I have been using Unity since they day it came out with alpha of Ubuntu 11.04. One thing I never understood was the purpose of those 8 giant shortcuts in the Dash. I wrote about it in my first review. I still don't know and have never used any of those 8 shortcuts. I wanted to get rid of them and put something more useful. It seems Ubuntu 12.04 will fix that too. As we reported earlier that with 12.04 we may get some more customization of Unity, the chances are that we may also get rid of those 8 icons and be replaced with something more useful.

The eight icons displayed on the Dash Home screen before a search is performed need to be removed. They no longer serve a relevant purpose with the Dash and Launcher performing all required launching functions. Additionally user testing has shown that they are a cause of confusion and difficulty, as they launch programs but lack the other features inherent to the other icons that are present in the dash.

According to a bug filed by John Lea, there are two possibilities: Option 1: Replace with a default view (as used by the other Lenses) showing the following category headers: "Recently Used Apps" (excludes apps currently in the Launcher), "Recent Files", and "Recent Downloads". The icons used for the category headers should be the same as used for the equivalent category headers in the Lenses (except, the music lens should collate Songs and Albums into one Music category).

2: Do not replace the icons with anything, the Dash should vertically resize.

The question is which option do you want or do you have a better suggestion? Go on share it in comments.