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About 1.5 years ago, I tried out Ubuntu 11.04. I remember the dash being a rather helpful tool and I like the equivalent features on both Windows 7 (via the Start-button) and the Mac OS.

When I press Alt + F2, it opens the app finder but this only gives me a little window that I do not understand how to use. If I type in Terminal or Writer, it shows neither the command terminal or LibreOffice Writer.

How can I get functionality similar to the dash?

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I'd like to add that Alt + F3 is the solution I was looking for, however, Synapse is just as easy and good to use. – henry Jan 31 at 17:21

2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

If you don't like the xfce-appfinder, you can replace it with another offering from the application store. synapse is a very capable example. Then assign the Alt+F2-shortcut to it.

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Synapse is a perfect alternative to dash, and for me its far more faster that Unity Dash. – Capt.Nemo Jan 25 at 11:16
@aquaherd Thank you, that was what I was looking for. Through my own googling I also found kupfer. But I'll try synapse first, sounds like a good alternative, like Capt.Nemo said. – henry Jan 25 at 11:21
@aquaherd how do you make sure that synapse starts at startup? And where do you go to assign the shortcut to it? – George Stocker Mar 25 at 15:29
Start synapse once per terminal or xfce-appfinder. On the top right corner, it will have a bulls-eye that has a drop-down menu. Configure it from there. – aquaherd Mar 25 at 16:40
up vote 1 down vote

To access the Xfce4 Terminal from the Alt+F2 screen, one has to type

xfce-terminal

and then click the Execute button. See how over here: http://docs.xfce.org/apps/terminal/getting-started (but note that typing Xfce Terminal as mentioned in the link may not work whereas xfce-terminal will).

xfce doc

To know more about the two modes of the Alt+F2 screen, take a look at http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-appfinder/usage.

As far as Writer is concerned, my guess is that you'll have to type 

libreoffice3.6 --writer

or 

libreoffice --writer
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Thanks, that'll help with understanding the XFCE a bit more, I didn't know about the getting started page. – henry Jan 25 at 10:42
1  
@vasa1 The default command to open an xfce terminal is xfce4-terminal, not "Xfce Terminal" – maggotbrain Jan 28 at 1:54
Thank you. I'll edit my answer. My source is the wiki I linked to. (I moved form Xfce to Lubuntu a few months ago.) If someone has editing privileges there, there are quite a few things that could be fixed. – vasa1 Jan 28 at 2:19

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