Applications listed as "Most Used" when they've been used once

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

Binary package hint: unity

Unity 3.6.0-0ubuntu2, Ubuntu Natty alpha 3

1. Install Ubuntu.
2. Launch and then immediately quit one application (in my case, Empathy).
3. Click the Ubuntu button.
4. Click "Find More Apps".

What happens: The application you launched briefly once is shown under "Most Used". This is technically true, but also silly. Launching it for five seconds is not really "using" it.

Desired resolution:
- The algorithm for determining the 'most used' app should rank applications in terms of time *in focus* over the previous two weeks. The top scoring apps should then be displayed as 'most used'.

[Marco Biscaro (marcobiscaro2112)]

The first option will difficult access to most used applications.

The second one, will get "Most Used" empty until the user uses some applications twice or three times.

I think that this bug report is invalid. Leaving as new for now.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

@Mikkel: is that something Zeitgeist can do right now? ie Unity could try using some advanced queries (but at which performance cost?) Or would the require a change to the ZG integration?

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen (kamstrup)]

Zeitgeist can not do this currently. There is some talk about solving issues like these, but the progress is slow.

There are two issues blocking this really:

 - It's not currently possible with X11 and friends to track app usage like this - maybe with help from the WM and bamf one could do this, but it's a big chunk of work

 - Zeitgeist can not give you the actual usage count - so we can't just cap off and say "you must have used the app >3 times before we include it in this list" or something. Which would be the less eleganant, but possibly ok-in-practice solution.

The latter is easier to solve, but will also have to wait until Zeitgeist exposes this kind of API to us.

I don't know if it makes sense to keep this bug open or what... We can't do anything about this short-term.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I don't see how "rank applications in terms of time *in focus* over the previous two weeks" would even solve the original problem. If I launched Terminal instead of Text Editor by mistake for five seconds, and then closed it, it would still show up as one of my "Most Used" applications until there were N other applications to replace it.

I think the simplest way to solve this is, as Mikkel suggests, to set a minimum of 3 launches for an application to appear in "Most Used".

[John Lea (johnlea)]

Marked invalid as this issue has been superseded by the Oneiric Dash design.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I don't understand what "superseded" means for Ayatana Design, but meanwhile, this bug still exists in Unity. Reopening.

Examples of valid resolutions to this bug report:
* If it was missing some information on how to reproduce the bug, it should be set to Incomplete.
* If "Most Used" changed to listed only applications that had been used for at least two minutes, that would fix the bug.
* If the Applications screen was abolished altogether, that would fix the bug.
* If it was the decision of the Dash designers that "Most Used" should indeed list an application that has been used for only 10 seconds, that would invalidate the bug report.
* The "desired solution" posted here, ranking by time in focus, would neither fix the bug nor invalidate the bug report.

[Andrea Azzarone (azzar1)]

Closing as in more recent versions it says "Recently Used".