Ok, now I'm curious enough to make a post about it. I'm currently running Slackware 10, although I can recall having this "issue" with 9.1 and 9.0, possibly also with 8.x.

Yesterday I installed an application (Maple 8) and added a shortcut to the K menu. When launched from this shortcut, Maple starts up very quickly but the mouse pointer remains busy, displaying the launch feedback animation, for 30 seconds. During this time, Maple seems just a bit unresponsive, but afterwards it behaves just like it should. Now if I start Maple from the console instead - using the very same command as used in the K menu shortcut - it also starts up very quickly, but with no "busy cursor" whatsoever. It just loads and is done, like it should be.

This has previously occured with other applications as well; in 9.0, it occured when launching Mozilla, for example. Also note it only happens in KDE.

I'd really like to know what's going on. Anyone care to explain?

sorry that this is not the answer
but i also have tha same problem so i am interested in the answer

You answered your own question. Just turn the feedback animation off for that shortcut (and any other shortcut that takes a little longer to launch than it should).

MagicMan

Hmm...I don't think that's the answer (although, of course, I could be wrong!). Firstly, even though an application is launched from the console, the mouse pointer is still present on-screen and should act accordingly. Secondly, this implies that all apps should behave similarly; when launched from the menu, they "lag", but when launched via the command line, they blitz. Also, the "feedback animation" is just that; an animation. It's played for a reason, and something makes KDE believe there's reason to display the animation when the app is launched from the K menu, but not when it's launched from the CLI - though it's still KDE all the way! Quite peculiar.

Launch feedback really only works well with KDE/Qt apps, because once they start up they tell the KDE to stop the animation. (it's all via DCOP i believe)

If you've got an app that isn't KDE/Qt in the menu, and you run it, the animation will start and keep going untill it times out (30 sec). So disable launch feedback for that app, it's not necessary. I don't even notice it most of the time, apps launch too fast for me to see it

Ah...interesting. I figured that the launch feedback animation was supposed to behave like a part of the mouse pointer. When launching Maple - either from the K menu or via the command line - the pointer turns to the stopwatch icon for the short moment Maple takes to load, then returns to the usual arrow. Only difference is that the launch feedback animation plays beside the pointer (for 30 secs) when Maple is launched from the menu, and that's what made me confused; I thought it was supposed to be "coupled" with the state of the mouse pointer, so to speak. I thought that the launch feedback animation was on "ground level", that it was deep down in KDE and should be triggered whenever an application was launched within KDE (K menu or Konsole shouldn't matter). This is obviously not the case; it seems to be quite superficial. Thanks for the information!