Ubuntu – How to add a “Show desktop” icon to the launcher

Open Ubuntu Software Center. Search For LibreOffice Writer. Click on "Info" then See the bottom of Software Center. There is a Add to launch bar option. Try that.

Short but annoying answer: reboot (or perhaps just log out) after installing new applications until this bug is fixed.

Longer answer:

I just installed Chromium today (nothing wrong with Firefox but I also need to use Chromium for work) and was frustrated because I couldn't get it to maximize on my second monitor! I could move it to the second monitor but if I hit the window-maximize button, it jumped to the main monitor (maximized). Because of the problems I described above (with PG Admin and Pidgin).

I glanced at the launcher icon and saw that it didn't indicate that Chromium was running. Clicking the launcher opened a new Chromium window. On a whim I restarted the computer (maybe could have just logged out), and... both problems are solved! Chromium maximizes, and launcher knows it's running. I expect that it wouldn't have appeared in the switcher either, but forgot to try that.

I left the Windows world 12 years ago and haven't looked back. One thing that's been nice with Linux is rarely having to reboot the computer to "fix" anything. But today it feels like I'm having a bad Windows flashback. Still trying to be patient with Unity.

So it appears that there is a bug that only occurs for newly-installed programs. I don't know if it's something in the installer scripts or if Unity can be blamed for not discovering them, but I never had this problem with classic Gnome. I will follow up on this page once I install another GUI app and report whether this happens with every new app or just certain ones. I should probably also file a bug but I have a feeling it must have already been reported... if only I could find the right search terms.