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After clicking Show Applications in the dock, on the occasion I don't click an app, I'd like to click anywhere in the window to close it. Currently I have to mouse down and click the Show Application icon again for the window to close. Is this possible?

  • Ubuntu 18.04.1
  • Dash-to-Dock v64

Ubuntu Show Applications Screenshot with dash to dock

pomsky
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Natetronn
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    You can press Escape Key too, it's the easiest means to close Show Applications. – Dominik Cornice Feb 06 '19 at 05:54
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    Or better press or click 'Activities' at the top-left corner to close the Show Applications screen. Also just to confirm, did you manually install the Dash-to-Dock extension. The one that is shipped with Ubuntu 18.04 by default is not exactly Dash-to-Dock, but a fork of it. – pomsky Feb 06 '19 at 06:19
  • Thanks for the replies! Currently I have a bottom left hot corner setup for open/close apps and I knew about Activities (setup as a hot corner as well.) Also, yes, I installed via Gnome Shell Extensions site. Either way, "click-to-close" apps window would be the quickest and a nice feature to have, yes? – Natetronn Feb 06 '19 at 06:53
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    Super works. Escape goes to Activities and escape once more closes it. On second thought, maybe super is the quickest; and one less click. – Natetronn Feb 06 '19 at 07:03
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    The fact that you have to hit Escape twice to get out is not great UX. Haven't seen anything else do it that way. It's hard to remember when moving around the computer quickly that when you get to Show Applications, you have to switch your escaping shortcut. Would be great if there was a way to fix this. – Garrett May 29 '19 at 19:27

2 Answers2

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There is a GNOME shell extension which does the job to some extent: Hide Overview When Click Overview.

A Click on an empty space in the overview hide the overview. If you clicked at workspacesPage it minimizes all windows on the current workspace and show desktop. Other pages just hide overview.

But I prefer pressing Super to close the 'Show Applications' screen quickly.

pomsky
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    Nice! Seems to be working (although some recent comments suggest otherwise.) And it's nice to have it working in Activities as well. – Natetronn Feb 07 '19 at 05:47
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As a workaround you can create a launcher for simulating Escape key.

For simulating you need xdotool to be installed.

sudo apt install xdotool

Create a ESC.desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/ESC.desktop

Paste the below content in it.

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Name=ESC
Exec=xdotool key Escape
Name[en_IN]=ESC

Save & Close.

Run 

chmod +x ~/.local/share/applications/ESC.desktop

to make the file executable.

Now when you click show all apps icon, you will have "ESC" entry.

enter image description here

pomsky
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PRATAP
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  • Thanks for sharing! This isn't what I'm looking for though, it may be a route others prefer for themselves. Plus, it's good to know about just in general. – Natetronn Feb 07 '19 at 05:46