design: Advanced search functionality

[jepotter1-archive]

(Migrated from solus-project/budgie-desktop#1677.)

The difference between searching an application, searching the Internet and searching the filesystem is an unnecessary implementation detail. Users simply want to open up the search box and find something, and the computer should simply do it for them. We see the trend of global search across the technology industry with Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, etc.

Proposal

• If the search box contains an arithmetic expression, calculate the result and display it. Enter copies the result to the clipboard.
• Query Wikipedia. If successful, display the title and synopsis of the Wikipedia article. Enter opens the full article on the default browser.
• Query the Software Centre. If successful, display a list of matching applications. Enter opens the application listing in Software Centre.
• Add an option to search the web for the search terms (using the user's selected search engine).
• Support some sort of API for third-party extensibility. I suggested the GNOME 3 Search Provider API but @JoshStrobl said "Budgie is not GNOME." Maybe there is a need for a universal search API for Linux?

Prior Art

Windows 10 Cortana

macOS Spotlight

GNOME 3 Search

KDE Krunner