Dash - the Dash should vertically resize if there is not enough content to fill the available area

[John Lea]

The Dash should vertically resize if there is not enough content to fill the available area. For example:

- In the any of the Lenses or the Dash home, if there are less then 3 category headers displayed for any reason and all the category headers are collapsed, the Dash should vertically resize so that the bottom of the Dash meets the bottom of the last results.

- The HUD should also resize if there is less than five results in the auto-complete

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Just tested trunk, it seems only the HUD part of this bug is fixed since the dash still have the previous behavior and does not resize automatically.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

@John, you might want to update the design description since the first point does not apply anymore after the removal of those 8 icons.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

This bug needs to be fixed for Precise here is why: when the use first install Ubuntu 12.04 and clicks on the Ubuntu branded icon all he gets is an empty overlay that just says dash. This looks bad and I just installed Precise on someone's laptop turns out I got a call where do I get all my application? Implementing this change for one would make the discovery of lenses easy as the lense icons would totally appear quite near to the searchbar on first run so the user will automatically know of future where to go to switch for applications lens.

No one seem to right click on the dash icon to to stat with I wonder why don't they do that so the right click menu for the dash icons is probably useful for those who already know or who are a little above the level of a novice user.

[Pavol Klačanský (pavolzetor-deactivatedaccount)]

I would rather prefer to add some text, so if there is no entry, then add some text
"You need to launch app to have something here", so freshers do not get confused

[Michel-Ekimia (michel.ekimia)]

@omer & Pavol : What you want is not related to this Bug, have a look at https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/962265 ( or similar )

[Pavol Klačanský (pavolzetor-deactivatedaccount)]

I think it is related, but I will wait for guys decision. I mean usually totally basic users launch stuff from panel, so there will be no recent apps, and so on, this is quite complex, we can either omit category or just add some text

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

For the case when the dash is maximized and Unity-2d there should be a message that says something like. "Your frequent files and applications will appear here"

[Pablo Almeida (pabloalmeidaff9)]

Regardless of what becomes the default behaviour, I think #7 is a great idea. It's informative, helpful for begginnes and will also sort of address the issue of "nothing matches your search" appearing when the user first opens the Dash and types nothing.

[John Lea (johnlea)]

@gordallott; hyia, any news on the status of this bug, will the fix be landing in 5.12 or 5.14?

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

@devs ping. Could we please get this sorted for 12.10?

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

@John is this design still valid?