I am writing a panel plugin based on xfce4-appfinder. It provides a GNOME Shell-like dashboard for Xfce: https://github.com/adlocode/xfce4-lightdash-plugin It uses XComposite and Cairo to get the window previews. The dashboard has a remote-event signal handler, so it can be opened with a keystroke or (presumably) using brightside. Regards adlo