[Ayatana] dash home redesign

[Josh Strawbridge <holyknightjoshua@xxxxxxxxx>]

the dash home is one of my only 3 gripes about unity in 11.10. i found unity usable but not likable in 11.04 but i find with the added polish it's somewhat enjoyable now.  

my problem with dash home is that it isn't very useful the way it is.  almost everything on the dash home is as or more available elsewhere by default.
i believe shotwell is the only thing that is actually made easier to get to in the current dash home but not everyone uses it so it could still be a useless button.

things are as available or more available at...

firefox on the launcher, music in the sound indicator menu, e-mail has an indicator, in dash lens buttons are the same as the apps and files buttons,

media apps... mine either open with the file type, are on my launcher, are in the indicators (sound menu), or aren't used enough to warren't having quick access to them over other things i don't have quick access to.

internet apps... web browser is on the launcher and already in the dash home, chat and gwibber are in the indicators on the panel, alternates to empathy and gwibber are likely set to run on start up by people who use them.

i saw someone else's suggestion about adding text with the lens icons to tell what it is and moving them to the top.  i say at least move them to the top. either just under or to the side of the search bar. placement is the biggest reason i use the big dash buttons over the lens buttons. also it'd be nice if you had the option of adding text to go with the icons or if you were able to replace them with text.

i think the dash home should have a "pinned" apps section up top with the current bottom 4 buttons pinned to it by default (default web browser, music player, shotwell, and e-mail client) but the user should have the ability to remove those and pin whatever they want.  
this seems redundant to the launcher but there are things that people don't use enough to want it crowding their launcher or desktop or to even show up in frequent use stuff but would still like to have more readily available.

those apps don't always fall into the media or internet app categories.  everything i use in the internet or media apps categories is more available elsewhere so i never use those buttons.  they're useless to me.

the less crowded a desktop is, the better it looks. that includes the launcher.   i've got about 8 things i'd rather not have on my launcher but put there because it's more convenient than having to let go of my mouse/wacom tablet stylus to type in the search each time i need it.

next i think a commonly used apps section that excludes the launcher apps and the pinned apps. 
my commonly used section inside the dash has been entirely useless from the start because it's always filled with things i have on my launcher or things that i was running with sudo from a terminal so i could edit certain files during various set ups. things that i generally don't use when i'm not setting something up.

lastly a recently used files section for easy access to files they might be working on. 

i want to say this particular recently used section should probably exclude certain image file types since they don't usually open by default in image editing programs so they're probably not something that's being actively worked on.  then again i guess some users might rather have those file types there so maybe it's a bad suggestion.

so basically move the lens icons close to the search bar, add a "pinned" apps section, put the frequently used section on the home page that excludes things on the launcher and "pinned" app section, and put a recently used files section on the home page.

this would enable people easy access to things not on their launcher but still want readily available, their frequently used non-readily available apps, and recent files they might be working on.

it would be a big improvement in the usefulness of the dash home and cause it to be tailored a bit more to each user's individual needs instead of just trying to cover the normal use stuff.

-- 
Josh Strawbridge