Slingshot fork, Panther Launcher on Ubuntu MATE
Do you like parts of elementary OS, but not the whole? Do you like their launcher, Slingshot, but you use another distro and don't want to install lot of dependencies to make it work? Well here is a solution for you: Panther Launcher!
Panther is a fork of Slingshot without the Elementary OS dependencies. It's easy to compile from source. My guide is for Ubuntu MATE. Currently you can use Panther with Gnome 3 and MATE very well.
Compiling Panther Launcher
Get your terminal ready! If you need packages, search for it, and install the dev version of it!
First we need to clone the gitlab repo. I recommend to create a directory that you can use for your sources. Mine is in my Home folder.
Now we download the source of Panther Launcher into that directory:
$ mkdir src $ cd src $ git clone https://gitlab.com/rastersoft/panther_launcher.git
And now we compile it, won't take much time. Note that with cmake we can give you the destination of Panther:
$ cd panther_launcher $ mkdir install $ cd install $ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr $ make $ sudo make install
After installation
After this we need to make 2 things:
1. Add Panther Launcher to panel
Which is easy as right clicking on the panel that we want the new launcher on, and Add to panel… then search for panther launcher.
2. Make a keyboard shortcut for Panther
The launcher is useable for now, but only with mouse. If you want a keyboard shortcut, search for Keyboard shortcuts, click on Add and fill both field, but make sure the second one is pantherlauncher, with underscore.
Click Apply and then double click on the created option and press the shortcut you want to use for the Panther Launcher. My preferred one is Super + Space.
Enjoy a piece of Elementary OS!