Before the release of Unity the lenses seemed like nifty little applications but that completely changed due to it's implementation. The lenses today take up a launcher item space each and gets automatically added to the launcher on installation. That makes me discouraged to install and explore lenses since they would take up valuable launcher space. In my launcher I only want what I put there myself.
It also contradicts the statement in the wiki page for UbuntuArchitecture under “Design Principles” since the lenses can be reached from both the launcher and their search results are included when searching from the default dash:
“There should be exactly one recommended way to accomplish a task in the default installation, to promote consistent documentation and support”
Therefore I propose that the lenses should be integrated into the default Dash. When opening the Dash you should be presented with the most used lenses instead of how it is now with “Browse the internet”, “View pictures” (seriously, users already have Firefox in the launcher upon a fresh installation, does anyone really use those shortcuts?). When searching without selecting a specific lens the files & folders and applications results would be shown by default since I guess this is what most people want to find, like with Gnome-Do.
By implementing this change the launcher would be used purely for the users own launcher's and keep the lenses neatly organized and still easily accessible. (especially if the following change also was implemented: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/790591)
I first proposed this in the ayatana thread:
https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg05620.html
and then later refined it in:
https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg05999.html
View the attached image for a mockup of this feature.
The same problem is discussed here but I think that the solution in this bug report is better:
https:/