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Kickoff already works like this. Just press the default Alt-F1, type in the application name or part of it (auto-completion) and it should pop up at the top of the search results. From there you just have to hit Enter.

I'm curious whether Raptor will be included in 4.0 as the default KMenu replacment. So far it looks like it will miss every scheduled Beta release so I can't imagine that the KDE developers will use an untested (both technically and usability-wise) piece of software.

Edited 2007-10-07 15:51

It seems Kickoff will be the only menu which will be stable by the time KDE 4.0 ships, so that might make it as default. Of course, this can change for 4.1

Well, if this thing works anything like launching applications using Spotlight on the Mac (apple+space, type app's name, enter) then I'm all for it.

Alt+F2, type app name (with dropdown and automatic completion), enter. It's been there all along.

It would help if you could search by function or description (I assume spotlight does that and it's what you meant), so you don't have to remember names like tutbKbtasuaatpotimfoantatywtadawwtcuwssnanl"t"btctosawwaai(This Used To Be KIllustrator But Then Adobe Sued Us And All The People On The Internet Made Fun Of App Names That Actually Tell You What The App Does And We Wanted To Come Up With Some Stupid New Age Name Like "Tranquility" But Then Came To Our Senses And Went With An Acronym Instead.)

EDIT: Yes, that was overdone, I admit it. But let's face it the problem is real. We've gone from programs called "xchat" and "kwrite" (both still alive but around for a long time) to stuff like marble and pidgin (both clever names in their own way but you'd never come up with it when sitting in front of a run dialog)

Edited 2007-10-07 22:00

A litle secret, the discription should help on the finding and should be taged in the data base, so "burn cd" shoud in theory point them to k3b, and "web browser" to konqueror or firefox, that will do alot of good for linux apps that have big name marqueting problems for new comers.

Katapult already does exactly that (though the key combo is Alt+Space).