drawer view suggestion (with screenshot)

endian

endian

Dis Member
As a break from all the 'here's how i want the dock to work' suggestions, here's a screenshot of my idea for folders in the dock: http://www.mimicry.org/img/sshots/drawerview.jpg

Docked folders, rather than appearing as regular finder windows when clicked, would instead slide out from the side of the screen as drawers (like in mail.app and omniweb.) Clicking the folder icon again would close the drawer.

Actually I'm starting to like this idea better than a tabbed dock... it provides more flexibility and requires fewer changes to how the dock works now... Hmmm maybe if this is done the left side of the dock could be changed into a Active and Recent Applications area, leaving the drawers to work as a launcher.

The tabbed dock (http://www.mimicry.org/img/sshots/dockscreen3.gif) & drawer view aren't mutually exclusive though. Perhaps the tabs could be a seperate auto-hide stage from the dock itself - i.e. with the dock set to always be visible, mousing down to the bottom of the screen could pop open the tabs section...

... sending this to apple right now ;)

[Edited by endian on 10-26-2000 at 05:59 PM]
 
Originally posted by endian
Docked folders, rather than appearing as regular finder windows when clicked, would instead slide out from the side of the screen as drawers (like in mail.app and omniweb.) Clicking the folder icon again would close the drawer.
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Click to expand...

I agree with the need for something like the tabbed folders of the current MacOS. However, to me it seems unnatural to click somewhere and have a menu pop out somewhere else (even if the somewhere else is a fixed location). Hmmm... an interesting idea nevertheless.
 
it's not really that different than the current behaviour - now if you click on docked folder a finder window opens at that folder's last position. If anything, I think the fixed location and the animation of the drawer sliding open would decrease confusion about exactly where the folder opened to.


the contents of the drawer could be in any finder view - icon, list or column - the one in the screenshot just happened to be in list view so it may have looked like a menu.
 
here's my idea for a dock that would solve a lot of the problems that have been discussed here.
This borrows a lot on other suggestions, thanks to all.

Here's the plan:
When you control-click on any icon in the dock, its "contents" slide out in a little tray, a la the "slide down" calendar in wClock, or any other slide-out trays in OSX (shich is a cool feature.)

What are the contents?
For a running app, the contents are its windows, in a list view with the cool shrunken preview to one side and the name on another. A click on either brings that window to the foreground.
This solves many problems:
1) You don't have to "scrub" the mouse to see window names.
2) You can access any app's window from the dock, not just the minimized ones.
3)The possibly confusing distinction between "hidden" and "minimized" windows is gone. Either type would just have their name in gray text or something to indicate that they aren't on the screen.
4) now that the finder (or whatever) no longer groups all of an app's windows together, apps without "windows" menus, or with wierd implementations where selecting a window toggles it and does not bring it to the front (ie. audion) behave poorly. This fixes that by providing an easy-access, generalized "running windows" menu for all apps.
5) minimized windows now don't clutter up the "my files" side of the dock, and instead genie into their application's icon, which I think makes more sense.

For a folder, the "contents" are a list view very similar to the app window list view. One click opens the subfolder or document in that folder. Scroll bars would be easy to deal with, if necessary.
Now, we have "pop-up folders," which drastically increase the storage capabilities of the dock. Also, since everything in the subfolders is labeled, no more mouse scrubbing here, either.

I think that this nicely integrates a lot of the comments about the dock. If you like my idea, suggest it to apple (claim it as your own if you want!), so they see an increasing mass of people wanting something along the lines of this, or of your suggestions.

Zach

PS. I also think that there needs to be a slick way for the "finder" to tell the user that an app needs attention, a la the flashing menu bar icon in previous os's. How about the space behind an icon in the dock slowly pulses from its normal color to a red-tinted version of itself and back. This would be slick, and fill a needed missing feature in OSX PB.
 
this is a good idea, as long as they are drawers and *not* menus like many people are suggesting... you cant do anything with a menu, and menus should be reserved for application commands, not launching things
 
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