Three days have gone since I wrote the first post about Zetta, a new start menu for KDE4. I admit I expected more comments, especially since many complain about Kickoff; the huge amount of text probably scared away many potential readers. However, the few responses I received in the KDE forum was really helpful.

Today I’ll be talking about the two modes in the application view: skim mode and scan mode. I choose these names to give you an idea of what they’re for, but in Zetta they’ll most likely be addressed as icon view respective list view.

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The Problem

Currently, KDE4 has three start menus: Kickoff, Traditional Menu and Lancelot. Then there’s Raptor, the menu everyone is waiting for.

With this many alternatives, is there really a need for another start menu? Since I’m writing this post, my answer would obviously be ‘Yes’. Among the three menus I’ve tried, the traditional KMenu is still my favorite. Granted, it’s the one I’m most used to, but the others bug me for one common reason: browsing among the applications is a pain.

Kickoff requires many clicks if you just want to see which applications you have installed on your system, something that many persons I’ve talked to dislike. While Lancelot’s solution is very interesting, it still doesn’t hit the sweet spot for me. And the Traditional Menu simply lacks some nice features the new menus have.

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