App Drawer access is not obvious

[dobey]

The app drawer has landed in Unity8, but it's not obvious that it exists as the BFB doesn't open it, and seemingly no positioning of the mouse pointer indicates it is there. The only way I can open it is to use Super+A key combo from a physical keyboard.

[Michael Zanetti (mzanetti)]

So, you can reveal it with the mouse by pushing to the left edge... However, I for one totally agree that the BFB should open the drawer. But then, what to do with the dash?

=> adding ubuntu-ux for clarification

[dobey (dobey)]

There's no way to "push to the left edge" inside a VM window really (and moving my mouse to the edge doesn't seem to open it, nor was it showing the launcher prior to me setting it to always-shown).

Also, relying on mouse gestures is not good for accessibility.

As for app grid versus scopes, the "quick" design I drew up for something like this from way back when and showed to Paty, basically had two BFBs on the launcher. One for the app grid, and a separate one for "search" (scopes).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

As mentioned in a duplicate:

"I think part of the problem is the cursor logic. You can move the mouse cursor slowly over the desktop, but doing the same never triggers the application list to open on the left edge. So unless you're inclined to throw the mouse around at high speed, you won't ever find it."

[Michael Zanetti (mzanetti)]

Comment #4 is not actually true. You can move the mouse slowly too. It acts pretty much the same way as unity7. In addition to that, since the latest release, the BFB now does open the App Drawer too, so does Super+A, which is described in the Keyboard shortcuts help that appears when Super is longpressed. Also the Tutorial has been updated to mention the app drawer.

Closing this as fixed.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Oh, it appears you are right, which still highlights the problem. Slow mouse movement against the left edge requires so much movement to trigger the app drawer that it's unrealistic anyone will ever discover it. Who moves their mouse slowly against the edge of the screen for several seconds continuously?

But sounds like BFB is the right answer so it doesn't matter, thanks...