lens

Daily now, it seems more and more obvious that Unity is becoming a proper place where one can search & access numerous and interesting items, like files, folders, online music, clipboard entries, weather, appointed events, social interactions and much, much more.

A new lens has just been released that integrates the complex world of piratebay directly into the Dash, letting the user to easily search and open a particular torrent.

Unity Cities scope is a powerful online-based tool that quickly exposes various informations about cities (weather, time, etc) by simply entering the desired city name in Dash's search area.

Few days ago, the first version of Unity Cities scope was released and was providing weather in Celsius degrees, time and Google Maps location.

Unity Calendar lens is a handy way to search & access your Evolution Calendar events directly from the Dash.

Currently, it only supports Evolution (which has been dropped from Ubuntu's default install), but its coverage can be easily enhanced with, for instance, a scope for Ubuntu's default email client Thunderbird.

The used icons have been picked with productivity in mind, there are icons specific to each day of the month, so, when one searches a previously recorded event, can handy observe the exact date of a particular event.

Unity Cities scope is a part of Unity Utilities lens, useful for providing various informations about cities, like weather, time and geographic location.

When a city is entered in Dash' home, the scope provides its location via Google Maps, followed by the online-based time and weather, so the infos are up-to-date and accurate.

The Dash can be used in various interesting ways, such as searching&accessing files, folders. online music, applications but can be greatly enhanced by adding extra lenses and scopes.

Unity Utilities lens is focused on mathematical operations sent to GNOME Calculator, then the result is displayed in the Dash.

In order to make this lens functional, the Calculator scope (datasource) must be installed, after that can easily handle numerous mathematic operators such as -, +, *, /, %, sin, cos, tan, etc.

Ubuntu's default fancy social networking client, Gwibber, has been updated to version 3.3.1 in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, bringing numerous bug fixes.

Along with stability improvements, the 3.3.1 also comes (not by default) with extra functionality for Unity Gwibber lens, that is now capable to filter the searched&displayed items by user accounts (Twitter, Identi.ca, etc).

How do we install Unity Gwibber lens 3.3.1?
Type in a terminal

Unity Askubuntu lens is a quick and handy tool to search and manage relevant questions&answers from askubuntu.com, a site focused on solving various Ubuntu issues and familiarizing users with its values, solutions, applications, etc.

Unity Askubuntu lens 0.2 (-49) has been released bringing extra functionality to the overall topics maneuvering, in the sense that questions are now properly categorized in Questions With Solutions, Questions With Responses and Question Without responses.

Unity Music lens provides a large music base that can be easily searched (via the Dash) and accessed via Banshee in the default configuration, but can receive numerous additions by simply adding scopes (data sources), such as Clementine's, Rhythmbox's and Guayadeque's.

Ubuntu 11.10 introduced scopes, useful for providing data sources to lenses, meaning the more scopes a lens has, the more search result you will get

By default, Unity's Music lens allows one to search only for Banshee's music (Banshee is a scope for the Music lens) including songs from Ubuntu One Music Store.

Clementine, Guayadeque and Rhythmbox can also become scopes by simply installing the appropriate packages.

Unity Bliss lens is an alternative to Unity Applications lens coming with a different approach.

If, in Unity Applications lens files are globally displayed (but categorize-able by filters), the Bliss lens introduces an "old" GNOME 2-like approach and organizes the apps in category folders (Accessories, Developer Tools, Games, Internet, etc) in the like of more traditional users.