Cairo Dock - Any fans here?

[Roasted]

I just got around to installing Cairo Dock when I was installing the Mac4Lin theme. I wanted to get my machine as Mac looking as possible so I could show it to my buddy who's a Mac fan. In doing so, I actually kinda grew to liking the Cairo Dock... to the point where I might keep it (but of course later ditch the rest of the Mac theme).

What do you guys think of it? Does anybody run it here full time? I wasn't a big fan of the dock in OSX (I have a mac laptop so I'm familiar with it) but Cairo Dock just seems like it's on steroids with some more options and neat features.

I think it might be something that I install by default from now on. :P

[V for Vincent]

I prefer Docky. Less customizable, but more functional, plus it seems to perform better on my machine.

[Roasted]

Never heard of Docky, but even still, it's along the same lines as Cairo Dock. My intention was to see if people were removing their bottom Gnome taskbar (or somehow customizing it in KDE) and replacing it with some sort of dock application, whether it be Docky, Cairo, AWN, etc.

I watched a lot of reviews on YouTube of different thing, as well as how to guides for setting up various things in Ubuntu. A lot of the time people are running a dock, which is why I was curious if users here prefer it as well.

[betrunkenaffe]

I had Cairo dock installed up until recently. It's the only dock I've actually liked.

I found it very functional and the customization is what made me keep it.

I'm not using any dock atm hence why I'm not using it currently :)

[JeffersonX]

In your opinion Cairo Dock is better than Avant window navigator? Once I have installed Cairo Dock but I didn't understand how it works... :(

[Viva]

I prefer AWN

[m4tic]

I really don't get what's so gr8 about object docks, i have leopard and cairo and i dont see the point, panels do it for me

[NuclearStr1der]

I've got Cairo-Dock running on me EEE PC.

It's been customized quite a bit by me for a minimalist look though ;)

I have Gnome-Do installed, but I don't use the Docky theme because it absolutely rapes any processor it can get its hands on (other than my Core i7 at home:D) - put simply, it's simply too resource-heavy for my EEE.

I tried AWN, but it wasn't customizable enough.

Cairo-Dock is best suited for my EEE ;)

[thedogisdead]

I've had a little go of Cairo Dock and Docky, but I use AWN full-time. I think it feels the most polished and solid and in a totally airheaded way, I love the animations.

[Roasted]

Don't get me wrong - I liked AWN a lot. But when I can't even force it to my primary monitor, that's a problem. I didn't have that problem with Cairo, so the choice was clear.

[Roasted]

Is there any way in Cairo Dock to force it so all like applications get the same icon? With instant messages, it shows the buddy icon for that instant message. I'd like them to all show up with the same image so I know immediately if it's an IM or something else.

[fabounet]

easy, in the Taskbar, set the option "overwrite X icons" ;-)

and yes, you can completely remove your gnome-panel, Cairo-Dock has probably everything you'll need to replace it.

[JBAlaska]

I've been using Cairo Dock since it was in early alpha on BerliOS, it's come along way!

I still use the latest trunk of awn-curves as well.

[murderslastcrow]

Too be honest, if the options pane was a bit less complicated, it would be the best out there. I love it, for one main reason- does most of the same things as the others, but it's not a resource hog. Got it running on a computer with 256 MB of RAM without slowing down. I think that alone makes it 'the winner'. However, I hope these projects continually improve, and new ones that are faster and more compatible with peoples' programs and needed integration emerge.

Open source, man- it rocks. Cairo all the way if you're gonna' use a dock on an older machine.

AWN is great, too, but only if you have the RAM to spare. They should really work on that.

[daverich]

i used to use it but karmic wont have it after the upgrade...

using gnome do docky now.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[Keyper7]

i used to use it but karmic wont have it after the upgrade...

The version from the official Cairo-Dock PPA works fine in Karmic.

[Kdar]

I am using AWN now, but probably will give Cairo a try, to see which is better.

By the way, @ people who use Docky: Do you know if it is possible for Docky to not group similar windows (like Firefox windows.. etc).

This is probably the only feature in Docky that kind of annoys me.

[coldReactive]

I prefer AWN

Even when Cairo Menu in AWN crashes gnome global menu?

http://code.google.com/p/gnome2-globalmenu/issues/detail?id=502

[The Funkbomb]

The most important feature to any dock is auto-hide. Docks are pointless to me if they take up more space than the 24px panel they're replacing.

[longtom]

I tried several different panels and got stuck with Cairo. It is customisable as well as resource friendly and works - always.
That was it!

[Riffer]

The most important feature to any dock is auto-hide. Docks are pointless to me if they take up more space than the 24px panel they're replacing.

Docky does that. You have the option to "hide" which which will only show the dock when you bring the mouse down below the screen, or "intelli-hide" which shows the dock when you have only your desktop (no full open windows. Cheers.

[fabounet]

I think all docks/panels have it, this is the basis.
Cairo-Dock has it anyway, plus a mode to make it appear from the keyboard, which allows some things like that :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOALiOFNhQs

[bigbrovar]

When i was a gnomie wrote a post a while back about how i gave my laptop a mac favor. using docky and some other tools.
http://bigbrovar.aoizora.org/?p=610

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3640/3431268829_483a92a127_d.jpg

I prefer gnome-do docky interface because of the extra functionality it brings and the fact that it really increases my work flow.

[Roasted]

Man, maybe I'm just stuck in my old ways. I like the docks but when I get IMs it's hard to tell who's who since the icon for each IM doesn't do anything to show it's the one that just sent me a message.

I ended up dropping back to my Gnome taskbar. Can't go wrong with it in terms of functionality!

However - I do wonder... is there a way to make it so when I get an instant message and I didn't click on the IM yet, that it does an animation, such as bounces or something like that?

[Roasted]

Had to reply to this one. I kept hearing people talk about Docky and I was like yeah whatever nothing can be Cairo, etc. Don't get me wrong, Cairo is very nice, but DAMN Docky is pretty solid too. I found myself lost in how to adjust certain things in Cairo, but I do really like that dock.

I fired up Docky, which if anybody is curious (this took me a few mins to figure out) to enable Docky, you need Gnome-Do installed. Then go into the preferences of Gnome-Do, appearance tab, theme = docky, and bam, it'll bring up your dock.

Anyway, I think it's laid out VERY intelligently. Not a ton of eye candy features, which could work for/against it. I like it, though, because I can just bam bam bam set stuff without a truckload of confusion. Secondly, if I have Pidgin open with 5 IMs, I can either right click the icon and select the exact IM I want to open, or I can hover over the pidgin icon and scroll and it'll open each window accordingly that belongs to that program.

Pretty damn nice! I'm really liking docky. Cairo was nice too, but AWN just pissed me off since I couldn't get it to my main monitor. I like the layout of AWN but us dual screeners might not be in good shape for it.

Anyway, that's my recent 2 cents on linux docks. Docky is staying here permanently now!

[Keyper7]

Man, maybe I'm just stuck in my old ways. I like the docks but when I get IMs it's hard to tell who's who since the icon for each IM doesn't do anything to show it's the one that just sent me a message.

I ended up dropping back to my Gnome taskbar. Can't go wrong with it in terms of functionality!

However - I do wonder... is there a way to make it so when I get an instant message and I didn't click on the IM yet, that it does an animation, such as bounces or something like that?

Yes.

In the "Taskbar" settings, you can configure an animation for when a window needs your attention.

[Keyper7]

The most important feature to any dock is auto-hide. Docks are pointless to me if they take up more space than the 24px panel they're replacing.

I use autohide, but even if I didn't use I configure my dock to have 24px.

[The Funkbomb]

Docky does that. You have the option to "hide" which which will only show the dock when you bring the mouse down below the screen, or "intelli-hide" which shows the dock when you have only your desktop (no full open windows. Cheers.

I know. I use gnome-do docky and have autohide. Didn't care for intelli-hide.


I use autohide, but even if I didn't use I configure my dock to have 24px.

I prefer the docky to be a bit bigger since it's going to be hidden anyway. I have it set on 64 and the zoom on 200%. Those are the defaults I believe.

[fabounet]

Secondly, if I have Pidgin open with 5 IMs, I can either right click the icon and select the exact IM I want to open, or I can hover over the pidgin icon and scroll and it'll open each window accordingly that belongs to that program.

Same with Cairo-Dock ;-)
you can have the icon of your contacts automatically grouped into a subdock, this is just an option in the Taskbar.
You can also scroll on an icon to do like an ALT+Tab on the windows of the same application ;-)

[Johnsie]

Windows 7 has the best dock/panel IMI

[Roasted]

Same with Cairo-Dock ;-)
you can have the icon of your contacts automatically grouped into a subdock, this is just an option in the Taskbar.
You can also scroll on an icon to do like an ALT+Tab on the windows of the same application ;-)

Yeah, but one thing that pissed me off about Cairo dock was it wouldn't allow me to change the icons for the IMs. It kept the buddy icon for each IM that the user had set up. I wanted them to be all the green circle so I knew, ahh, an IM! etc. I liked cairo, but I felt like docky just had a more sensible layout for what I want.

[Roasted]

Windows 7 has the best dock/panel IMI

lol?

[cespinal]

Full fidelity for Cairo! have been using it since I started with ubuntu...

[fabounet]

it wouldn't allow me to change the icons for the IMs
of course it would allow you ;-)

there is an option in the Taskbar module : "overwrite X icons"
with this, you'll get the same icon as the launcher (or as the current theme if you don't have a launcher)

And this option is in the Help module :-)

[Roasted]

of course it would allow you ;-)

there is an option in the Taskbar module : "overwrite X icons"
with this, you'll get the same icon as the launcher (or as the current theme if you don't have a launcher)

And this option is in the Help module :-)

Ha, I'm too hooked on Docky. I like Cairo a lot but I find Docky to be comparable to the elegance of AWN, but AWN I couldn't get to adjust properly on my dual monitor setup at home. Docky is just a quick switch and I can flop it back and forth to whatever monitor I got.

Thank you, Linux and all open source applications associated with it, for being so damn amazing.

[MaxIBoy]

If you disable all animations, "gadgets," window switching, or anything besides the launchers, cairo-dock makes a damn good panel.

122556
(http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=122556&d=1248660401)

[Roasted]

If you disable all animations, "gadgets," window switching, or anything besides the launchers, cairo-dock makes a damn good panel.

122556
(http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=122556&d=1248660401)

The beauty of OSS. The power of choice. Options. And damn good options at that.

[Roasted]

So I've been playing with more docks more and more, and it's true what people are saying as a general consensus. Docky is very simple, but it works... Cairo has a ton of options which may drive some users insane who just want a basic functioning dock... and AWN is just.. whatever... I didn't use it since I'm not going to use a dock stuck on my secondary monitor.

I'm trying to configure a few options in Cairo and I'm not sure where to change them at. Currently my IMs are grouped together within Pidgin. Is there a way they can span out as additional icons within the dock?

Also when I hover over icons, there's a weird sparkly dust crap thing effect that goes on. How can I disable that? All effects under animated icons - effect when hovering over icons is disabled... so I'm not sure where else I'd make that change.

And lastly, how can I adjust it so the dock is always on top, but the windows I have open still use 100% of the screen? I have a bar of unused space at the bottom cause the windows won't come down over the dock.

[fabounet]

Is there a way they can span out as additional icons within the dock?
sure, i nthe Taskbar module, you have all the options you need for the taskbar.
here, disabling the "group windows by class" will avoid grouping icons of a same application in a subdock.
If you want this feature but not for Pidgin, you can add "pidgin" in the list of exceptions.

If you want the icons of Pidgin to be all identical to the launcher, you can enable the option "overwrite X icons".


there's a weird sparkly dust crap thing effect
well I think it's the "storm" effect, in the Icon-Effect module.
so just enter this module, and uncheck this in the first option of the first page.


how can I adjust it so the dock is always on top
in the Accessibility module, you configure the way you access to your docks. There, disable the option "reserve space for the dock".
If the Window Manager don't keep the dock above other windows (it is rare, most of WM will do that), you can force it by launching cairo-dock --keep-above.

[Roasted]

I didn't have to do anything special to force cairo dock before, it just worked before. Not sure why it's not now. *shrug*

I think I may stick with Docky. Cairo Dock is fun but it's too hit or miss with how it works. I've installed it on 3 computers and gotten very mixed results.

Docky just kind of.. works. Cairo is real nice, don't get me wrong, but it's at the point I'm growing tired of tinkering with new flashy crap and just need it to run to get back to my work. :P

I'm going to tinker with it more on my spare machine at home whenever I get time and see where that goes.

[fabounet]

All the options to access your dock are in the Accessibility page.
Depending on the theme you choose at first, you may have different behavior, but anyway there are few options about how the dock will appear (behind windows, reserving space, auto-hide, that's all, all in the same place :) ).

[NuclearStr1der]

Although I made my own theme from scratch - it's just easier to get the look you want, although it does take a couple minutes.