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Eeebuntu Extras

Notable 3rd Party Additions For Your Eeebuntu Install

Gnome-Do for Eeebuntu users coming from the Macintosh should be familiar. It is a keyboard launcher like Quicksilver or Launchbar. For those who have never seen one before, these applications integrate with your system and work in a very simple, intuitive but powerful way: they provide a single keystroke to trigger the application and then accept keyboard input to perform tasks. Whilst that doesn't sound too special at first, you may be surprised by this example:.

How It Works

After a keystroke to trigger the application, you might type 'Mail' TAB 'Jenny' RETURN. Suddenly your e-mail application opens and starts a new e-mail to Jenny, one of your contacts in your address book.

Or as shown above, a three stage process with the Google Calendar plugin activated means you can create a new event and place it in your personal calendar in a few keystrokes.

That's a very simple case of a very powerful system which, with plugins and configuration, scales to the point where you can do almost anything on your desktop that would usually involve you moving the mouse here and there, clicking, typing, clicking, dragging, typing, instead doing it in a flurry of keystrokes.

It also employs autocomplete and learns what you want your keystrokes to do, so that your most used applications become available with the least number of keystrokes.

What You Get

Once installed Gnome-Do waits for you to tap a definable keystroke before it pops up and accepts input for its tasks. It comes with a set of plugins already active which allow you to search your contacts, launch applications, manipulate files and so forth. It the configuration menu you can also activate dozens more plugins, some official, some third-party, which allow you to do all sorts of things, from updating your Twitter feed or controlling your system volume to mounting disk or initiating a Skype call.

Why It's Eeebuntu Savvy

Whilst having a full desktop is always useful on a portable machine, once you get used to the Gnome-Do interface you'll find yourself using the mouse less and less whilst still having the full desktop experience to back you up. You may even find you prefer it to the Netbook Launcher...

Gotchas

Remember that you have to restart Gnome-Do for newly activated plugins to index directories, applications, databases etc.

There is a learning curve. Simple interactions are easy but multi-stage interactions take a bit of thought. Go slowly, learn how it works.

Remember to set Gnome-Do to run at startup, so it's always available to you.

Where To Get Gnome-Do

Gnome-Do is available directly from your Applications menu using Add/Remove, or using Synaptic.

Once you have installed, head over to the Gnome-Do site for more information, help, hints, tips and screenshots.