How To Find Things In Unity

[O)9(yo&#]

I really like the look of Unity, with the large icons and left-handed orientation. Great for aging left-handers like me. It's also visually attractive, with that nice aero look. But I can't figure out how to find things. In Zorin or Mint, if you want to open Gparted, for example, you know where to look. Or at least where to search. Do I just use the actual "search" window? That works if I know what I'm looking for. but how would I just scroll through things, to find a tool that may help with a given problem, when I don't know what exactly what tool I'm searching for?

[Frogs Hair]

Most times, just staring to type the name of the application in the text box will display applications with similar spelling . Gparted is not installed by default so do that first if you haven't. Using the A symbol on the bottom of dash will display recently used and installed applications which can be scrolled through. Typing help will bring up a desktop guide. There is also a Ubuntu Manual link in my signature.

[yetimon_64]

The dash has several specific lenses you can activate depending on what type of thing you are searching for. There are search lenses for "whole computer and online" (the main one first opened), "applications", "files and folders", "videos", "music", "photos", and "online".

In your example with gparted go to dash type in "gparted" and the icon will show below the search bar and if clicked on will open gparted; or you can go to the "applications" lens (2nd icon on the bottom of the dash page opened) > Installed > show "x" more results (x is "166" more in my case but will depend on what is installed in yours), and scan through all installed applications which will include gparted. This is equivalent to going to the older menus for applications in older versions and with windows etc. The specific lens for your example is the second icon at the bottom of the dash window and will allow you to peruse all applications when you "don't know what you're looking for".

I have attached 3 screenshots, the first is the main dash page with "gparted" entered in the search bar, the icon below the search bar when clicked will open it. The second is the applications lens selected by the icon at the bottom of the page, then the drop down arrow beside "Installed" is clicked to show all applications. There you can see gparted along with a lot of other applications to be looked through. The third is for files and folders, you can see files I have accessed previously in the first row, it also gives access to specific folders such as Downloads and various folders I've visited. There are even more lenses at the bottom of the page you can explore for the other categories I noted in the first sentence of this post. Hope that helps using dash a bit more, cheers, yeti.

Edit: as Frogs Hair noted gparted is not part of a standard install and has to be installed by the user.

[Bucky Ball]

Thread moved to Desktop Environments.

[O)9(yo&#]

Great answers Frog and Yeti. I think I got it. If I click on the A at the bottom I can bring up all installed apps. That's what I was looking for. Now, if I can just figure out how to post in the correct forum...

[grahammechanical]

Have you noticed that we can make the Dash full screen? I see the Dash as a way to avoid having icons all over the wallpaper. Try holding down the super key (Windows key). It will bring up an overlay showing keyboard shortcuts. So, Super+A will open the Dash at the applications lens. Super+F will open the Dash at the Files lens. Also, notice at the top right of the Dash we can filter the results.

Regards.

[O)9(yo&#]

Wow, that's amazing. there is so much to this desktop environment. Maybe that's why some people don't like it - it is so deep that it takes time to become proficient with it. But the more I see, the more I like!