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MATE Dock Applet was updated to version 0.73 recently, getting support for rearranging dock icons via drag and drop (only for the GTK3 version), updated window list design and more.

MATE Dock Applet

Dock Applet is a MATE Panel applet that displays running applications / windows as icons. Its features include:
  • pin and unpin applications to the dock and launch pinned applications directly from the dock;
  • minimize/unminimize running app windows by clicking the app's dock icon;
  • use an indicator for each app to show when it is running;
  • supports multiple workspaces;
  • displays an (optional) indicator for each window of the same app;
  • the running app indicator can be dark or light, so it should work with any panel color;
  • can be added to any MATE Panel, regardless of size or orientation;
  • allows changing the MATE Panel color to the dominant color of the desktop wallpaper (this can be applied to all panels or just the panel containing Dock Applet).

The most important change in the latest Dock Applet 0.73 is the added support for rearranging dock icons using drag and drop. This feature is only available for the GTK3 version of the applet, meaning that as far as Ubuntu is concerned, it only works with Ubuntu MATE 16.10 (currently in alpha).

Another change is a redesigned window list, which appears on mouse over. 

Besides a new look, the window titles are ellipsised when they are too long, and the window actions (like the Firefox "Open a New Window" and "Open a New Private Window") are now available in this menu (were previously only available in the right click menu). Also, the option to pin/unpin an application is now displayed at the bottom of the list to make it more accessible.

You can see these changes in the screenshot above. For comparison, here's how this menu used to look in previous Dock Applet versions:


And finally, the window list (displayed on mouse hover) is no longer closed when selecting a window (unless the mouse no longer hovers it). This allows users to easily cycle between multiple open windows.


Install MATE Dock Applet in Ubuntu MATE or Linux Mint MATE


The latest MATE Dock Applet 0.73 is available in the WebUpd8 MATE PPA. For Ubuntu MATE 16.04, 15.10 and 14.04 / Linux Mint 18 and 17.x, the applet is built using GTK2, which means it doesn't support rearranging the dock icons using drag and drop. For Ubuntu MATE 16.10, the applet is built with GTK3.

To add the PPA and install the latest MATE Dock Applet, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/mate
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mate-dock-applet

If you already had MATE Dock Applet added on a panel, restart the session (logout/login).

To add the applet to the MATE panel, right click the panel, select "Add to Panel", search for "Dock", and click "Add". That's it!

MATE Dock Applet is available for Arch Linux users via AUR(git version). Currently, the package uses GTK2.

To download the source code, report bugs, etc., see the Dock Applet GitHub page.