Gnome Dock

[GPH]

http://www.gnome-dock.org/trac/wiki

From what I understand, the project is not actively developed, but what we have for the moment is great. It is prettier than kiba-dock, more functional and also more "OS X-like". It takes more time to customize, but I think it's worth it. Here's how I installed it on Edgy with AIGLX:

1. Install these packages

sudo apt-get install librsvg2-bin librsvg2-common librsvg2-dev libglitz-glx1 libglitz-glx1-dev

2. Make sure you have build-essential to be able to compile cairo.

3. Download Cairo 1.2.6

http://cairographics.org/releases/cairo-1.2.6.tar.gz

4. Install Cairo 1.2.6

./configure --enable-warnings --enable-glitz --disable-quartz --disable-atsui --disable-xcb --disable-win32 --disable-gtk-doc

make

sudo make install

5. Download cairo-dock

http://www.gnome-dock.org/prerelease...-0.0.1b.tar.gz (doesn't seem to work anymore)
Try this instead: cairo-dock.tar.gz

6. Extract the tarball in /opt

7. Install cairo-dock

make clean

make

Also, change your virtual vertical size in Beryl from 1 to 2, otherwise it will probably bug. That's a weird fix found by someone in this thread, but it works.

To open the dock, use

./cairo-dock --no-glitz

To add launchers, play with cairo-dock.c and redo

make

once you've saved the file.

Also, you'll probably have to change Vertical Virtual Size in Beryl from 1 to 2 to avoid a bug.

At the moment, it only accepts icons in .svg, but it's fairly easy to convert .png to .svg using InkScape. Good luck!

[BLTicklemonster]

"make sure you have all the necessary packages to compile".. what do you mean? Oh, I see xgl and compiz, never mind.

[GPH]

No, I meant the build-essential packages, but you also need AIGLX/XGL to be able to run this. BTW, does it work for someone else than me ?

[BLTicklemonster]

After playing around with beryl for a while, watching things work arbitrarily and not work with clocklike precision, I'm pretty sure that if I have to put any kind of x-""-gl or compiz priz whatever on to use something, I'll just pass. That's a neat looking dock, but it's not worth having to put all that on my computer just for that one look.

[jlosch]

GPH, do you still have the tarball? I'm interested in playing around with gnome-dock, but it looks like the site is having problems.

[GPH]

Originally Posted by jlosch GPH, do you still have the tarball? I'm interested in playing around with gnome-dock, but it looks like the site is having problems.

I didn't have the original tarball, so I made one from my dock folder that also includes the icons that I use. The attachment is in the how-to.

[jlosch]

Originally Posted by GPH I didn't have the original tarball, so I made one from my dock folder that also includes the icons that I use. The attachment is in the how-to.

Thanks, that worked great. For some reason, though, I can't seem to get the icons to show up. Only dc++.svg seems to work. I tried changing the file names to absolute paths in cairo-dock.c then recompiling, but no luck. Guess I'll have to play around with it some more.

[gjtoth]

Kooldock seems to do this and works just fine under Edgy. Very easy to configure and add stuff to.

[christhemonkey]

But Kooldock and kibadock are all written for kde, using the qt toolkit.

Whereas normal ubuntu users may not want a kde app, loading lots of extra qt libraries.

Or maybe its just me preferring to use gnome apps in gnome and kde apps in kde...

[jlosch]

Ok, I think I figured it out. When you converted the .png files to .svg, Inkscape saved them not as true svg's, but as an svg with an embedded image. From amarok.svg:

  <image
     xlink:href="/home/guillaume/.icons/OSX/scalable/apps/amarok.png"
     sodipodi:absref="/home/guillaume/.icons/OSX/scalable/apps/amarok.png"
     width="48"
     height="48"
     id="image2293"
     x="0"
     y="0" />

So for anyone using the tarball from the post, you'll need to find different svg icons.

Otherwise, this how-to works great. Thanks for the files GPH!