KDE: shortcut for "give me application X"

[Daniel Pittman]

G'day.

I am trying to figure out if it is possible to achieve a bit of UI that
I would like in my KDE session:  I want a "give me application X" key
sequence.

My use case is essentially this:

I want to hit control-enter to give me a calculator.  I want this to
work from anywhere, no matter what, and to act like this:

  If I hit the keys and the calculator application isn't running, start
  it up.

  If I hit the keys and it /is/ running then bring it to the current
  desktop, on top, and give it focus.

What I absolutely do not want is:

  If I hit the keys and it isn't running nothing happens.

  If I hit the keys and it is running a second copy starts up.


Sadly, though, I can't work out how to achieve this with KDE:

If I set a global shortcut on the application I get the second bad
behaviour: it starts a new copy of the application even if one is
already running.

If I set a shortcut key to jump to the application I can't have it
automatically started.


Annoyingly, a few applications do the right thing.  I presume this is
because they have their own special internal support for detecting a
running instance and activating that rather than starting a second copy.
(...and, no, the calculator isn't one of them.  Darn it.)


So, is there any way to achieve this nice, modal behaviour?  

Extra bonus points go to anyone who can supply a third behaviour here:

  If I hit the keys, it is running and it has focus then hide or
  minimize the application.

That way I can have a "pop-up" calculator, terminal session and the
couple of other "global" applications that I sometimes want to use from
whatever else I am in the middle of.

Regards,
        Daniel
-- 
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