How to set application lens as default in Unity Dash view and search results?

I want to open the Application lens in the Unity Dash as the default lens, since I much more open a programm then searching for a Wikipedia article, the weather or anything else the Home lens offers.

Here How do I show the Applications Lens By Default? and here What are Unity's keyboard and mouse shortcuts? are the same questions, but the suggested answers don't work anymore on Trusty.

I know that I can open the Application lens with Superkey + A but I just would like to press Superkey to open it.

An alternative would be to only get online suggestions when specifically asked for them, but even though I just select the application scope in the filter section I get some useless online results. BTW, I don't want to open the online search results in general, since I just reactivated them to try it out.

Answer but no solution: Just found this bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/1089010. Till it will be fixed JohnnyEnglish's answer as a workaround will is the best.


install dconf if you don't have it sudo apt-get install dconf-editor if you want to use GUI way, in dconf go to com > canonical > unity > lenses all the rest you can find here

If you want to disable maximum per-monitor scale-factor go to dconf then navigate to com > canonical > unity > interface and uncheck the ticked box.

If you want to swap your Home .scope with Applications .scope go to dconf then navigate to com > canonical > unity > dash and change the order of .scopes the way that you desire or uncomment any if you want to.

How to hide or disable a reference in Dash results from searching in remote and commercial sources go to dconf then navigate to com > canonical > unity > lenses click on remote-content-search and change all to none.


One command to solve it all!

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Lenses always-search "['applications.scope']"

That will make dash search by default, only on the application scope. EASY AS!

No need to install no programs. Just enter it in the command line, and restart your computer to see the changes taking effect.

If you are interested in getting rid of the useless lenses and scopes and dash plugins, please read my answer to a similar question:

Sources: my answers to a Boarder Question: How to disable all scopes, filters and dash plugins?