KDE Dock Development

[Thales Oliveira]

Hello, I am working on a Dock Project for KDE, and I'm opening this thread here so as you could give your opinion about Dock's in general, what do you like or not about it, what you would like to see in a dock, and etc, especially if you use/like KDE this is a great opportunity for you to give a wish-list.

Thanks

[NightwishFan]

Hey, awesome! I hope the project works out for you. Will it be just QT or reliant on KDE libs?

[Thales Oliveira]

Hey, awesome! I hope the project works out for you. Will it be just QT or reliant on KDE libs?

Reliant, in fact this is going to be a Plasmoid/Panel, so as it can integrates well with KDE/Plasma, I am talking to the developer of Daisy to see first if I'm going to work with him on Daisy or if I start a new project, but feel free to give ideas anyway, the main goal is to make the best dock out there for KDE, we(KDE users) really need a KDE integrate and "good" Dock.

[kaldor]

If you can manage to make the dock work exactly like it does on OS X, I am definitely all for it.

[Thales Oliveira]

If you can manage to make the dock work exactly like it does on OS X, I am definitely all for it.

I rarely use the OS X dock, could you be more specific and list what you like on it?

Thank you

[ryanwolf74]

I know this thread might be old, but I want a dock that works like Docky for KDE.

[Thales Oliveira]

I know this thread might be old, but I want a dock that works like Docky for KDE.

I'm still working on that ^^ I've been working on some mockups trying to find the best usability for a dock in a desktop environment (in this case KDE). I'm also looking for the best tools for developing it.

What does Docky do that pleases you?

[Linuxratty]

I want a eye popping dock. Here are my suggestions.
I used the Gimp and my experience with docks plus Gimp have not been pretty. I'll have sometimes as many as 10 windows in the Gimp on my task bar, in a nice orderly stack.Each time I reached down to select a window to work in,the dock pops up and gets in my way...So I never use docks.

Now,if you could set up the areas to the left and right of the dock so people using the Gimp,as an example,can do their thing without the dock opening. Hiding the dock on some desktops,but not on others is also something that would be nice,since I'm often jumping from the Gimp desktop to the FF desktop and sometimes dragging windows in between the 2 desktops.

Basically,I'd like there to be two types of docks,a flashy,cool one with Tux as the start/close down button ...And a steam punk version with a brass,antique looking 3d Tux as the on/off button.

[christoph411]

I'm glad somebody is finally working on a dock/launcher again for KDE! I'm a unity user, but I really like many aspects of KDE, but unfortunately I kinda hate the default KDE taskbar (I feel like I'm stuck in Windows XP! :D ) so that kinda keeps me from using it full time.

Anyway, I think it would be cool if this dock you were working on looked like docky/Mac OS X dock, but maybe somehow a Windows 7 looking mode could be incorporated. There used to be a plasmoid that made the KDE taskbar work like the Windows 7 "superbar" (it's called smooth tasks; link here http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/Smooth+Tasks?content=101586 ) but unfortunately smooth tasks hasn't been updated in about a year... so it's pretty much dead.

Plus, smooth tasks never supported pinning a launcher, so it was really never a dock. Just in case your not familiar with the Windows 7 superbar, the first picture I attached is of it. The second picture I attached is of the smooth tasks plasmoid for KDE.

From the sounds of it, I think you were thinking about a more traditional Mac OS X like dock, but I just included my idea for the sake of diversity anyway. Just an idea. :popcorn:

[FlameReaper]

Well, by all means please do! Right now I tried to install the Daisy plasmoid just so I don't have to load Docky everytime I log in into KDE, but somehow I don't have the required dependencies because it's not installable. Probably something to do with my upgrades to KDE up to version 4.7 now...

[luisfpg]

I really like Unity launcher, and I think it is a VERY nice example of a good dock. Some features I like:

Launchers are kept in a fixed position (like win7 or dockbarX)
There are direct shortcuts for pinned / running applications
The progress bar and count badges are really neat
BAMF is quite good (better than KDE's mechanism) to find out which .desktop from running applications. That's what is used for keeping the same application under the same launcher. It has Qt bindings as well.

Things I dislike in Unity:

No way to minimize an application group
No window previews (clicking a group toggles an exposè effect. KDE taskbar's window previews for grouped windows works much better

A dock that also implements most of Unity's launcher is DockBarX (see http://www.webupd8.org/2011/09/dockbarx-047-released-with-themeable.html). It would be perfect to have a clone of it as a plasmoid, as DockBarX does feel an alien in KDE workspace...
If you manage to implement something like that, I'll be your fan :popcorn:

[BrokenKingpin]

I would like to see a dock like task manager that is just a panel add-on like DockBarX or Talika.

There is SmoothTasks, but there is no option for pinning applications. Basically I am looking for Win 7 Superbar functionality integrated into the existing panel.

The nice thing about just doing it as a panel add-on is that you don't have to worry about creating add-ons for the dock to accomplish what the KDE panel already does (applications menu, notification area, etc.).

Good luck with your project.

[luisfpg]

Yes, having a DockBarX port to a plasmoid would be very nice!
I'm even using the dockx standalone dock in KDE right now: Screenshot 1 (http://mediacdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/147/543/original.jpg),
Screenshot 2 (http://mediacdn.disqus.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/147/3035/original.jpg)

[dniMretsaM]

Personally, I don't use a dock. I simply have a KDE panel with my main apps. However, KDE panels don't have the ability to "window dodge" which, in my opinion, is very handy. Especially if you have a smaller screen like mine. So if you can make a cool dock with the window dodge feature, I might use it.

[labatts]

For what its worth, my two cents:

I like Docky because it is simple, yet elegant. AWN and Cairo are overly complicated for me. They can clearly do cool things, but I really don't have the time or patients to try and figure it out.

So... keep it simple, I guess =)

[luisfpg]

Found this one: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Icon+Tasks?content=144808
It's exactly what I wanted: an Unity launcher in KDE!