8 ms·

Albert – open-source keyboard launcher for Linux

144 points by Curiositry 4y ago

albertzeyer 4y ago
Nice, thanks for naming a project after me. :P I also like the ALBERT lite-BERT model (https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11942 https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11942). Although this was just a matter of time. The other names which match to "*bert*" were already taken. Anyway, going on topic: Such a project really should have a related work section, right at the beginning, because there are many existing launchers, and just say how this is different (maybe better). E.g. see here (https://alternativeto.net/software/alfred/?platform=linux https://alternativeto.net/software/alfred/?platform=linux). But I also would be interested on differences e.g. to Alfred (Mac). I really wonder why such comparisons are very often missing. Also, a bit more information would be nice. Is this cross platform? Or Linux only? It seems Mac is on the todo-list (https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/1050 https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/1050) but I don't see a Mac binary download, so I assume it's not ready yet? Although the issue was closed. Btw, the last commit is from on 9 Oct 2021. So maybe already abandoned?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pluc 4y ago
Albert - https://albertlauncher.github.io/ https://albertlauncher.github.io/ Synapse - https://launchpad.net/synapse-project https://launchpad.net/synapse-project fbrun - https://linux.die.net/man/1/fbrun https://linux.die.net/man/1/fbrun rofi (my personal favourite) - https://github.com/davatorium/rofi https://github.com/davatorium/rofi gmrun - https://github.com/WdesktopX/gmrun https://github.com/WdesktopX/gmrun krunner - https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner dmenu - https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ and shout out to Alfred for Mac - https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/ map any of these to ctrl+space or super+space and never use the start menu/icon launchers again (or don't run a desktop at all!)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pvinis 4y ago
  what about raycast?! https://www.raycast.com/ https://www.raycast.com/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- zumu 4y ago
  I've been using ulauncher lately — https://ulauncher.io/ https://ulauncher.io/ Though I'd like to find one that centers properly under Wayland. I'll have to dig into this list.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    > Though I'd like to find one that centers properly under Wayland. Wouldn't that require compositor integration? I was given to understand that Wayland clients can't work with absolute positioning.
    - boudin 4y ago
      There's the xdg-shell protocol to position launchers, bars or similar UI elements https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-shell https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-shell
- greggsy 4y ago
  I’m still in awe that windows has had similar functionality available at a single press of the windows key, but you still can’t do basic arithmetic on it.
  - sli 4y ago
    The launcher included in PowerToys (called Run utility[0]) does support arithmetic. Sure, it's an extra thing to install, but it's first-party at least. [0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run
odiroot 4y ago
I get pretty much the same (maybe more?) from Krunner in Plasma. It's so convenient to convert currencies and other units.
seanw444 4y ago
It's very nice. I used to use this, but once I switched to a tiling window manager, I figured it was time to give everything a nice hackery appearance, and also extend customization even further to my launcher. So I switched to Rofi. Has dmenu functionality for scripts, and app launcher capability, while also being able to be customized with what seems to be CSS.
j4pe 4y ago
Has anyone compared memory usage of these launchers? I can report albert consumes a constant ~600MiB on my machine, which seems high for a list of filenames and application names.
- jraph 4y ago
  Maybe it could use Akonadi on KDE and (gnome-)tracker on GTK based desktop? (however, KRunner is fantastic, I would not know which KDE user would look for another solution)
  - stavros 4y ago
    I'm a KDE user, I switched over to KDE and brought my launcher with me. I should actually give KRunner a shot.
    - jraph 4y ago
      If you do, I'd be interested in your opinion then :-)
      - stavros 4y ago
        I just switched to it and am trying it out, but it doesn't seem to learn. I've typed "spo" to launch Spotify around 5-6 times, but it still lists "Spot" as the first choice.
        jraph 4y ago
        I think you are right, might be worth opening a bug on bugzilla.kde.org to suggest/track the feature (having it, as an option maybe, would be cool).
- FinnLeSueur 4y ago
  That does seem aggressively high. Alfred (MacOS), which this appears to take some design hints from, idles at about 49mb and 0.0-0.1% CPU usage on my Macbook.
heavyset_go 4y ago
How does this compare with Krunner[1]? [1] https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner
- whalesalad 4y ago
  The out of the box KDE experience is killer.
  - heavyset_go 4y ago
    Agreed, I didn't like KDE 3 or 4, but Plasma is just great.
otsaloma 4y ago
Note that, unlike the title says, Albert is not open source. A while back the website claimed it was GPL, but there was no indication of that in the codebase. I filed an issue, which seems to now have been deleted, requesting to clarify the matter. Turns out the author has some reservations incompatible with any definition of open source and thus Albert is basically non-free source-available. This means that it's dead in terms of wider adoption – no distros will package it, that was directly reported by many package maintainers in the now gone issue.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- galkk 4y ago
  They literally have section on the website: https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source that refers their github: https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git
  - amarshall 4y ago
    Source available ≠ Open Source. The source code has no license, so is fully copyrighted and thus is likely illegal to modify or redistribute in any way. It is this not Open Source but “source available”. It’s there, but you can’t really do anything with it except maybe compile it for personal use (but I’m not even sure about that).
    - rebeccaskinner 4y ago
      Even if the author gives you permission to download, build, and run the software, you might also need to buy a Qt license. AFAIK your choices for Qt are GPL or the (fairly expensive) commercial license. Since the software isn’t under a GPL compatible license my understanding is that you may well be obligated to buy the commercial Qt license.
      - deleted 4y ago
yuuta 4y ago
rofi is pretty good though.
wilmerags 4y ago
ULuncher seems easily extensible in comparison based on the contribution page. But is good to have alternatives in this space. Thanks for the reference.
- pachico 4y ago
  This is what I've been using for years. I find no reason to change it.
0x38B 4y ago
I don’t know if anything can beat sway-launcher-desktop (1) for me - bash and fzf are a lightning-fast combo. 1: https://github.com/Biont/sway-launcher-desktop https://github.com/Biont/sway-launcher-desktop
- rollcat 4y ago
  This code looks scary. I'd rather see a proper .ini parser being used.
URfejk 4y ago
Kupfer (reborn): https://github.com/kupferlauncher/kupfer https://github.com/kupferlauncher/kupfer Fly-Pie: https://github.com/Schneegans/Fly-Pie https://github.com/Schneegans/Fly-Pie Gnome-Pie: https://github.com/Schneegans/Gnome-Pie https://github.com/Schneegans/Gnome-Pie Synapse: https://launchpad.net/synapse-project https://launchpad.net/synapse-project Launchy: https://www.launchy.net/ https://www.launchy.net/ Cerebro: https://github.com/cerebroapp/cerebro https://github.com/cerebroapp/cerebro Lighthouse: https://github.com/emgram769/lighthouse https://github.com/emgram769/lighthouse
johnchristopher 4y ago
I think https://github.com/tartakynov/enso https://github.com/tartakynov/enso enso was onto something before its time. Or maybe this particular wheel regularly gets re implemented but never catches on outside IT/dev circles.
cycomanic 4y ago
I have been using Albert since a long time, I think it's still the best of all the launchers by quite a long shot. In particular the available plugins really make it useful for me.
xenodium 4y ago
Building your own custom launcher utilities can be fun (and fully tailored to your needs). I’ve had good results using completion frameworks like ivy, accessible from any app (not just Emacs). https://xenodium.com/emacs-utilities-for-your-os/ https://xenodium.com/emacs-utilities-for-your-os/
otaka 4y ago
[dead]

144 points by Curiositry 4y ago

Nice, thanks for naming a project after me. :P I also like the ALBERT lite-BERT model (https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11942 https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.11942). Although this was just a matter of time. The other names which match to "*bert*" were already taken. Anyway, going on topic: Such a project really should have a related work section, right at the beginning, because there are many existing launchers, and just say how this is different (maybe better). E.g. see here (https://alternativeto.net/software/alfred/?platform=linux https://alternativeto.net/software/alfred/?platform=linux). But I also would be interested on differences e.g. to Alfred (Mac). I really wonder why such comparisons are very often missing. Also, a bit more information would be nice. Is this cross platform? Or Linux only? It seems Mac is on the todo-list (https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/1050 https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert/issues/1050) but I don't see a Mac binary download, so I assume it's not ready yet? Although the issue was closed. Btw, the last commit is from on 9 Oct 2021. So maybe already abandoned?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pluc 4y ago

Albert - https://albertlauncher.github.io/ https://albertlauncher.github.io/ Synapse - https://launchpad.net/synapse-project https://launchpad.net/synapse-project fbrun - https://linux.die.net/man/1/fbrun https://linux.die.net/man/1/fbrun rofi (my personal favourite) - https://github.com/davatorium/rofi https://github.com/davatorium/rofi gmrun - https://github.com/WdesktopX/gmrun https://github.com/WdesktopX/gmrun krunner - https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner dmenu - https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ and shout out to Alfred for Mac - https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/ map any of these to ctrl+space or super+space and never use the start menu/icon launchers again (or don't run a desktop at all!)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pvinis 4y ago
what about raycast?! https://www.raycast.com/ https://www.raycast.com/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
zumu 4y ago
I've been using ulauncher lately — https://ulauncher.io/ https://ulauncher.io/ Though I'd like to find one that centers properly under Wayland. I'll have to dig into this list.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > Though I'd like to find one that centers properly under Wayland. Wouldn't that require compositor integration? I was given to understand that Wayland clients can't work with absolute positioning.
  - boudin 4y ago
    There's the xdg-shell protocol to position launchers, bars or similar UI elements https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-shell https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-shell
greggsy 4y ago
I’m still in awe that windows has had similar functionality available at a single press of the windows key, but you still can’t do basic arithmetic on it.
- sli 4y ago
  The launcher included in PowerToys (called Run utility[0]) does support arithmetic. Sure, it's an extra thing to install, but it's first-party at least. [0]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run

odiroot 4y ago

I get pretty much the same (maybe more?) from Krunner in Plasma. It's so convenient to convert currencies and other units.

seanw444 4y ago

It's very nice. I used to use this, but once I switched to a tiling window manager, I figured it was time to give everything a nice hackery appearance, and also extend customization even further to my launcher. So I switched to Rofi. Has dmenu functionality for scripts, and app launcher capability, while also being able to be customized with what seems to be CSS.

j4pe 4y ago

Has anyone compared memory usage of these launchers? I can report albert consumes a constant ~600MiB on my machine, which seems high for a list of filenames and application names.

jraph 4y ago
Maybe it could use Akonadi on KDE and (gnome-)tracker on GTK based desktop? (however, KRunner is fantastic, I would not know which KDE user would look for another solution)
- stavros 4y ago
  I'm a KDE user, I switched over to KDE and brought my launcher with me. I should actually give KRunner a shot.
  - jraph 4y ago
    If you do, I'd be interested in your opinion then :-)
    - stavros 4y ago
      I just switched to it and am trying it out, but it doesn't seem to learn. I've typed "spo" to launch Spotify around 5-6 times, but it still lists "Spot" as the first choice.
      - jraph 4y ago
        I think you are right, might be worth opening a bug on bugzilla.kde.org to suggest/track the feature (having it, as an option maybe, would be cool).
FinnLeSueur 4y ago
That does seem aggressively high. Alfred (MacOS), which this appears to take some design hints from, idles at about 49mb and 0.0-0.1% CPU usage on my Macbook.

heavyset_go 4y ago

How does this compare with Krunner[1]? [1] https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner

whalesalad 4y ago
The out of the box KDE experience is killer.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  Agreed, I didn't like KDE 3 or 4, but Plasma is just great.

otsaloma 4y ago

Note that, unlike the title says, Albert is not open source. A while back the website claimed it was GPL, but there was no indication of that in the codebase. I filed an issue, which seems to now have been deleted, requesting to clarify the matter. Turns out the author has some reservations incompatible with any definition of open source and thus Albert is basically non-free source-available. This means that it's dead in terms of wider adoption – no distros will package it, that was directly reported by many package maintainers in the now gone issue.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
galkk 4y ago
They literally have section on the website: https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source https://albertlauncher.github.io/installing/#from-source that refers their github: https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git https://github.com/albertlauncher/albert.git
- amarshall 4y ago
  Source available ≠ Open Source. The source code has no license, so is fully copyrighted and thus is likely illegal to modify or redistribute in any way. It is this not Open Source but “source available”. It’s there, but you can’t really do anything with it except maybe compile it for personal use (but I’m not even sure about that).
  - rebeccaskinner 4y ago
    Even if the author gives you permission to download, build, and run the software, you might also need to buy a Qt license. AFAIK your choices for Qt are GPL or the (fairly expensive) commercial license. Since the software isn’t under a GPL compatible license my understanding is that you may well be obligated to buy the commercial Qt license.
    - deleted 4y ago

yuuta 4y ago

rofi is pretty good though.

wilmerags 4y ago

ULuncher seems easily extensible in comparison based on the contribution page. But is good to have alternatives in this space. Thanks for the reference.

pachico 4y ago
This is what I've been using for years. I find no reason to change it.

0x38B 4y ago

I don’t know if anything can beat sway-launcher-desktop (1) for me - bash and fzf are a lightning-fast combo. 1: https://github.com/Biont/sway-launcher-desktop https://github.com/Biont/sway-launcher-desktop

rollcat 4y ago
This code looks scary. I'd rather see a proper .ini parser being used.

URfejk 4y ago

Kupfer (reborn): https://github.com/kupferlauncher/kupfer https://github.com/kupferlauncher/kupfer Fly-Pie: https://github.com/Schneegans/Fly-Pie https://github.com/Schneegans/Fly-Pie Gnome-Pie: https://github.com/Schneegans/Gnome-Pie https://github.com/Schneegans/Gnome-Pie Synapse: https://launchpad.net/synapse-project https://launchpad.net/synapse-project Launchy: https://www.launchy.net/ https://www.launchy.net/ Cerebro: https://github.com/cerebroapp/cerebro https://github.com/cerebroapp/cerebro Lighthouse: https://github.com/emgram769/lighthouse https://github.com/emgram769/lighthouse

johnchristopher 4y ago

I think https://github.com/tartakynov/enso https://github.com/tartakynov/enso enso was onto something before its time. Or maybe this particular wheel regularly gets re implemented but never catches on outside IT/dev circles.

cycomanic 4y ago

I have been using Albert since a long time, I think it's still the best of all the launchers by quite a long shot. In particular the available plugins really make it useful for me.

xenodium 4y ago

Building your own custom launcher utilities can be fun (and fully tailored to your needs). I’ve had good results using completion frameworks like ivy, accessible from any app (not just Emacs). https://xenodium.com/emacs-utilities-for-your-os/ https://xenodium.com/emacs-utilities-for-your-os/

otaka 4y ago

[dead]