I have been using a program called Wbar (GPL) for quite some time now. Wbar is a  lightweight launcher tool/panel which gives you easy access to your favorite programs while being easy to customize. Wbar home page can be found from here:http://code.google.com/p/wbar/ 

Installing and using Wbar

Wbar should be available in a number of modern distributions. Just go to your package manager and searh something called wbar or similar and you should be good to go. If Wbar is not found from your system consider compiling it from a source which is usually a matter of executing the commands: ./configure && make (as a normal user) and then make install (as a root or a sudo) when all the needed dependencies are installed. Continue reading →