Tricks the Dock CAN'T do

The best idea is to put an alert/caution/note badge on the app's icon, like in the standard alert/caution/note dialogs. Whether that badge should be pulsating is open to debate. Or maybe user preference.
 
I very much like the idea of the 'caution triangle' or an exclamation point appearing superimposed over the Dock icon. I also like the idea of the color being dependent on severity--I think...

Personally, I am against the blinking, twisting, turning,...any kind of animation for this. I can't stand the way the APP menu blinks in OS 9<. But for newbies, they could have the animation to teach them.

As a side note, I can never hear my system beeps anyway--music is always blaring out of my speakers from iTunes!
 
Originally posted by slur
Again, I like the idea of the Dock icon being used to notify you when you hear a system beep--in theory. Maybe it could pulse slowly (like the 'sleep' light), or jiggle quickly every so often, or take your pick from a list in the preferences.
From what I have heard, the icon of the App jumps somehow from left to right or something to draw attention in 10.1
 
in 10.1 the doc icon jumps out of the doc, about 3 times the distance of the opening bounce animation, when it wants attention, every 3 seconds.

So there you go. I think it's cool.
 
Yea, I saw that.

Yet another thing which has to be reverse engineered before one can replace the Dock
 
$20 says Stobe's never been laid. I cannot think of any other reason anyone would get that worked up over some effin' code.

You don't like the dock, fine. For me, it's proving to be the best thing since sliced bread. Ever since 8.5, I've used GoMac. I don't like Windows, but I did envy the task bar. The dock, in my opinion, surpasses the task bar. On the right I have folders with aliases to commonly used apps. The only two "apps" I keep in the app side at all times is the finder (duh) and sysprefs.

As far as being notified by apps wanting my attention, AIM does a good job of gently displaying a dialog box when someone IMs. Simple. clean and efficient.
 
I've been simulating the dock (or trying to) at least since 7.5. At first I used The Tilery, then switched to DragThing, then used a popup tabbed launcher when 8.0 came out, then back to DragThing until X.

There was always something wrong with each 'solution' though; Tabbed windows don't come to the front when you drag something into them, plus they close whenever Finder runs out of memory... DragThing came to the front when dragged into, but insisted that I keep my running apps separate from my launcher, which is silly. Tilery let me keep all my apps together, and was the best solution I'd found, but it was ugly as hell and I couldn't stand to look at it.

Needless to say, all this is fixed by the dock. I would like to be able to split the documents from the minimized windows from the apps, and I wish Apple came up with some better solution for docked folders than popup menus, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing. I even like it best on the bottom of the screen - it's usually the shortest distance to travel.
 
The only two "apps" I keep in the app side at all times is the finder (duh) and sysprefs.

Why do you keep System Prefs in the dock? It's right under the Apple Menu.

I have my Applications folder in the right side of the dock, as well as a 'dump' folder for cleaning off my desktop. I have all my draggable apps on the left side - all the apps I normally drag files onto like BBEdit, OmniWeb, Preview, ProjectBuilder & so on. Mail's in there too. If I don't drag stuff to an app, like Fire or Transmit, I launch it from my docked Apps folder.
 
E,

I dunno. For some reason, I just like having the sysprefs there. When I first installed OS X, I was constantly rebooting into OS 9, so I guess I put it there for quicker access to change the startup disk and haven't touched it then.

--natis
G4 at 400, 60gigs, 892mb
 
I am very disappointed that my dock does not do my laundry and make me breakfast. So I am going to post my comment to this thread and make myself sound like a whinny child.

-jdog
 
Originally posted by natis
E,

I dunno. For some reason, I just like having the sysprefs there. When I first installed OS X, I was constantly rebooting into OS 9, so I guess I put it there for quicker access to change the startup disk and haven't touched it then.

--natis
G4 at 400, 60gigs, 892mb

Or Snard? Both of them sit in yer Dock and let you directly access the SysPref pane that you want. Snard has the added advantage of an Application launcher, and it lets you choose your own Dock icon.
 
Hi!
I don't understand what's so speciall about the dock, I mean it does it's job and that kind of thing but it's not really advanced is it?
Is it the magnification that impresses everyone so much or? Personally i prefer to have magnification off because I think that's easier to work that way.
Would it be that horrible to release the source for it, many programmers would be able to just copy the doc. Open source rules.

Peggan

Information wants to be free
 
The general gist of this thread seems to be that some people like the Dock, for varying reasons, and some people don't. Strobe REALLY doesn't like it, but from most of his posts here and elsewhere, I don't think he likes very much.

As for Dock source, once again opinion is divided. Some people seem to think that giving out Dock source wouldn't work, or be a good idea, and some people don't see what the problem is. The main contention seems to be that revealing Dock source would reveal other aspects of the interface that Apple wouldn't want to be revealed.

I think it'll be interesting to see what 10.1 does with the Dock - with Apple moving things like battery, sound and airport signal to the menu bar, does this mean that they're moving away from Docklings in general? I've already seen a couple of Dock-based apps which look like they're following suit (Snard and PPP Monitor can both be run from the menu bar).
 
From what I've read, you can still choose to have the airport monitor in the dock if you like, they are giving you the choice. If you have a few apps opened and minimized, the dock can get pretty crowded, so it is nice to get the non-essentials out of the way.

-jdog
 
Hi

Well, from all I've seen and heard (I havn't actually bought my new iMac yet) I far prefer the 9.1 system over the dock stuff. I've got the misfortune to have a Windows box, and all I try to use my dad's Powerbook G4 with sys 9.1 so I'm used to that system. I don't suppose I can sort of dual boot the system to load into 9.1 or OS X as a startup box (Like a dual boot Win ME/Win 2000 system)?

Thats my $0.02
 
'til you've tried it... I've had similar conversations with people who haven't used X much, who don't like the way it works, but they usually change their mind once they've used it. It is, quite simply, an amazing OS, and I think that that is the one thing that everyone on these boards agrees on. Sure, there are differing opinions about the way it works/should work and so on, but that's just because, as mac users, we're used to being able to dictate out own way of working, rather than working like we're told to by whoever designed the OS. X is still in it's early stages, and I think that when it matures (starting late September :) ) then threads like this one will become somewhat redundant.
And as for being able to boot into X or 9.1, that's standard - you need to have 9.1 on there to use Classic.
 
Originally posted by tismey
And as for being able to boot into X or 9.1, that's standard - you need to have 9.1 on there to use Classic.

So, are you saying that it IS possible for me to set up my new iMac straight out of the box with a messagebox every time i turn it on that gives me to option of booting into 9.2 or OSX? Thanks anyway :)
 
A message box every time you boot up? So far no one's made such an extension to the OS, but I'm sure it can and will be done someday soon.

Meanwhile you can hold down the option key as your computer boots to enter Open Firmware and choose a boot volume. I believe this works even if both systems reside on the same drive partition.
 
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