Searching in Unity’s Dash, File Places and Application Places made simple for single results

[Ivo Carapinha]

When in Unity’s Dash, File Places and Application Places, a single item is returned after a search, it should appear pre-selected and user should be able to launch it only by pressing the return key.

[mark johnson (mark.johnson)]

I think the problem is slightly broader than the description.
Currently, when performing a search that only returns one result, a minimum of 2 keystrokes are required to select that result (Down, Down or Tab, Down), plus an additional keystroke to activate it.
Similarly, if results are returned from multiple scopes but a scope only has a single result, the scope must be selected first before the result can be selected and activated.
In general, having to navigate through the headings of each scope is a bit confusing when there is only 1 row of results within the scope since activating the heading doesn't do anything, yet it is still necessary to go through it to reach the results in that scope.

[Stephen M. Webb (bregma)]

The current functionality of the Unity dash is exactly as described here, except that the selected item is not highlighted. While the functionality is good, the lack of a highlight is a serious design flaw.

[John Lea (johnlea)]

Marking won't fix because the focus is on the text entry box, and highlighting the first result would break the spacial dash focus navigation model. However pressing enter will always activate the first result anyhow (a bit of a dirty hack but it works). Ping me on IRC if you would like to discuss.