Dash Drag and Drop

While adding and removing launchers from the dash is achievable through context menus, a user can perform a drag and drop action to achieve these tasks.

Adding a Favorite

To add a launcher form the Applications pane to the dash, a simple drag is initiated and dash chosen as a drop target. When the user hovers over the dash, the target area is prelit with a target line (see reordering for graphical representation). As soon as the drag is initiated the grid view of the applications view is faded out to rule out a possbly misconception that items on the applications pane can be rearranged*.

Reordering Launchers

Favorite application launchers or running apps can be rearranged on the dash by draging them up or down. The original location keeps a ghosted copy of the dragged icon and the target location shows a dropzone line:

Removing from Dash

To remove an item form the dash, as soon as a launcher drag is initiated, a new item is added at the bottom of the dash (scaling all items down to accommodate the new addition), a symbolic representation of a trashcan. Hovering over the item makes it prelight. A symbolic icon is used for the user-trash icon to visually distinguish the action from all the launcher icons in the dash.

Running in a Specific Workspace

Users can choose to run an application directly in a different workspace than is currently active by dragging the launcher from the dash onto the workspace pager on the right hand side of the overview. If the launcher is dropped on the last blank workspace, a new blank workspace is immediately created afterwards.

* We might revisit this post 3.0 to allow a paged view with fixed order rather than auto-sorted scrollable view.