filesunityunity-dash
I don't want file names to be completed in my unity dash, for privacy and security reasons.
Is there a way to disable files from being shown in the dash?
Note that I am able to hide recently used documents from dash, using the privacy settings. What I am interested in is hiding all documents from dash.
I found the unity-place-python sample code and used that to create a lens to search your filesystem. It's currently kinda unstable, but you can search for files and you usually get results.
You can access the lens in the Unity Launcher. You can see it here where I'm searching for "lecture".
The magnifying glass in the bottom left corner is the FileSearch Lens. (The icon changes based on your icon theme.) The lens shows files and folders in two separate sections.
You can add it to your main dash (Ubuntu button) by setting ShowGlobal=true in /usr/share/unity/places/filesearch.place. Unfortunately, Unity doesn't currently have a way to customize what lenses are in the Dash.
The files and folders sections are combined in the dash under the heading "File Search".
When filesearch-lens first runs, it will create a config file ~/.filesearch.cfg. You can customize the directories to search, how deep to search, and what folders to ignore.
For example, here's my config:
[search]
#dirs = a comma separated list of folders to search
dirs = ~/data
#depth = how deep from / to search
depth = 5
[ignore]
#pattern = python-style regex for directories to ignore
pattern = ^\.|^bin$|^lib$|^apps$|^settings$|^eclipse$
I want it to search ~/data and two directories below it and to ignore all dotfiles and some other specific folders. (Note: No, it's not smart enough to not search the same folders if you give it nested folders like ~/,~/code, so don't do that.)
If you change the config file, you need to restart the daemon to reload it:
killall unity-filesearch-daemon
I packaged it so you can download it from my ppa.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pydave/unity-lenses
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unity-place-filesearch
Then you need to reset unity before the lens will be noticed:
setsid unity
If you give it a path, it usually shows the path as one of the results (so you can open folders like you could in gnome-do).
One of the features I'm still trying to get working properly is the ability to type a path, a space, and then a search word to search in the path. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it fails to find anything (probably because the search is taking forever).
Try this:
sudo -H gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop
Add this line:
NoDisplay=true
Save and exit and try now
To remove all apps founded in the system settings you have to do such as above for each app. Let's start with Appearance:
sudo -H gedit /usr/share/applications/gnome-background-panel.desktop
And add the line above then try.
Do this for other apps you want to hide
create the directory ~/.local/share/applications if you don't have it
mkdir ~/.local/share/applications
Copy the .desktop files of what you want to hide, Doing example here for Appearance.
cp /usr/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
giving permissions:
chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop
Now edit and add "NODisplay"
gedit ~/.local/share/applications/gnome-control-center.desktop
Add the line
NoDisplay=true
Save and exit then logout and login.
The icon will removed from Dash search keeping available in system settings
Best Answer
The files and folders lens is just another package in Ubuntu. To remove it all you have to do is:
You will have to log out and back in, or reboot for it to take effect.