Ubuntu ships with /usr/share/applications/yourapp.desktop files which allow an application's icon to be added to the Dock, the taskbar of favorite applications to the left of the desktop. There is such a file for libreoffice.startcenter which brings up the Recently Used files, along with a menu allowing the user to select different LO apps (Writer, Math, etc.) and certain basic actions (Help, etc).

In Ubuntu, it is not possible to add LibreOffice to the Dock as a freestanding icon. The option "Add to Favorites" is present in the right-click menu, but it produces no result.

The workaround is to edit the libreoffice-startcenter file and comment out the line (near the end) that says "NotShowIn=GNOME;"

What this tells me is that somebody, or some group, consciously decided to make this use-case scenario unavailable to the end-user. End-users are allowed to add icons for Writer, Draw, Impress, etc. but may not add an icon for Recent Documents, i.e. the Start Center. This was apparently seen as a positive choice, and was deliberately taken.

Please fix this. If this option is not configurable, and not modifiable, but it remains hackable, I shall continue to hack it till the end of my days. I consider it more esthetically pleasing, more efficient, and more in line with my personal workflow. It is convenient and highly useful to me. Please restore the option to use the StartCenter in the Ubuntu Dock for end-users.

If this was a downstream choice, e.g. by Gnome or Ubuntu, my request is that someone with the appropriate experience and expertise would adopt this cause, and lobby the appropriate developers until this is fixed.

I thank you profusely in advance.