Catalog configuration/slimming is tedious

[poisonborz]

Long-time Launchy user here. Starting up Keypirinha for the first time is a bit daunting: as with many similar task launchers, search throws up a huge number of unexpected or irrelevant files. Personally I always select just one folder to scan, where I throw all the necessary .lnk files - I hate to see garbage in my search results. It was rather tedious to find out how packages work/are configured to slim down the catalog. Eg. I still look out for how to disable the shipped web search engines (user's websearch.ini seemingly only allows to extend the list). Also there is seemingly no way to easily see the source of catalog items (to know what to disable or remove).

Perhaps it were a bit easier on the user when at the first launch there were some guidance where to search or which plugins to enable.

I know Keypirinha is made for advanced users, and the ini-based configs don't lend themselves well to guiding or easing this process. I know this issue is not too much focused, but I still think it's important to note how for a user, who's approach is to have the smallest possible catalog entries (not slimming down a big catalog over time, but starting from zero and then expanding it when needed) Keypirinha's setup is rather tedious.

[polyvertex]

Interesting comment.

Since an average user just does not mind about slimming/optimizing the catalog, your needs already are the needs of an advanced user. As such, you should understand that your needs are specific and that you'll have to take more time than the average user to understand how the tools you use work under the hood generally speaking. While Keypirinha is quite different by design compared to other desktop applications, which makes it a bit harder to approach admittedly, it is no exception to that rule.

As the developer and since Keypirinha is very generic, I had to make a choice about how the default configuration would be out of the box, trying to fit to the majority and trying to know who is the "average" user of KP.

On the other hand, as a user I would have had the exact same approach than yours (as I had with Launchy and other launchers I've been using before Keypirinha). For this reason I believe you made a good point and that there's a gap in the docs about that. So I will very probably add a chapter or a big section somewhere about building your catalog from scratch.

I still look out for how to disable the shipped web search engines

EDIT: The content of the following paragraph has been obsoleted by the addition of the enable_predefined_sites and individual enable settings to the WebSearch package in version 2.8.

This is the very less obvious thing to do in your quest. To achieve that in a clean way, that is, a way that allows you to keep the upgrade process of KP easy, you should first disable the WebSearch package using the ignored_packages setting, then create a new loose package with a different name than WebSearch, say WSearch, and copy the content of the WebSearch.keypirinha-package into it. Then, you'll be able to trim the default configuration.
Note that it's also preferable to rename the plugin itself (i.e. the Python class name, to WSearch as well for example) and the files like if it was a completely different package/plugin combo, as well as changing the item_label_format option to something different than the default value.
There's one downside to this though, if WebSearch's source code gets fixed/updated, you'll have to upgrade your local copy manually each time. It takes a few seconds but you'll have to remember it.

[polyvertex]

A Customize your Catalog chapter has been added to the documentation. It's not perfect but it gives a start.

[poisonborz]

it's well enough for the target group here. the operators in ignored_packages are a great idea!

[polyvertex]

@poisonborz To follow on your initial request regarding the predefined search sites, and in case you're still interested in the feature, a new enable_predefined_sites setting will allow to disable all predefined search sites at once. In addition to that, a new enable setting will be available to every search site (predefined or not). Both features will be available in the next release. EDIT: available since version 2.8

[poisonborz]

Great, this solves the issue completely!

[oddsito]

Why, why are you so hard to config.

Why , i'm so sad, crying and frustrated