[clebin]

MOSR has an interesting piece about what they call Tabbed Dock Trays.

It basically allows you to turn the Dock into one or a number of folders a la OS8+. Clearly they have some plans for the Dock - it was surprising and interesting to see Apple own up to the Dock being a major source of complaint at WWDC. They can't tell the world that and then do nothing about it.

Well, I like the sound of it. I'd like to put those tabs along the right side of the screen aswell. It seems that they would store items like in the Dock, rather than real files like the old tabs. I would prefer something less abstract myself.

BTW, treat this for what it is - a rumour. No bashing MOSR because "it's just one guy who makes up the stories, blah blah blah" because that's very tedious.

Chris

[DannyVTim]

Here are my suggestions about what needs to be done in order to enhance the dock.

There needs to be a way of having an application run but not have it appear in the dock. Specifically, I have an small desk accessory type application called DeskCalendar that just shows a calendar against the desktop. Having it in the dock just makes the dock smaller and harder to read. It would be nice if it was still assessable somehow but didn't take up space in the dock.

Which brings me to my second point, grouping is sorely needed. It's confusing to leave more than a few items up on the dock along with running applications. Yet, I'd like to have the quick access that the dock affords to several types of applications. However, putting several applications up for each type of applications leave a very small dock and that is confusing to read. Being able to group related items, would free up this problem.

Lastly, rolling over items that are the same in order to see what they are is contrary to the Mac ease of use standard. Often the items within the doc are too small to make use of the photo realistic icons. Therefore, the names of non applications class items should be under the items themselves.

[Phoenix1701]

FWIW, there *is* a way to tell an application not to show an icon in the Dock. Every Cocoa application has an Info.plist file in its Contents directory. If you add the following code to the end of the plist:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1"face="Geneva, Verdana, Arial">code:</font><HR><pre><font size=1 face=courier>&lt;key&gt;NSBGOnly&lt;/key&gt;
&lt;string&gt;<font color = blue>1</font>&lt;/string&gt;</font>[/code]

just before the last &lt;/dict&gt; tag, your application's icon should no longer show up in the Dock. I've never actually tried this, but it was documented on a reasonably believable Web site a while back, so I suspect it will work.

[TimmyDee51]

I think that the idea of dock tabs is fundamentally on track, I think it would muddle things somewhat. In essence, it would be creating an always visible Launcher (yes, I mean the control panel). While the Launcher is useful, I find it a little cumbersome as a more advanced user. When I was little, I liked the Launcher, but now I want stuff at my fingertips ASAP.

I think that Apple should look into some of the interface refinements that NeXTStep underwent in house and under 3rd party programs. There was one I recall seeing that placed an icon on the desktop (floating) that expanded with one click. There, a whole slew of options were available, from launching apps to documents and maybe some other stuff, too.

Another idea which has been mentioned before is splitting up the dock into two or more separate docks based on function. An app/launcher dock could sit at the bottom of the screen while a document/minimized window dock could sit on the right or left. Now these combinations and locations are just ideas, but the concept is sound, I think. Also, I would throw out the docklings in their present state. Some of them, like the iTunes and the Prefling can stay, but I think there should be a system wide control for the resolution and volume, etc. that extends beyond the system prefs yet does not clutter the dock. The control strip was perfect in my mind, but Apple doesn't seem to enthusiastic to embrace that again. We'll see.

Just my 2�.

[NeilCharter]

One of the things that i've requested from Apple many times is the ability to have multiple docks. From what MOSR says it seems like they're listening. A tabbed function seems interesting - I see it as one of the many ways that the dock can evolve into a more useful device.

let me say one thing - the app switcher in 9 was a great idea and allow me to readily switch from one running app to another without having to guess which window to click to get the app you want on top or having to go to the right hand app menu. Togther with an enhancement like dragstrip i eventually forgot all about the apple menu and rarely used it unless I had to.

Seems to me that the dock combines both of these functions and takes up less room to do it. Sometimes the icon only form can get a bit confusing. But if multiple docks are present then that would really help things.

Saying that I dofind the column view of the finder extremley useful. It is way easier to navigate now and one can often use a single window to do most things. One of the things I hated with the finder in 9 was that if you opened the wrong folder it was harder to go back and find the right one. With the column view you can hop around to diffrenet directories far qucikly than in 9.

So I don't know if tabbed folders in the dock will be useful for me since I have never really used the dock for locating files/folders on my drive.

But as things mature, I'm sure we will all alter our habits to take advantage of any improvement to fuctionality in X.

Neil