unity-design team mailing list archive

[Tyler Brainerd <tylerbrainerd@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 10:19 AM, Diego Moya <turingt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 28 April 2010 10:50, Tyler Brainerd wrote:
> > If the goal of all this is to directly connect the user quickly with
> > their files and programs, then adding programs that are not currently
> > installed will only add clutter and messiness,
>
> The application menu has also the goal to let the user discover the
> applications available in the system.
>
> I like the idea of showing installable applications in the search
> results, but Tyler is right that it can hurt the primary goal of
> opening common programs if done badly. I think showing a separate
> panel for the software center results would be enough to distinguish
> both use cases and reduce the possible confusion.
>

Or at the very least, restrict the number of visible options, or have it
show options if there is no (or few) matches found on system. I still think,
either way, the discussion here is suggesting something which has
conflicting goals. Is it an app search or a file search? Is it currently
installed apps or installable apps? Its going to create a really mess. Lets
narrow the vision a bit, and then I think it will work.

In this note, we see in Windows a very clear application: The start menu is
meant as a hub of applications, so pressing it and typing searches
applications, not documents. Document names are often repetitive (I often
name documents simply numbers, and identify them based on location in a
folder) but application names make sense to search.