While browsing through my RSS feed of Linux.com I noticed a post about ‘Lancelot’ a new KDE menu/plasmoid. I kinda prefer the old style KDE menu but have been forcing myself to use the new menu to see if it really is crap, and it kinda is.

But Lancelot (below) is the best of both worlds!

If you open your package manager and type in ‘lancelot’ you should see the plasmoid mentioned in the results. If not, then you need to add the LaunchPad repo:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main

Just install the Lancelot plasmoid then add it to your desktop or task bar.

Left is how the Lancelot menu looks. Down the left side is shortcuts to Documents, Contacts, Computer and Applications – clicking one of those changes what is displayed in the white area, at the moment it is showing Applications. In the left half of the white box is the list of Favourites, right side is the typical menu.

This is after clicking Graphics. The right side slides to the left and the right side displays what is under Graphics (GIMP, Xsane etc). To go back you click one of the blue tabs at the top of the white area.

Documents has handy links to Open Office applications and links to recently open documents.

Contacts has links to Kmail contacts (which I don’t have installed, I use Thunderbird) and also Kopete contacts.

And this is when you click the Computer icon on the left side of the menu. It lists the Fixed (drives), Places (home, root etc) and System (links to System Settings and a handy link to the KDE System Monitor.

All in all, I really like Lancelot, definitely keeping it installed as it’s a good compromise between the old menu and the new (pretty useless) menu. Oh, and it looks more pretty too. 

Give it a try!