Finding oddly named applications in GNOME3

[sideshowAnthony]

Hi.

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 with the lovely GNOME3 desktop. I have one trouble with it: Finding applications I cannot remember the name of.

For example, I play the Tetris clone Quadrapassel, but would like to be able to find it using the word 'Tetris' and not having to remember it's proper name. Is there a way I can associate tags with an application maybe?

Thanks.
Anthony

[kostkon]

Yes, you can, but you'll have to edit the desktop file of Quadrapassel.

I don't know about Gnome Shell's dash but Unity's can take advantage of the Keywords entry in desktop files and give you better and more relevant search results.

So, according to the spec (http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s05.html), in Quadrapassel's desktop file, for example, you would add a line like this:

Keywords=tetris;retro;oldies;
etc., I think you get the point.

Hope that helps.

[jarreboum]

This is one of the big grudge I have against Unity, it's that it merges all the applications together in a big alphabetical mess and you must know the name to find something. I'm more a visual person, I remember the icon, it's position in some menus, but very rarely the name itself. Categories (as in the old gnome applications/place/system) were ideal to me as it was very easy to find something as I knew where it was.

However one option to circumvent this problem would be to use the filters in the dashboard. In applications you have a filter option in the top right which essentially mimic the old categories system. You knew the application you were looking for was a game, click "game", and I doubt you have more than a dozen installed so much more easy to find.

But I agree this is annoying and the keyword solution can never be ideal.