How can I combine application launchers into one launcher icon?

I am using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. My launcher is full of icons and I want to categorize it by creating separate folders for each category. Is it possible? If yes then please explain me how to do it.

Solution 1:

GUI quicklist editor

Combining (commands to start-) applications is one of the options of QLE Unity Quicklist Editor. Although you can create a new icon and add your applications, I'd suggest adding your application shortcuts to an existing launcher icon, like below:

Adding applications to an existing icon

1. In the QLE main window, In the left column, you'll find the current Launcher items, click on the launcher you'd like to edit (Gimp in our example):

   

   In the right column, you'll see possible quicklist (right-click) items of the launcher (currently none).

2. Click on the icon, a drop-down list will appear, choose, "Add an application shortcut":

   

3. In the (alphabetical) list that appears, pick your application and click "Add". Repeat untill all the applications you want to add to the iconb are added.

   

That's it. This way you can save a lot of space in your Unity Launcher.

Note

The quicklist editor is currently being rewritten in Gtk, mainly for "cosmetical" (appearance) reasons. The current version still works fine in 16.04 though.

To install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vlijm/qle
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qle