Ubuntu – How to show the Applications Lens By Default

applications-lensunity

While I am growing to be more and more fond of Unity, there are a few minor things I'd like to change. One of them in which is the default view of the dash. When I go into the dash, 99% of the time it's after an application.

I'd REALLY like to find a way to have the Applications lens be the default one. Is this possible in any way? I just find it cumbersome to click the dash icon, bottom of the dash select the 2nd icon (applications lens) then select "see more results" to see all of them.

Best Answer

Use the keyboard shortcut

I don't think there's a way to change the order of the Dash lenses without having to modify the source, but the easiest solution is to just use the keyboard shortcut: Super+A to directly open the Application lens.

Note: Super key = Win key

Customizing the keyboard shortcut

Open the application.lens file with:

gksudo gedit /usr/share/unity/lenses/applications/applications.lens

and on line 8, look for Shortcut=a.

You can change the a to any other letter to get a shortcut of Super+(letter).

What are Unity's keyboard and mouse shortcuts?