unity-design team mailing list archive

[Omar B. <estelar57@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> > -  searching works perfectly ,   bla bla
> 
> Yes, but we're not searching in the traditional sense. That is, 
> searching is not simply a matter of entering text. It's really more 
> about contextual awareness than searching. For instance, let's say you 
> have an external harddisk that you only use for backups. You only take 
> backups once a month, so it'll never be among your most frequently used 
> applications. When you do want to take a backup, obviously, you want the 
> backup application to be easily available. This is where you would 
> assume that the "frequent applications" method would break, since there 
> are so many applications you use more frequently. But frequent 
> applications work very nicely, because in this _specific context_, the 
> backup application is _the_ most frequently used application.
> 
> The context begins when you connect your harddisk. It ends when you 
> disconnect it. Not just any harddisk, mind you. This context is 
> connected to your backup disk and only that. But it is a "child context" 
> of connecting an external harddisk, which itself is a child context of a 
> new data source becoming available. This can happen for a large number 
> of reasons, such as connecting to the internet or your company intranet.
> 
> Since you always start the backup application within minutes of 
> connecting that harddisk, the system adds your backup application to the 
> list of most accessible applications. You open the dash and start the 
> first application in the list, because the system knows it's the 
> application you're most likely to want to use right now. In this case, 
> you're searching for applications by connecting a specific harddisk, not 
> by entering text. Starting the backup application is always done 
> whenever you connect your backup disk, which is why in this context, 
> backup is the most frequently used application and the most expected 
> action.
> 

That new backup item on the list would need some kind of glow or highlighting else you could miss/overlook it very easily. When am in search  mode , I wouldn't usually "pay too much attention" at the frequent used application list first, my intention when opening the dash would be to immediately start typing "backup".

A notification would also be nice to grab your attention.

Reminders are useful, people wouldn't even remember to pay their bills once a month without one. They then get reminded once they have no service :p

> As a positive side effect, this also means you'll be reminded by your 
> system that the backup disk is still connected, because backup is in the 
> list of expected actions, which it will never be when the backup disk is 
> not connected.
>