From IRC:

<elad>	jimmac: hughsie asked me to investigate your opinion on having GNOME Software shell search provider
<elad>	ie. should we do it? how should it behave, etc etc
<jimmac>	elad, hmmmm
<jimmac>	not sure if it's something you need quick access to
<jimmac>	we could certainly have it, but I'm not sure if we should have it on by default
<jimmac>	you will have two competing app launchers in the result page
<jimmac>	one that activates an app, the other one activating Software's details page
<elad>	jimmac: I was thinking to have it always on the bottom, not show installed apps, and perhaps even be like Web's "search the web for..." ie. not dynamic
<elad>	so it will be "Search for $SEARCHTERM applications"
<elad>	instead of showing you the list directly in the shell
<jimmac>	elad, tht sounds much better indeed


This needs some more designer attention regarding specific details, and to decide if we actually want this

Only returning uninstalled apps in the search provider sounds like a good idea to me. That way it serves the "you are trying to launch app X but you don't have it installed" case.

I have a prototype for this, I'll push it after the service conversion is done

Created attachment 257611 [details] [review]
Add a search provider

This commit adds a GNOME shell search provider that shows
uninstalled applications. It does not quite work yet.

Created attachment 257629 [details] [review]
Add a search provider

This commit adds a GNOME shell search provider that shows
uninstalled applications.

Clicking on the gnome-software icon in the results list brings
up the same search in gnome-software (including installed apps),
and clicking on one of the results brings up the details page
for that app, with the back button going to the search results
in gnome-software.

This basically works. The main problem is the time that it takes for gnome-software to return any results.

Attachment 257629 [details] pushed as e2c6993 - Add a search provider