Yeah, I get the amusing feeling that the dock will improve to the point that it's a modification on the OS 9 Application Switcher
. Seriously though, I've been giving the dock a lot of thought since I've tried to get used to it.To make OS X/the dock usable I've all but turned the dock into the OS 9 application switcher. I've used Docking Maneuvers to turn on pinning and orientation of the dock (my dock now sits on the right-top side of the screen). I've installed X-assist so that I have the app switcher menu back (I don't use the dock to switch programmes often b/c it takes more time to figure out which icon to click on & which app is open than it does to pull up the ASM). The other bonus to X-assist is that I now have more than 5 recent app items (the "apple" menu is especially useless b/c 5 is too little and I don't use recent docs, ever!!!!). I also turned on the trash can so I now have a trash can on the desktop rather than in the tiny dock!!!
PS FYI Apple has BUILT-IN support for desktop trashcan and for pinning/orientation of dock. It's as if they had an idea people wanted both items but some idiot decided that people would like their dock at the bottom of the screen, and had no need for a trash can (dock trash is pretty useless as I've already accidentally dropped files into the trash rather than into an app). The only dock trash thing I'd like is eject disk.
There are a few things I would now like to be able to do with the dock:
(a) change the background colour of the dock to WHITE. No translucence, no blue, but WHITE. The icons are fuzzy with the blue striped back ground (I have small icons). It's as if Apple went for style over substance. What a disappointment (& my eyes are good... imagine how people who are far-sighted suffer with OS X's colour scheme).
(b) prevent the dock from being changed once I have chosen the default two or three apps I want included in the dock.
BTW It was mentioned that it was possible to HIDE the dock. That's a lark, because whenever you move the cursor over that part of the screen you accidentally pull up the dock... that's extremely irritating. I tolerate it in Windoze b/c you're forced to use a taskbar but it really bugs me. I've not managed to get used to the here-i-am-here-i'm-not behaviour of the taskbar. The dock behaves EXACTLY the same way, and is equally useless in that respect. I still would RATHER have the taskbar than the dock in its default incarnation (the Start menu *is* useful). The way I've customized the dock now, it's sort-of livable. Unfortunately, there are still serious problems which make it less useful than it could be.
BTW #2 In a recent message someone pointed a link to an article in which it was mentioned that the #1 complaint Apple had on OS X was its slow GUI response time. The #2 complaint was with the DOCK!!!! It sucks, and there's a consensus opinion (apparently, but seemingly not here) that it SUCKS.
I have no objection to it being possible to have the dock in its current incarnation. Some people found the OS 9 Launcher useful (it was too limited an app launcher for me to ever use it for more than a few seconds... BUT, BUT, BUT, it's a more functional app launcher than the DOCK because it could have different folders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).
But, the dock is useless to me in its present (10.0.3) incarnation! It needs to be customizable. Pinning, orientation, desktop trash, option to turn off adding icons, option to have it function more-or-less like OS 9 app switcher, and re-introducing the app switcher menu!!!
I spent a hell of a long time learning how to use OS 1-9. The learning process started when I was 9 years old!!! (I was 9 when we got our first Mac 128 in 1984) The pattern recognition (trash at bottom right, clock at top right, app switcher at top right, app switcher menu at top right) is well entrenched, some of the patterns will be more frustrating to unlearn than will be worth the gain in efficiency.
Perhaps there might be more efficient ways (with a statistical significance) of doing these things, but, are they sufficiently more efficient for *ME* and for the millions of users already used to the current techniques to justify the change. It's not like the OS 9 solutions are bad. They've been fine-tuned over a long time. In the design stage I wish the developers would've kept the following sentences in mind: Change for the sake of change is worthless (Jones syndrome with their latest fashions). Resistance to change for the sake of tradition is equally worthless (religious people and morality (well, ok, pretty much anything
)). There are many equally parsimonious (roughly meaning equally effective) methods of completing a task and they will vary person-to-person. Having a million options defeats the purpose of options and reduces efficiency. Having NO options is also counter to efficient operations.Anyway, off to the gym, Eric.
