Dash search groups results wrong, very misleading!

[Andrew Toogood]

Binary package hint: unity

There is some inconsistancies between the dash and app dash that I think are bugs. I have included three screen shots that show what I mean.

The first one is called Dash.png it shows the standard screen after hitting the Super key. The bottom right hand icon is called "Listen to Music" and has the icon of the default music player, no problem good idea for new users who may not know the music player is Banshee by default.

The second is called ApplicationPlace.png this shows the ApplicationPlace after I did a search "Music" there are two things to note, firstly Nether Banshee or the "Listen to music shows up instead it only shows some music players to download, so a new user will think Ubuntu does not have a Music player if they go to apps first. Notice also that is returns a result called "listen to music" which is in fact a software centre result, very confusing!

Worse still is if they type the same search in the dash, see the screenshot DashSearch.png this has all of the issues of the last search with another even more confusing problem, they are now under the category "Application" so users no longer know they are not even installed.

There are infact two issues here to resolve to make this make more sense:

1) Default Apps need to be found when searched for by purpose IE Music, Browser, Email if searched for should return Banshee, burn filemanger etc could also be included.
2) More importantly the dash grouping needs to be fixed so if apps to be installed in App Dash are called "Apps Available for Download" then they should not be just called Applications in the dash.

Hope this makes sense!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.6.6-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-7.35-generic 2.6.38
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-7-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,mousepoll,vpswitch,regex,animation,snap,expo,move,compiztoolbox,place,grid,imgpng,gnomecompat,wall,ezoom,workarounds,staticswitcher,resize,fade,unitymtgrabhandles,scale,session,unityshell]
Date: Sat Mar 19 21:07:43 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110228.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_NZ:en
 LANG=en_NZ.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

I definitely agree, adding a design task so we can get some direction from the team.

[Andrew Toogood (andrew-toogoods)]

Hey tested this again after weekly update and the second part of this seems to be resolved, although possibly not in response to this bug.

Here is what now works:
When I type "Music" in the dash instead of a confusing list of apps not installed being listed as if they are, it now shows the music folder as a result. That is much better, well done!

Here is what still does not:
The first part of this issue although not as important as what is solved already I think still needs a design decision. I still don't get banshee as a result when I type "music". Ubuntu comes with it an application called Preferred Applications where browser, email, music etc are selected, so they can be returned as results when key would like "Music", "Browser","Email" are searched for in apps place.This would be similar to the "Listen To Music" item we have in the main Dash.

Its amazing what you guys can get done in a week!

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen (kamstrup)]

This is related to the classical problem that the application .desktop files gives us desperately little metadata to search on, and the metadata there is is not optimized for searching.

I've closed similar bugs with Wont Fix because fixing this in general is vastly outside the scope of Unity (there have been some fire souls on the ayatana mailing lists starting to look at some solutions though). However; I think this particular bug may be so grave that we should fix it particularly for Banshee.

One super simple solution: Make sure Banshee uses the word "music" in the Comment field of its .desktop file. Sample patch:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=banshee-1 --redirect-log --play-enqueued %U
Version=1.0
Name=Banshee
GenericName=Media Player
X-GNOME-FullName=Banshee Media Player
-Comment=Play and organize your media collection
+Comment=Play music and organize your media collection

[Andrew Toogood (andrew-toogoods)]

Good call I know we can do this for any link some drags to the dash but
I think we can for the 'Blessed Apps' IE those selected in preferred
applications because the are dynamic and will change as uses choose
there preference.

PS Unity already Rocks!

On Fri, 2011-03-25 at 11:39 +0000, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> This is related to the classical problem that the application .desktop
> files gives us desperately little metadata to search on, and the
> metadata there is is not optimized for searching.
>
> I've closed similar bugs with Wont Fix because fixing this in general is
> vastly outside the scope of Unity (there have been some fire souls on
> the ayatana mailing lists starting to look at some solutions though).
> However; I think this particular bug may be so grave that we should fix
> it particularly for Banshee.
>
> One super simple solution: Make sure Banshee uses the word "music" in
> the Comment field of its .desktop file. Sample patch:
>
> [Desktop Entry]
> Exec=banshee-1 --redirect-log --play-enqueued %U
> Version=1.0
> Name=Banshee
> GenericName=Media Player
> X-GNOME-FullName=Banshee Media Player
> -Comment=Play and organize your media collection
> +Comment=Play music and organize your media collection
>

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, those issues should be fixed in precise:

- the dash start screen stopped listing those 2 lines for 4 icons which solve the media player issue
- the dash start screen doesn't list applications to download
- the apps lens correctly list search results in "installed" and "to download" different sections