Hello,
so drag and drop of a file on desktop to some program works. What is not working and it is very often used, is dragging the file from desktop to the taskbar (more precisely to opened program which has icon on taskbar), which then opens the particular program and it should drop the file in it. It breaks my workflow as I need to minimize all programs and open only one to which I want to drop, and to drag it there. It doesn't matter if the program is installed as apk or flatpak, it doesn't work on all instances and variants of those.
Hmm ... I'm not sure but it doesn't sound like an available Function for me. Or maybe I don't understand that right.
What I do, since I've encountered this same issue as well, is navigate to the program I want to drop a file with Alt+Tab (while still pressing down the mouse) and then drop it there.
Note that by default this shortcut only cycles through the open programs in the same workspace you're currently focused. If you want to drop a file on another window located at a different workspace, you need to use Super+Tab, instead.
And, if you have multiple windows for the same program, like multiple instances of a browser or maybe there's a popup, you can switch to Super+` to cycle through the individual windows.
This might not work well for non-English keyboard layouts, but it's really convenient since these two keys are next to each other.
PS: The Super key is the one with the Windows logo, or Command for MacOS.
Here is the video screenshot:
(for curious the dragged image is of my beloved pan being prepared for the seasoning 
)
This is super awkward and, on my system it won't work, similar as the original issue 
If you mean that dropping the file on the "floating" thumbnails, that's expected. Those little previews are only to help you navigate the open windows but you still have to focus one of them, and then drop the file.
Here's an example:
I understand that everyone works differently, I'm only showing how I work in case it helps. A good thing about this method is that it will work on Windows, they're the same shortcuts.
But from this example you can see that I have a bunch of windows from different programs, and even though none of them are visible (they're all in different workspaces) I can still choose which one to focus and then drop the file. I use this even for simple navigation; it sounds (and looks) more complicated than it is.
Holding the mouse down when selecting shortcut or file on desktop won't work either on my Zorin OS or Windows, even if it could, I would never use it as it is overcomplicating things. By default since forever, using some key combination while dragging file with mouse cancels the drag and drop operation so I'm unsure how it could work (and even if it could I wouldn't use it as it is extremely unorthodox to say at least).
Understandable, it was just a suggestion. But as far as the issue at hand goes, I'm pretty sure this is a limitation on how the taskbar in Zorin OS works. I've never been able to get it to work while other desktop environments this works fine. For example, I think this works fine in Zorin OS Lite, which uses another underlying stack, XFCE, to power the desktop.
For now, I'll switch the category on this thread to Feedback so that it gets picked up by the developers. If someone knows of an actual fix, we can change it back.
It sounds like you're using a Linux desktop environment (possibly GNOME), where dragging a file from the desktop to a taskbar icon to open it in that app isn't fully supported. This limitation affects all app types, including Flatpak and AppImage, and is due to how the taskbar and window focus behave—not the apps themselves. As a workaround, you can use Alt + Tab to bring the app to the front and then drop the file into it. Alternatively, try switching to a desktop environment like KDE Plasma, which offers more traditional drag-and-drop support.
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As far as I know, I use Zorin OS lite, with Gnome, which is nice but this thing kinda surprised me as it exists since forever on practically every OS I used since early Windows times.
OK so it is a GNOME feat, nice to know
So you are using Lite but you installed Gnome afterwards? Lite is xfce, not Gnome. Your Profile is hidden so we can't tell what version of Zorin 17 you are using, Core, Lite, or Pro.
I didn't realize that details about my OS in profile are not visible although I filled them out Now it should be out there.
So I installed Lite but didn't get xfce but Gnome, as far as I know
Zorin core is by default using gnome, and Zorin lite is by default using XFCE.
echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
zorin:GNOME
So that is another mistery how I got Gnome on Zorin Core
You stated in your last post that tou were using Lite. If you are using Core then it will be Gnome. And looking at your profile it is Core. I agree with @Aarav KDE Plasma offers a better Windows user experrience than Gnome which is why I use PCLOS Debian KDE Plasma and Q4OS.
Zorin OS Core → GNOME
Zorin OS Lite → XFCE
Maybe than stock Gnome, but the customization layers that Zorin OS provides are one of the best that I've seen. I speak for myself, but also for plenty of others that I've installed it for who weren't very tech-savvy and found it very easy to get started.
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So Gnome doesn't support proper drag and drop?
Gnome doesn't support desktop icons. Those are only there because of an extension that the Zorin OS developers have included. The taskbar itself is yet another extension, and it appears there's no interoperability between these two (at least for now).
This is for me one of the biggest downside of Gnome... they used to support desktop icons but decided that was not worth the effort or something.
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