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User guide
There are two ways getting albert: Using a package manager or building albert from the sources. Using a package manager is highly recommended, since it is less error prone and the necessary dependencies are pulled automatically.
Currently albert is not in any of the major repositories. At least some user repositories contain it. Hopefully there will be more in future:
Archlinux (Official)
yaourt albert
Fedora (rabin-io copr repo)
dnf copr enable rabiny/albert
dnf install albert
Ubuntu (Thanks to webupd8)
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install albert
Building from sources is the least convenient, but most flexible way. The build process is trivial, but you have to manage the dependencies on your own. Before you can start building albert you need some libraries. Since there are a lot of known bugs stemming from Qt itself, Qt 5.3 is the least supported version (this may raise in future!). Generally albert will compile from above 5.1, but there are no workarounds for known bugs caused by Qt below 5.3.
Basically the required libraries comprise the Qt Essentials, since this is a Qt project, Qt X11 Extras for Hotkey on Linux, Qt Svgfor svg rendering and muparser for the calculator. A C++ (minimum C++11) compiler and CMake (>=2.8.11) is needed to build albert. Here are some hints for the package names on some operating systems:
Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S --needed gcc cmake qt5-base qt5-x11extras qt5-svg muparser
Ubuntu 14.04 and newer
sudo apt-get install g++ cmake qtbase5-dev libqt5x11extras5-dev libqt5svg5-dev libmuparser-dev
To build and install albert use the following commands:
cmake . -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make
sudo make install
If you intent to report issues it may be of use to chose the CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug. This will make the binary print more verbose error messages. Depending on
The use of albert is as a launcher is though to be. The launcher is shown with the hotkey. Since a launcher without hotkey is useless, you will be forced to set it on first start. If the launcher is visible, you can type queries, which are handled by the enabled extensions. The matches are shown in a list below the input line. You can use the traditional ways to navigate in the list to browse and finally activate the matches. Currently there are the following keys and keycombinations available:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Tab | Show/hide alternative actions for the item |
| Alt+F4 | Quit albert |
| Alt+, | Show the settings dialog |
| Arrow Up | If no item is selected, iterate over the recent queries |
| Enter | Activate the selected item |