Fly Pie: an amazing app launcher for GNOME Shell

Isaac

2 minutes

GNOME Shell has a multitude of extensions to do all kinds of tasks and add new functions that the standard desktop environment lacks. One of these extensions is called fly foot, and it is an interesting app launcher to simply use one hand with the mouse, without the need for anything else.

Fly Pie allows launch applications, URLs, recent files, simulate hotkeys, access clipboard content and much more. On the other hand, it is fully compatible with X11 and also with Wayland, so there will be no problem if you are using one or the other. Simply start Fly Pie with a keyboard shortcut, and the rest can be done with the mouse ...

Once the Fly Pie menu is opened with the keyboard shortcut, there is three modes of selection:

  • A way to select an item by clicking on it.
  • Markup mode to select items by drawing gestures on the screen.
  • Turbo mode, which allows you to draw gestures while holding down the Ctrl + Shift or Alt key without having to press the mouse button.

El circular menu was invented by Gordon Kurtenbach and William Buxton in 1994. A hierarchical way of managing elements that have this particular operational mode. Its main advantage, according to the creator of Fly Pie, is that you can gradually go from beginner to expert easily, you just have to get used to the way this add-on works. In fact, a number of games and achievements have been created to ease this learning curve.

As for hierarchical menus that allows you to create Fly Pie, they are:

  • Installed, pinned, frequently used or running applications.
  • Connected devices.
  • Bookmarks with frequently used directories.
  • Recent files.
  • System (screen lock, shutdown, restart, access to settings, etc.).
  • Clipboard history (be it text, image, files ...).
  • Custom menu, where you can include various actions (minimize windows, maximize, control media players, URLs, etc.).

Fly Pie menus can be customized to a high degree, from the icons used, their sizes, opacity, colors, etc. Includes 10 themes to choose from. There is even support for touch screens in its latest version released.

Install Fly Pie in GNOME Shell (only versions 41, 40, 3,38 and 3.36) - Click here

More about Fly Pie - GitHub