I’ve been a Unity Shell user since 12.04. After Unity 7 became unsupported, I kept using it in 18.04. However, I’m not using Ubuntu anymore. I’m looking for a side launcher / side panel to pin apps to and to switch apps. It would be preferable if it was DE agnostic.
I’m using LXQt + KWin and KDE apps. I want a launcher similar to Unity side-launcher, meaning that it should be able to scroll through applications (either with the scroll wheel or by placing the cursor in the top or bottom of the panel), when opening more apps, the panel shouldn’t change its size (it’s ok if it does change the size of the icons, but I prefer the Unity feel, scrolling through the apps). It should have key bindings to switch apps (like Meta+1, Meta+2, … , Meta+Z, Meta+X, … Metz+. - at least 1 to 0 on the keyboard).
I used Latte-dock until I got sick when opening more apps than what is pinned on it, of the resizing dock resizing my maximized windows. I’m currently using Plank, which is ok, it has a fixed panel width, but it doesn’t have shortcuts / key bindings. Ubuntu Mate has the Mutiny layout, but when opening more apps than the dock can display, you can’t scroll through the dock at all and you can’t see the open apps that went past the screen down into the void (that’s a problem with the mate-dock-applet that Ubuntu Mate team uses, not with upstream Mate). LXQt’s task manager doesn’t support app pinnig, only having a separate pinned apps and its task manager (instead of having them grouped together).
Any recommendations?