

  • Suð í eyrum is matched by search sud i eyrum (Useful for all the song names of different origin in your music collection, for example by Sigur Rós)

  • Übung.pdf is matched by searches uebung or ubung (Useful for anything with latin non-ascii letters in its name).

Use during Drag & Drop

When dragging an object, the window manager normally locks most actions (you can't alt-tab). You can summon Kupfer during drags and you can also switch windows in a rudimentary way if you bind a trigger to Next Window -> Activate.

Which Proxy Objects Exist?

A Proxy Object is an object that is dynamically resolved when loaded from saved commands (in triggers or in commands saved to file).

The following proxy objects exist (Plugin name):

• Selected Text (core, will be in Clipboard after v206)
• Last Command (core)
• Last Result (core)
• Selected File(s) (Selected File)
• Frontmost Window (Window List)
• Next Window (Window List)
• Clipboard Text (dev version v206+, Clipboard)
• Clipboard File(s) (dev version v206+, Clipboard)

The action Run (Take Result) from the plugin Higher-order Actions creates a new proxy object which is resolved each time by the command it was created from. While convoluted, an example can be Selected Text → Translate to English → Run (Take Result) which makes a proxy text object containing the result of translating the selected text. (Translate is from the Google Translate plugin). The translate action is carried out when the command object is resolved (for example when the trigger is activated).

NOTE: Higher-order Actions is experimental and it cannot be guaranteed that it will stay in future versions of Kupfer!