Contributor azrael

Gnome used to have a "Run Application" menu item just like in Windows, KDE, and others. But it was removed in Gnome 2.12. Now users have to know the ALT+F2 shortcut or search for the "Run" applet.
Alt+f2 run dialog is hardcoded into gnome-panel. There is no way to create a menu item for it. There are many independent implementations of it: grun, gmrun, gnome-run-dialog, gnome-panel-tool. It proves that people still need it.

Also lots of people ask for it:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/gentoo/user/167129
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=68031
http://darkness.codefu.org/wordpress/post/152
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76150
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=506489
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=91454
http://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/32956
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/redhat-fedora-linux-help/66659-run-command-gno me-desktop.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=593846
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=88695
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512290

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