A bunch of bug fixes and minor tweaks to Unity in Ubuntu 11.10 slid down the update pipe yesterday – but what exactly has changed? 

Below are a few of the notable highlights…

A ‘System Settings’ icon has been added to the Unity Launcher by default, giving you in-reach access to change whatever setting you need to…

The ‘Files lens’ in the Dash now also displays results from the ‘Downloads’ folder: –

Pressing the F10 key once reveals an applications’ global menu. Following yesterdays update pressing it again hides the menu. It’s the simple things.

Additional options have been added to ALT-TAB switching to suit multiple-workspace users, including a ‘Biased’ setting that favours applications/windows on the active workspace, showing them before all others.

Additionally overly long application names are now ‘ellipsed’ rather than over-running the switcher. (e.g. ‘Document Viewer’ might read ‘Docume…’ in a really packed switcher)

The “Desktop” has been titled: –  This change has since been reversed

The Dash’s scrollbar has been tweaked slightly: –

ALt+F2 fans will be pleased to see that  ’Filter results’ has been removed from the overlay: –

The Dash now supports drag and drop of files, etc to external applications.

Finally and mentioned solely because it was a bug-bear of mine: applications can only be filtered by one whole star rating in the App lens filter. Previously it was in half-star increments.