GLX-Dock 2.2 Enters Beta With Greater Usefulness

[fabounet]

but they are small.

that's why GLX-Dock also lets you change their size

As for launching/switching apps, I've found Gnome-do to be much faster in conjunction with gnome-shell alt-tab to get just the right window.

I personally do like the "Expos?", I also use alt+tab occasionnally.
They are nice tools when the number of windows is not too big.
But if for instance I want to find 1 Firefox window amongst several, it'll be much faster for me to scroll with the mouse on the firefox icon in the dock, which will present the different firefox windows one after the other.
Also, I could close all the Gimp windows with a single middle-click on the Gimp icon.

Another tip : a middle-click on the Switcher will pop up a list of all the windows, grouped by desktop; this can be very convenient too.

In the end, you can perfectly manage your windows without a Taskbar, but you can also use more tools.

Anyway, the Taskbar is just one of the numerous applets available in the dock, a lot of them are maybe more useful for you :-)

make for a long trek to find things if you actually move everything from the menu to the Dock (complete replacement).

I think you are supposed to put in a dock only what you use the most, and the Menu is here "just in case".

[liam]

I obviously haven't tried a recent version.

It's rather low on ressources since it uses the graphic card (in its opengl version).


The dock draws a small indicator under the active launchers (you can even choose another indicator, more visible).
GLX-Dock also has sub-docks (to group launchers, or windows of the same application), which greatly limits the number of icons in the dock.
(not to mention that you can have several docks at once).

In the end it saves a lot of space on my netbook.

It's certainly excellent it is more frugal, esp on netbooks.
I realise the indicators ARE there (my gf has us using docky on desktop), but they are small. As for launching/switching apps, I've found Gnome-do to be much faster in conjunction with gnome-shell alt-tab to get just the right window.
I think my main point (I had a point, I think...) stands with regards to Docks: they don't really solve any problems efficiently. They combine a main menu with window list, but in doing so make for a long trek to find things if you actually move everything from the menu to the Dock (complete replacement).
However, if cairo-dock has developed a radical new paradigm that fixes these problems I would be willing to admit I'm wrong.

Best/Liam

[fabounet]

Cairo dock is the very best dock if you like to tweak things, but it can be a bit resource heavy.

It's rather low on ressources since it uses the graphic card (in its opengl version).

Regardless, docks are pretty lousy IMHO. Very hard to tell if a window is open, and they get very unwieldy if you have lots of windows/launchers.

The dock draws a small indicator under the active launchers (you can even choose another indicator, more visible).
GLX-Dock also has sub-docks (to group launchers, or windows of the same application), which greatly limits the number of icons in the dock.
(not to mention that you can have several docks at once).

In the end it saves a lot of space on my netbook.

[liam]

Cairo dock is the very best dock if you like to tweak things, but it can be a bit resource heavy.
Regardless, docks are pretty lousy IMHO. Very hard to tell if a window is open, and they get very unwieldy if you have lots of windows/launchers.

[RealNC]

isn't it called ufficially "cairo dock"?

I think they changed their name and domain.

http://www.glx-dock.org

[pingufunkybeat]

He's probably referring to NextStep and their dock, which was successfully copied by WindowMaker and AfterStep.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep

But Steve Jobs was actually involved with that.

[Zhick]

Oh dear yet another victim of Steve Jobs. Linux had "Mac OS X-like" docks long before Mac OS X had them.

I'm intrigued. Got any links, release-notes/changelogs or atleast names (so what was the first "Mac OS X-like" dock?) to back that up?

[monraaf]

Phoronix: GLX-Dock 2.2 Enters Beta With Greater Usefulness

The first beta release of GLX-Dock 2.2 is now available for those looking to add a Mac OS X-like dock to their Linux desktop.

Oh dear yet another victim of Steve Jobs. Linux had "Mac OS X-like" docks long before Mac OS X had them. What's next Firefox has Safari like html5? Let's not help Apple in rewriting history where they are the great inventors of everything. They're not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

[fabioamd87]

isn't it called ufficially "cairo dock"?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GLX-Dock 2.2 Enters Beta With Greater Usefulness

The first beta release of GLX-Dock 2.2 is now available for those looking to add a Mac OS X-like dock to their Linux desktop. The GLX-Dock 2.2 release is focusing upon improving four core areas of this open-source application dock: being unobtrusive yet useful and simple while also introducing a new panel view...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODQ1OA