This gnome shell extension for gnome-3.2 to gnome-45 provides a favorites menu for the gnome panel. It provides an alternative to using the shell Overview in order to access the favorites' dash, and also has a slightly different behavior, namely that if a particular program is already running, restarting it through the extension will call up another instance rather than bringing up the already-running instance.
The panel menu mirrors the Overview dash. If items are added to or removed from the dash via the Overview, then they will automatically be added to or removed from the extension's panel menu.
The extension has selectable preferences, enabling the panel entry to be represented by text or an icon and its position on the panel to be chosen. From gnome-3.4, the preferences can be set from the gnome-shell-extension-prefs utility (say via gnome-tweak-tool), or by directly accessing GSettings via, say, dconf-editor (where the settings are at org->gnome->shell->extensions->favorites). Prior to gnome-3.8, they can also be set from the menu itself.
To install, put the tarball in $HOME/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions and untar it. Once installed, it is necessary to enable it in gsettings, say via dconf-editor (the extensions setting is at org->gnome->shell in dconf-editor), or via gnome-tweak-tool.
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-3.2 is available here: favorites-0.0.3.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-3.4 is available here: favorites-0.0.5.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-3.6 is available here: favorites-0.0.7.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-3.8 is available here: favorites-0.0.8.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-3.10 to gnome-3.38 is available here: favorites-0.0.14.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-40 is available here: favorites-0.0.16.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-41, gnome-42, gnome-43 and gnome-44 is available here: favorites-0.0.20.tar.gz
The tarball of the latest version for gnome-45 is available here: favorites-0.0.22.tar.gz
I can be contacted at chris (-at-) cvine (-dot-) plus (-dot-) com . The package comes with translation facilities, and I would particularly like to receive translations of the phrases "Favorites", "Preferences", "Panel Icon" and "Panel Position" for inclusion in the package. If you are not able to provide a translation file, I will also gratefully receive an e-mail containing those words' translation in your language, and I will include it in the next release.