Charmstone and Orbital provide a "floating document" so you can launch applications more quickly.
There are many ways to launch apps on your Mac: For starters, you can add apps to your dock or use Spotlight to find and open apps. However, there's an even quicker way to launch apps: using a floating dock.
There are a couple of apps that let you quickly open a door wherever your mouse cursor is. If you use a large monitor or use the trackpad to navigate your MacBook, these floating dock apps will save you time by using a keyboard shortcut to launch apps. You might especially appreciate this if you're among the users who have complained that Spotlight search gets slower over time: even if you replace it with a better alternative, manually typing app names takes longer than using a better alternative mobile base application.
Charmstone
Charmstone is available on the Mac App Store, and the free version lets you dock up to four apps to your mobile dock. Launch the floating dock by typing Command + Option and moving the cursor in any direction. No need to click again to launch applications. Move the slider to the right and release it to launch the app stuck in that direction. Likewise, you can quickly launch stuck apps in any direction. You will only see eight apps when you first launch Charmstone because the app has two modes: near and far. Use the wake keyboard shortcut and move the slider slightly to open locked apps in nearby mode. To see the remaining "far" applications, use the key combination and drag the cursor a little further.
You can also change the keyboard combination required to activate the app: any combination involving Command, Option, Shift, Function, and Control, along with mouse cursor movement.
Orbital
Orbital requires less setup to be useful because it mimics its base; will collect requests in its base in the same order. If you configure Orbital to display eight apps, for example, it will select the top eight apps from its dock. You can also launch Orbital a little faster because it can be launched with a keyboard shortcut (Alt + X) and doesn't require you to move the mouse cursor. Orbital lets you lock up to six apps for free, and costs around $12 to unlock all 20 slots. You can also change the size of the icons.
Orbital isn't as customizable as power users would like, but that's also part of its appeal. It's literally a floating dock, whereas Charmstone is more of a customizable app launcher. Since both apps have a decent free version available, you should try them both before deciding which works best for you.