[Diggory Laycock]

Is it possible that Apple are deliberately not pursuing a spring-loaded dock because it breaks UI consistency?

After all the dock menus are menus and nowhere else in the UI can you drag into a menu - they are not drag targets, they are for selection.

[Colonel Panic]

Originally posted by Diggory Laycock:
Is it possible that Apple are deliberately not pursuing a spring-loaded dock because it breaks UI consistency?

After all the dock menus are menus and nowhere else in the UI can you drag into a menu - they are not drag targets, they are for selection.

not sure I follow you - I can now drag a file into a folder on the dock, so it is a drag target, I just can't drill down via spring-loaded folders from that folder placed into the dock.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Colonel Panic:
not sure I follow you - I can now drag a file into a folder on the dock, so it is a drag target, I just can't drill down via spring-loaded folders from that folder placed into the dock.

He's referring to the menu, not the icon.

[Spheric Harlot]

Interesting.

hm.

might be that Apple has maneuvered itself into a bind, just like with file copy/paste in the Finder.

[Big Mac]

No, I don't think it poses a UI consistency issue at all. The folders on the dock are just that - folders - and they should act like other folders do. The target of your drag should spring open its window just as a regular finder window does. There's no inconsistency there. (Now if docked folders didn't have the iconic appearance of folders, that would make a difference. But they are indeed folders and should act accordingly.) Lacking this feature isn't a terrible oversight, but it wouldn't hurt for Apple to implement it. Sadly, it seems that the dock has received little attention from Panther's developers.

[Diggory Laycock]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
... they [dock folders] should act like other folders do. The target of your drag should spring open its window just as a regular finder window does. There's no inconsistency there.

Good point, although you'd have to cross "no man's land" between the dock and the new window. (Spring-loaded folders only remain open if the pointer remains within them (or a drop is completed into them.))

However, if the newly-sprung window slid down the screen towards the dock, closing the space, then that wouldn't be so much of a problem.

[THE MAC GOD]

You guys are arguing a moot point. Since when in X has Apple set consistent GUI guidelines...? YES, the folders in the Dock should be spring loaded. Period.

[jokell82]

Or, instead of the folder popping up in the finder, the "menu" of all the folders inside that one could pop up from the dock, and you can navigate through the folders that way...

[Telusman]

Well for my opinion, If im not mistaken, spring loaded folders is built into finder.app for them to implement spring loading folders they would have to build another spring loading routine into dock.app. that could be why it hasn't been implemented, it might raise issues between the two apps.