Ubuntu 13.10 has refined its approach to click behaviours in the Unity Dash.
An update that allows users to open apps from the Dash with a single click is on its way back to the Saucy Salamander.
Back in mid-June I reported on a change to click behaviour in the Unity dash for Ubuntu 13.10 that saw both left-clicks and right-clicks on Dash search results tweaked to do the same thing: open a Unity Preview.
Unity Previews provide quick at-a-glance access to metadata, thumbnails and content-specific actions, such as ‘Set as wallpaper’ when viewing an image.
But while forcing Previews to open made sense for photos, music files and online search results it simply added an extra hurdle to the process of launching installed apps.
Good News
Good news if you were one of the many who left a comment lambasting the change on the original article as the decision is to be reverted – albeit partially.
Mark Shuttleworth clarified the intended behaviour recently in a bug report, saying:
‘[The] goal was to preview everything other than apps. Left click on an installed app should just launch it.’
This is by far the most sensible solution. It keeps the behaviours for launching installed apps in sync across the launcher and the Dash (i.e. left-click) whilst exposing the rich features of the Unity Smart Scopes service in areas where it makes sense, namely in contextualising search results.
Ubuntu 13.10 is currently in development. It’s due for release later this year.