Will Apple update the Dock in tiger?

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 40
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by webmail

    in the latest builds you can drag files into folders in the dock, however they are not springloaded.



    You can do that now -- that feature's existed for a while. Hold down comannd while you do so to keep the Dock from thinking you want to add the item instead of drop it in a Docked folder.
  • Reply 22 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Randycat99

    I'm not saying it wouldn't be useful, but doesn't the dock do this already? Like if you drag a pic over the Quicktime icon, it will then open in a Quicktime window. ...or is it that you want all those things to automatically open in the Preview app, specifically?





    Misunderstanding. I thought, IF you are using Safari and you are selecting text inside safari, therefore it would be nice, IF you were able to drag the selected text (or pic) over the docked Textedit (Preview) icon AND as a result a new textedit (Preview) window would open containing the selected text (pic). That's it.





    Quote:

    That sounds neat, but if you already have access to the item you are dragging under the mouse pointer, why not just doubleclick it from where it is in the first place to open it? I'm just trying to understand the situation under which this would happen.

    [/B]



    Same as above. I am talking about selected text or pictures inside another app, i.e. selected text/pic from inside safari/mail. Sorry for misleading...



    Actually am i the only one who sees plenty of benefit with that potential behavior of the dock?\
  • Reply 23 of 40
    While I like the idea of a "piles" concept, I think that it might be a little bloated if the pile expands vertically to display all the files or folders. For two or three files it wouldn't be a problem. But what about ten or more?



    Why not keep the idea of piles but when you click it, a menu appears, similar to the ones when you control click an item in the dock, that lists all the items.



    OR you could have something like this appear when you click the "pile"...



    http://www.stuntsoftware.com/products/overflow.htm



    Mike
  • Reply 24 of 40
    randycat99randycat99 Posts: 1,919member
    I now see where you are coming from, Vox. It kind of begs just a bit more functionality in Safari within the contextual menus (unless you rigidly want to do this with only a single-click button). So instead of just a save to file or clipboard option, you could have some additional options like open in xyz application... I'm guessing though, that you would rather see this as a system-wide behavior, rather than just a Safari refinement. So I can see your motivation for suggestion this feature. (personally, it's not something I would need, but I can see your point) I do see the elegance of being able to drag a pic from a webpage right into a spring-loaded drop folder I have that awaits me at the bottom of the screen in the form of a tab. That is something I miss from my OS9 days.



    How about a workaround where you have your favorite graphics browser app open (like oh, say, GraphiConverter) that dynamically previews files contained in a selected folder? So from your web browser, you hit a right-click mouse button to save to file from a context menu, target location is your selected folder, then when you go to your browser app, and then the preview tile will be there when you manually bring your browser app to the foreground. Ah, well, I guess that sounds pretty convoluted, too! Hey, just be glad we aren't typing in everything through a command line to make the magic happen, right?
  • Reply 25 of 40
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Vox Barbara

    IF you are using Safari and you are selecting text inside safari, therefore it would be nice, IF you were able to drag the selected text (or pic) over the docked Textedit (Preview) icon AND as a result a new textedit (Preview) window would open containing the selected text (pic). That's it.



    I like this.



    Send feedback.
  • Reply 26 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amorph

    I like this.



    Send feedback.




    Did so. Sometimes they're listening
  • Reply 27 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Randycat99

    ...

    Hey, just be glad we aren't typing in everything through a command line to make the magic happen, right?




    Er... right.



    (Still, it would be nice to drag some stuff from safari onto docked apps...)
  • Reply 28 of 40
    What I really want is to be able to click off onto the desktop to bring all open Finder windows forward, just as it was back in OS9.
  • Reply 29 of 40
    Click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Violin!



    If you want to see only the Finder windows and desktop, I think you can hold down option or option-command and when you click the Finder's Dock icon, it will hide all other open windows.
  • Reply 30 of 40
    kedakeda Posts: 722member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MPMoriarty

    While I like the idea of a "piles" concept, I think that it might be a little bloated if the pile expands vertically to display all the files or folders. For two or three files it wouldn't be a problem. But what about ten or more?



    Why not keep the idea of piles but when you click it, a menu appears, similar to the ones when you control click an item in the dock, that lists all the items.



    OR you could have something like this appear when you click the "pile"...



    http://www.stuntsoftware.com/products/overflow.htm



    Mike




    That is really cool. For the lazy...





    Imagine if the pile behaved like this. When you clicked it a 'shelf' opened up, but the 'shelf' was like the Finder side bar...icons scaled to meet a relatively pre-defined space. It could appear as a Dashboard.
  • Reply 31 of 40
    I think it could be done much more slickly than a popup window, or a Dashboard panel.



    A pile would show up with a generic pile icon, with one of the app icons placed on top of it... this app icon is the top-level app... the one you want quickest access to, or the one that you consider representative of the entire group. For instance, your favourite game would be on top of a pile of all of your other games. Clicking on the pile icon results in the pile icon itself being replaced with the top-level app's icon, and the icons for all the other apps in the pile sliding out beside it (if your dock is on the side of the screen... they'd slide up if your dock's on the bottom). Of course, it would be animated with a really slick, but very fast aqua animation... fast, because I don't want the animation getting in the way of my workflow.



    This gives you quick access to everything, and it feels integrated with the rest of the dock. Plus, if you want to activate the top-level (preferred) app in the pile, you can do it with a double-click, because its icon stays put when the pile slides out... no need to move your mouse to get to it. Of course, when the pile is expanded, you can drag the icons around in the pile to change their display order, or to change the top-level app. You can also drag new icons into the pile by simply hovering over the pile, or remove icons by dragging them out, just like the rest of the dock.
  • Reply 32 of 40
    By the way, the expanding pile thing I just suggested would also work for documents.



    Plus, there should be a contextual menu item to open all items in the pile, just like Safari lets you open all bookmarks in a group. You probably wouldn't use this for application piles, but you could definitely use it for document piles... make a pile of all of the docs you're using in a current project, and a single menu selection opens them all.
  • Reply 33 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    Click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Violin!



    No- SPOOOON!!! (maybe you meant to say, "Vioila!" )



    I think these are all good ideas. Maybe all of this is something Apple could roll together as an iDesktopTools sort of app? Something that is configurable/extensible/customizable so every powerMac user can revel in creating their own dashboard/shelf/superDock/whatever right to their needs... Throw in some simple building blocks and default templates, and let the user go from there...
  • Reply 34 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    Click on the Finder icon in the Dock. Violin!



    Still not as quick as simply clicking off onto the desktop
  • Reply 35 of 40
    th0rth0r Posts: 78member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Vox Barbara

    IF you are using Safari and you are selecting text inside safari, therefore it would be nice, IF you were able to drag the selected text (or pic) over the docked Textedit (Preview) icon AND as a result a new textedit (Preview) window would open containing the selected text (pic). That's it.





    You can do this right now with the Services menu (at least with text selections-- Safari, unlike Mozilla won't let you select an image...while Mozilla, unlike Safari doesn't do services at all.) .



    I do like the idea of dragging and dropping clippings onto docked items, though.



    .
  • Reply 36 of 40
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Th0r

    You can do this right now with the Services menu (at least with text selections-- ...





    That's pretty much far away from drag and drop. I would say



    Well, actually i have almost always an empty Textedit window open, though i am dragging selected text/pics directly via exposé on it. This is great and this comes close to that what i do want. But dragging directly onto the docked textedit, would be sheer charming.



    best
  • Reply 37 of 40
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Two end-user aspects of the OS that most need improvement: services and the Dock.



    Someone in another forum pointed out this article about the development of OS X, and it includes a screenshot of Rhapsody. I still like the tabbed Dock. I saw it in screenshots of an old version of OpenStep 4, which never came out because Apple bought NeXT. In those two cases, the Dock was this catch-all for your stuff, but was not a launcher. The old NeXTstep and OpenStep actually had two docks, one for apps on the right, one for all other folders and documents on the bottom of the screen, but who knows where the one on the right went. As a matter of fact, it's hard to find any quick way to access your app in either OpenStep 4.0 or in Rhapsody, unless maybe the current app item in the Rhapsody menubar contained a list of all your apps.



    I guess that issue of accessing apps eventually became a priority for the Dock. So I wonder, going back, if you assume that the Dock stayed more like what a Finder sidebar is now instead of being launcher, where would you access apps instead? That is, maybe turning this on its head and giving apps the boot from the Dock would give us a better idea than the current Dock. I'd love to see that tabbed Dock, and I'd be willing to add another Dock or some other app launcher element to have it. Right now, you can basically get this with DragThing of course, so it's not lost to anyone necessarily. I guess maybe what isn't so appealing about DragThing and the Dock is that it's not a very compact solution.
  • Reply 38 of 40
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Ra

    Here are two things that I think they should implement:



    1) if you put a folder in the Dock, it should be spring-loaded, i.e. when you hold a file over it the folder actually pops open



    2) if you put picture files in the Dock, you should have the option of showing the icon preview instead of the generic icon, just like in the Finder




    agreed on both counts. if we can't get consistency of interface across the entire system and apps, then we can at least request consistency of ABILITY (like it's always bugged me that you can't have icons larger than 32x32 in list view. why, apple? WHY???)
  • Reply 39 of 40
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    by the way, i know i raved in another thread about this, but you owe it to yourself to check out james thompson's dragthing.



    the only thing i have found lacking is the spring-loaded folder issue, but james has said the system just doesn't have the ability for docks like his, so he has had to write the behavior all from scratch. BUT, they will be in the next major revision. once you start playing around with fully transparent docks, applescriptability, fast HUGE image previews (you can set the flyout menus to display previews up to 512 pixels wide via a three line applescript), clippings (and yes, soon editable clippings) and docks-as-drawers, well, you might not care what the mac os x dock eventually becomes.



    right now, the only thing i use my mac os issued dock for is essentially a process viewer and a place to hold minimized windows (and the trash). works out pretty well that way.
  • Reply 40 of 40
    kedakeda Posts: 722member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    Someone in another forum pointed out this article about the development of OS X, and it includes a screenshot of Rhapsody. I still like the tabbed Dock. I saw it in screenshots of an old version of OpenStep 4, which never came out because Apple bought NeXT. In those two cases, the Dock was this catch-all for your stuff, but was not a launcher.



    Yes, thats the screenshot I was referring to earlier. I don't know if tabs, per say, are the right approach in OSX, but consider the potential.



    Also, regarding DragThing. I know this is a great app, but it seems to be filling a gapping hole in the OS. The Mac Dock has remain basically the same since Public Beta (with incremental improvements). The popularity of DragThing shows that many people would like to see a more robust Dock.
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