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You can just drag the icon of the program from the main fullscreen menu and drop it on the side bar, no? Ubuntu is kind of a bad distro, you should give ZorinOS or Fedora a try.
I've tried so many distros, I don't plan to stick with Ubuntu, but I haven't ever seen one that fixes these issues.
The problem with draggin something into the bar is that it's a limited resource of space and it gets cluttered. You put things in menus so you can hide them away and recall them whenever. Hitting start and typing the program name is a much faster way to use the computer for me.
There is a search in the fullscreen app menu or alternatively, you can try a distro with the KDE desktop environment, which has a regular windows-style menu pop up by default, when you press the windows key...
It's the fullscreen app launcher that I'm trying to use, that needs this bizarre solution.
And also, asking people to completely swap out their OS or window manager just to solve an activity menu bug is kind of unhinged. I have already done so much work to get this machine working to this state. I rely on it. Starting from scratch is incredibly discouraging, so I put up with all sorts of friction, hate the experience, and go back to Windows on my main machine.
Plus, what if I switch to KDE, do all that work, and discover another painful, endemic bug? "Just switch distros" is the "just break up" of linux advice. It's easy, lazy, accomplishes nothing, and most people won't do it.
It just looks like you don't like the GNOME desktop environment (the one Ubuntu uses by default), because it's very different from what you're used to, but that's just what GNOME is, you either like it or you do not, it's not very customizable by default. I advice you to give KDE a try, because by default, it's a lot more similar to windows and is a lot easier to customize.
E: There is a difference between switching distros and switching desktops. You can install KDE on Ubuntu if you don't feel like reinstalling.
I already mentioned switching window managers. It's still way beyond most users to do something that drastic to solve a simple problem.
I'm not saying I can't do it. I can and I may. I'm saying you can't start with "it's easy" then slide straight into, "switch distros/desktops". That's the opposite of easy.
And based on how hard everything else in Linux is, I suspect I just don't have the energy for it and will just put up with no shortcuts for now, which is what I've been saying this whole time.
For me on KDE (might be different for gnome) I hit the super key (windows key) and just start typing the name of the package I want to use and hit enter when it's there, very similar to Windows except it doesn't need to be exicitly added.
How are you installing packages? Are you using a package manager? You usually don't need to handle the tedium that Windows has made you think is normal. Your package manager should handle this stuff.
I am adding scripts and programs that don't have installer scripts. I wanted to customise the menu. You don't do that with turnkey installations.