2011/9/27 Ian Santopietro
<isantop@xxxxxxxxx>
Adding a 5th stop just makes it harder to get to it. The point of having the separate dashes, as I see it, is to provide very quick access to both pieces of very important functionality.
Alt-F2 will still be available. I suggested the *addition* of a way to move between Alt-F1 and Alt-F2 modes, not the removal of Alt-F2. See my previous post for the rationale.
There isn't really a reason to switch from one to the other, since they behave differently (i.e. you wouldn't use Alt+F2 to open firefox, and you wouldn't use Dash to run "killall thunderbird").
They behave differently but they look identical - the current watertight division is completely artificial. Try explaining the difference between Alt-F1 and Alt-F2 to a new user in a single sentence (no, really, try!)
Besides, why wouldn't I use the Dash to "killall thunderbird"? What if I press Alt-F1 instead of Alt-F2 by mistake? Should I close the Dash, reopen it in Alt-F2 mode and retype the whole command? That's not very user-friendly (and, yes, this happens to me from time to time). Gnome Do used to support this seamlessly and effortlessly, by offering an "execute command in terminal" option along with "launch application" and "search files". There is very little reason why the Dash supports the latter two in the same way but compartmentalizes the first into a separate place.