Do you like the dock?

[aluminum]

The dock is wonderful for joe-blow who walks off the street and starts drooling over bouncing, transparent icons.

For anyone that needs to actually get work done, the Dock is a half-baked solutoin.

There are several problems with it:

1) It just one 'group'. That's as old-fashioned as you can get. For it to be useful in terms of organizing your applications, it needs to allow you to create groups that are, ideally, tabbed ala Quicklaunch and Dragthing.

2) At least for me, it's very difficult to see which app is the higlighted app when quickly apple-tabbing through. They actually grey-out the active app, which makes it diffiicult to immediately identify the icon. 4 out of 5 times, I end up landing on the app just before or after the one I actually want to use.

3) Related to the dock is the application switcher. Yes, it's better than OS9's, but it is not as good as Windows' default switcher and a very far cry from the EXCELLENT liteswitch plug-in. The biggest issue is that I need to switch between the same two programs often. With the Dock, I need to tab through 20-some apps to get back to the beginning.

What REALLY bugs me about the Dock is that Apple knew better. Programmers have been making EXCELLENT tools for this (as mentioned, LiteSwitch and QuickLaunch are great) yet they chose to ignore those concepts completely and make a shiny gee-whiz gizmo instead of a productivity enhancer.

 

[Krevinek]

To be honest, I like the Dock, but realize it could be better.

I got used to Gnome 1.4 and Yellow Dog Linux for awhile, and when I installed MacOS X, I did some non-Mac customization that I got used to and liked under Gnome.

First, I killed all the desktop icons. My desktop is now clean as a whistle under X, and this is the way I like it. I get frustrated every time I update OmniWeb to have it download onto the desktop again. Also, I moved the Dock to the right side of the desktop, which in my situation, only eats up the space the desktop icons usually do, and under OS 9, I needed access to.

I never really used the Apple Menu much for that purpose, and under OS 9, I actually use A-Dock for application switching. So for a guy in my position and wants, the Dock is actually pretty darn useful.

 

[hazmat]

Originally posted by Krevinek
First, I killed all the desktop icons. My desktop is now clean as a whistle under X, and this is the way I like it. I get frustrated every time I update OmniWeb to have it download onto the desktop again. Also, I moved the Dock to the right side of the desktop, which in my situation, only eats up the space the desktop icons usually do, and under OS 9, I needed access to.

I don't understand about OmniWeb. It downloads to ~/download for me. I set that in the Prefs.

 

[Krevinek]

Dunno what it is myself, but so far, every time I do an update to OmniWeb, my prefs get reset. Especially with the jump to 4.1b

 

[edX]

Originally posted by aluminum

1) It just one 'group'. That's as old-fashioned as you can get. For it to be useful in terms of organizing your applications, it needs to allow you to create groups

this is what dockswitcher and dock swap and all the other multidock haxies give you. they are cheap and work like they claim

2) At least for me, it's very difficult to see which app is the higlighted app when quickly apple-tabbing through. They actually grey-out the active app, which makes it diffiicult to immediately identify the icon. 4 out of 5 times, I end up landing on the app just before or after the one I actually want to use.

once docks are grouped, they can be very large visible icons for easy recognition

3) Related to the dock is the application switcher. Yes, it's better than OS9's, but it is not as good as Windows' default switcher and a very far cry from the EXCELLENT liteswitch plug-in. The biggest issue is that I need to switch between the same two programs often. With the Dock, I need to tab through 20-some apps to get back to the beginning.

how is finding the collapsed window of the app you are switching to so hard? as long as you take a fraction of a sec to minimize the old window, then it is right there when you need it. or get ASM to put the old os 9 style back.

when you bring Windows in and start raving about it, it makes me wonder if what you are really complaining about is that it is not what you are used to. i know i dealt with that for a while when i switched. Now i find working in os 9 to be slow and cumbersome. It just takes time to create new muscle memories and new mental habits.

 

[aluminum]

this is what dockswitcher and dock swap and all the other multidock haxies give you. they are cheap and work like they claim

Not quite to my liking. I want tabs. I want to be able to drag an icon onto a tab to see that group. Do any of the multi-dock apps allow you to do that, or do you have to manually switch docks before dragging a file onto an app? I'd argue that it is more laborous to switch docks than to just dig through all of the icons on one dock.

once docks are grouped, they can be very large visible icons for easy re

This is a bit of a tangent, but it brings up another issue of mine. I'm not sold on the new icons in OSX. They're not really icons any more. They are photos. The whole concept of icons in GUI design is to make them as simple as possible, as it's much easier to register what an icon is at first glance. A photo take a lot more brain processing to interpret.

They're certainly pretty, and I'm sure, over time, I'll get used to them, but I still prefer inconish icons.

how is finding the collapsed window of the app you are switching to so hard? as long as you take a fraction of a sec to minimize the old window, then it is right there when you need it.

Fraction of seconds add up over a days work. The application switcher has two problems:

1) It switches between apps based on the dock order...not the 'last used' order. (I'm usually switching between the last 2-4 apps while working, so why make me tab through all 20 open apps?)

2) The dock isn't an ideal place to visually display this. It should be dead-center in the screen ala Windows or Liteswitch. I see absolutely no benefit to tying this feature into the dock.

when you bring Windows in and start raving about it, it makes me wonder if what you are really complaining about is that it is not what you are used to.

Who said I was raving about Windows? Windows has a lot of problems. That said, Windows DOES have some VERY nice user interface elements that apple could have easily borrowed. In fact OS9 had some VERY nice user interface elements that Apple SHOULD have brought into OSX (Window shading, pop-up folders, spring-loaded folders, etc.) These are all great, apple-only innovations that they scrapped just to make a new, prettier OS?

It just takes time to create new muscle memories and new mental habits.

My point is that OSX has some nice elements. The DOCK is neat for beginnners...but not optimized for power users. Apple is dissappointing me with OSX in that they are not longer the leader in GUI OS design from a usability standpoint. It seems as if they spent more time making shiny buttons and drop shadows than they did in user testing and workflow research.

 

[genghiscohen]

I also would have gone with "I like it, but..." It does a few things very nicely indeed. I keep Memory Monitor, CPU Monitor and ThermoInDock running to provide neat little summaries of system info. I also keep about half a dozen of my most frequently used apps in my Dock. But I also have (and make use of) ASM, Snard the Menu, LaunchBar and FruitMenu. Between them all, I can get things done pretty damn quickly.

 

[hazmat]

Originally posted by aluminum

My point is that OSX has some nice elements. The DOCK is neat for beginnners...but not optimized for power users. Apple is dissappointing me with OSX in that they are not longer the leader in GUI OS design from a usability standpoint. It seems as if they spent more time making shiny buttons and drop shadows than they did in user testing and workflow research.

Actually, I guess I would consider myself a power user. I find the Dock very useful for certain things. I use WindowShade X to make the minimize button hide the app. Right-clicking on the Dock app icon shows all the active windows of that app. For something like a web browser or Terminal, I find it very useful to use the app icon's context menu for going to whatever window I want. I find the standard minimizing to cluttered. All I want from the app I can get form its context menu. I can also quit the app from there as well in basically one shot. Right click and hit Quit. Nice. And like genghiscohen, I also keep Memory Monitor there, so I have constant updates of memory usage.

 

[strobe]

The Dock does just about everything in the most obtuse wasteful manner.

If I could I would replace it with a global floating list of apps. The reason I can't is the Dock uses a private API which allows it to know which apps need attention and also how to activate specific windows.

Apple should open the source code to the Dock, but to do that would be to admit that Steve's gizmo doesn't please everybody.

It sucks!

 

[divibisan]

if you like the old app menu and the old apple menu try getting "max menus" it makes 4 little tabs in the corners of the screen which you can set up.

 

[Myke]

It seems to me we should all be grateful that we can customise X to use it the way we want. Not so easy with Windows, I think ...

I'm a Fruitmenu fan - it has never been flakey for me.

The dock is an OK idea, but it needs more thought. It can get very cluttered and I still can't work out the logic behind whether the icons appear on the left or the right side. Can anyone help?

Also it's hard to know whether an app is open or not, since some icons stay in the dock all the time, others only when the app is active.

Form over function I'd say.

 

[divibisan]

Apps appear on the left side of the dock and folders and minimized windows appear on the right. Docklings can be on either side

I don't have any problem seeing if an app's open, the little triangls on the bottom make it easy, at least for me.

 

[aluminum]

Form over function I'd say.

I think that, overall, is why I'm not as happy with OSX as I had hoped I would have been.

In many cases, it appears that Apple decided to forgo function in favor of form, or that there were compromises that allowed form to take precedence in too many cases.

The dock is a wonder to play with...the zooming icons, the transparencies, the bouncing alerts, etc...all very cute and fun-to-watch elements, but those should have come AFTER they made the functionality amazing.

But, as we all know, functionality isn't really what sells a product initially...

 

[meancode]

i have my dock on the lower right, and DragThing on the upper left of my TiBook. i could do away with the dock except for some specific uses it has, that i have grown very accustom to since using OS X. i like icon notifications such as when Entourage has new mail, or when an app wants to get your attention it bounces up and down, even if the dock is hidden. i also use a dockling called MacReporter that i think is great. there are other docklings built into some software now, like iTunes, SNAX, etc. so i use the dock and DragThing together.

 

[chemistry_geek]

Originally posted by aluminum
The dock is wonderful for joe-blow who walks off the street and starts drooling over bouncing, transparent icons.

For anyone that needs to actually get work done, the Dock is a half-baked solutoin.

There are several problems with it:

1) It just one 'group'. That's as old-fashioned as you can get. For it to be useful in terms of organizing your applications, it needs to allow you to create groups that are, ideally, tabbed ala Quicklaunch and Dragthing.

2) At least for me, it's very difficult to see which app is the higlighted app when quickly apple-tabbing through. They actually grey-out the active app, which makes it diffiicult to immediately identify the icon. 4 out of 5 times, I end up landing on the app just before or after the one I actually want to use.

3) Related to the dock is the application switcher. Yes, it's better than OS9's, but it is not as good as Windows' default switcher and a very far cry from the EXCELLENT liteswitch plug-in. The biggest issue is that I need to switch between the same two programs often. With the Dock, I need to tab through 20-some apps to get back to the beginning.

What REALLY bugs me about the Dock is that Apple knew better. Programmers have been making EXCELLENT tools for this (as mentioned, LiteSwitch and QuickLaunch are great) yet they chose to ignore those concepts completely and make a shiny gee-whiz gizmo instead of a productivity enhancer.

I disagree that the Dock is a half-baked solution. I couldn't live without it. The Dock offers a fair amount of customizability. After installing LinuxPPC 2000 on my Mac several years ago, I wanted the Gnome Dock/Task Bar in OS 9. You can place anything you want almost anywhere. It would be nice if Apple have multiple Docks for the power users as an option. LinuxPPC 2000 had 2 Docks, it was great.

Four programs I use frequently mesh very well with the Dock: LoadInDock, ThermoInDock, NetStatInDock, and QuickTime Player. All four have active icons in the Dock. QuickTime Player is nice for watching/listening to a news stream. You can just run the cursor over the icon to see if the video is worth expanding to a full-sized window.

If you turn off Dock animations, turn on magnification, tabbing through applications is very easy to see selected or forefront applications.

 

[BSDimwit]

My reply was neutral as I think it lacks some functionality... While I know there are 3rd party apps that make use of virtual desktops, I feel apple should write one. To me, Aqua is nothing more than a glorified window manager, for those people that are accustomed to a unix like interface, this would add tons to the functionality of the gui as a whole. In its current incarnation the dock is ok as an app launcher(it gets in the way sometimes) but this lack real estate issue I have would be solved by having multiple destops like KDE, Gnome, Windowmaker and various other windowing managers available in a unix environment. Yeah know this is a mac, and some might feel that its not very mac like to include them, but I say, hey, if you want them, use them otherwise don't. I don't buy the old addage that its not very mac like. If it makes the gui more usable/convenient, then in my opinion, it is. Yes, I am fairly new to the mac, and mac users of old have gotten so used to key/click combinations that they can be fast and efficient using the gui... but having to hide stuff just to get it out of your way is tedious when you are used other environments. I wish I could change the focus options too, but thats another post(sloppy focus .

 

[fryke]

me too. virtual desktops and mouse focus options. but then again, that's what free-/shareware is for on this platform. and they do a good job, i think. it's what i said the first day someone came complaining to me about the dock: "wait for the shareware, wait for the shareware." and here it is, isn't it?

ASM by vercruesse.de
TinkerTool
DragThing
DragStrip
LaunchBar (couldn't live without it...)

You'll find all these on versiontracker.com - and more, of course...

Btw.: LaunchBar is _really_ neat and the perfect addition to the Dock for me. I don't want 25 icons in my Dock (launcher icons), only the ones I'm using regularily, and LaunchBar gives me all I want in addition.

 

[BSDimwit]

more on what these shareware apps do. Lauchbar is pretty self explanatory but I am not familiar with the others.

I am one of the switchers, but I did it just before the ads started appearing. I have been a Windows user for quite some time as well as FreeBSD. I harbor many ill feelings to MS for various reasons(Antitrust, Anti-competittiveness, anti-stabilty, plug and pray...) but the customization ability that is the norm instead of the exception in un*x systems really appealed to me. Then along comes a mainstream company that has decided to embrace the stability of BSD and make it all its own in a truly groundbreaking way... well I was sold. I waited a while while most of the bugs were worked out and then I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a tibook 550 off of Ebay. My windows PC only gets used now as a file server and the occasional Everquest gaming client. I am this close to dropping it completely but EQ is the only thing that keeps me from it.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up on those other apps. Long live FreeBSD and Darwin/Mac OSX

 

[fryke]

ASM
... is an Application Switcher Menu (OS 9 style) which also lets you control - to some extent - application focus modes. Needs an update for Jaguar, runs fine in 10.1.5.

TinkerTool
Unlocks some hidden features of Finder/Dock. Will be updated for Jaguar soon, but there's a on-the-fly version for Jaguar available.

DragThing
Is a launcher replacement. Many docks are better than one is their mission statement, I think.

DragStrip
Same thing, different company.

LaunchBar (couldn't live without it...)
LaunchBar lets you launch apps via keyboard shortcuts. Hit a shortcut and enter part of the name of the app. Really great! (Can't say it enough...)

 

[mindbend]

Maybe this exists, I don't know as I've never looked for it or heard about it...I would like a dockling or something (maybe something on the top of the screen in the open white space) that displays basic info about a file or group of files. I am annoyed by having to open up the get info window all the time for basic file info. I'm not sure why, but I seem to have to get file info a LOT. I would prefer that somewhere on the screen in a fixed spot I could always look for basic file size/number of files selected, etc.

I know I can open a get info box and leave it open, but it's too big. What would be really cool is not even a window, but a "super" as we say in video editing of the info in the bottom right. Kind of like ThermoInDock does with varying transperncies. Any ideas?