Docks.. a dumb question?

[oxf]

OK here's my dumb question of the day.

What at the advantages of having a dock and why might I want to use one?.

How does it differ from having the various fast links/icon etc in the bottom panel?

I've never bothered even thinking about one until now.

Katya

[howefield]

Aesthetics mainly, I don't think there is a functional or practical reason that would make you'd want one. Just personal choice, you want a dock or you don't want a dock. ;-)

[V for Vincent]

I like how they treat application launchers and running applications the same way. Also, with docky at least, you can easily access applications that are on a different workspace, but they still don't get in the way in the way they would on a normal panel. For me, it's mostly the combination with workspaces that makes a dock worth using.

[Sijmen]

Docky is my application palate. Every application I use is on there. I don't have to go to the application menu, I just move the cursor to the right and there are my applications. I haven't found a faster way to start applications.

[Frogs Hair]

I never liked shortcuts on the panel or on the desktop . I have not used a dock since Unity became default . For me a dock is quicker than scrolling down a menu .

[whatthefunk]

For me, I like to have a lot of application icons because I use a lot of different applications. If I put them on the desktop, then I cant access them without minimizing the open applications, which is a pain in the ***. If I have them on my panel, they take up a lot of space and are really small. I go with a sort of weird dock setup...I have a standard panel on the bottom and then a dock on the top. The dock hides behind applications but comes on top if I put my mouse in the top right corner. This allows me to have a lot of application icons easily accessible. Attached a screenshot.

[BlinkinCat]

For me, I like to have a lot of application icons because I use a lot of different applications. If I put them on the desktop, then I cant access them without minimizing the open applications, which is a pain in the ***. If I have them on my panel, they take up a lot of space and are really small. I go with a sort of weird dock setup...I have a standard panel on the bottom and then a dock on the top. The dock hides behind applications but comes on top if I put my mouse in the top right corner. This allows me to have a lot of application icons easily accessible. Attached a screenshot.

Cool Desktop - :)

[BrokenKingpin]

I like the fact that you can have the shortcut turn into the tasks after launching them... keeps the task bar nice and clean. I personally like having that doc functionality in the standard panel though, like DockBarX and the old Gnome2 panel.

I just need to find an applet that does this for the Xfce panel (without the Xfapplet).

[Copper Bezel]

Some docks include other actions related to a particular application (recent items, close all windows, etc., along with window management features for individual windows like close and minimize / restore.) I don't find them very useful for application switching, but that's a matter of preference. Ideally, it's a way of keeping everything related to a particular app in one place.

[vpharry]

I used to use cairo dock before 11.04 but guess unity has solved the problem :D

[benpack101]

I've done the opposite and I've started using Cairo dock with the introduction of Gnome 3. I have been using it as my desktop environment so I've saved some screen space. I'm also only one click away from the majority of programs I use on a general basis. The customization also rocks!

Happy New Year everyone!

[Hells_Dark]

Very visual, useful and pretty.

[KdotJ]

I was obsessed with docks when I first started using Ubuntu, and then I stopped with I moved to KDE and then onto Gnome3/Shell. I've just started with Unity, so I'm kind of sorted for a dock. But they are so helpful... I love the whole combined launcher/running apps thing

[neu5eeCh]

I've done the opposite and I've started using Cairo dock with the introduction of Gnome 3. I have been using it as my desktop environment so I've saved some screen space. I'm also only one click away from the majority of programs I use on a general basis. The customization also rocks!

Happy New Year everyone!

Here too. Docks are the best in my opinion. I use a Cairo Dock Session on my larger laptop. The dock is on the right and the rest of the real estate is free! I have no need for panels. As others have said, you can then use the launchers as shortcuts, to close or open windows, and app switchers. A dock does everything I need.

On my smaller laptop I use AWN with Xubuntu. I auto hide the panel and use AWN for everything. The desktop looks pretty much identical to the Cairo Session in Ubuntu 11.10.

I just don't see the use for Panels except to take up precious horizontal real estate. Unity accomplishes the same thing since the panel doubles as a menu bar, but I don't use it because of Shuttleworth's refusal to offer (even as an option) a simple drop down menu as part of the launcher. Do that, and I'm fully on board with Unity. Without it, I can accomplish the same thing with Cairo or AWN. They both offer the old fashioned drop down menus - making it much easier to fish for software I don't keep on the dock.

[Copper Bezel]

I was obsessed with docks when I first started using Ubuntu, and then I stopped with I moved to KDE and then onto Gnome3/Shell. I've just started with Unity, so I'm kind of sorted for a dock. But they are so helpful... I love the whole combined launcher/running apps thing

Yeah, I've used docks of some kind since 8.10 or so and was pretty attached to DockBarX from 10.04 or 10.10. I think Unity is heading in a good direction (similar to DockBarX) where the dock icons become all-purpose widgets for controlling all kinds of things about particular app and displaying information about its status, through badges, quicklists, etc. It's definitely moved beyond just a combined launcher and taskbar. Tying Alt+Tab into the dock visually is a nice touch as well.

That said, I found I was using DockBarX mostly for launching windows and restoring minimized ones, closing windows, or accessing quick list items. The window spread with Compiz Scale (via hotcorner) was simpler for window selection. Since moving to Gnome Shell, I've really liked having all of the window management moved to the "content area" of the screen, which leaves just launching to the Favorites bar. (But that, of course, doesn't offer information about application status, or quicklists without an extension; and by default, the Favorites bar itself has just enough app-switching functionality to get in the way.)



I just don't see the use for Panels except to take up precious horizontal real estate.
And hold indicators. Mostly they take up space, but they also hold indicators. = ) I've had everything on one hidden AWN dock before, including the indicators, and it's not a bad arrangement at all. I really think of the Gnome 3 panel as pure flair.

[neu5eeCh]

And hold indicators. Mostly they take up space, but they also hold indicators. = ) I've had everything on one hidden AWN dock before, including the indicators, and it's not a bad arrangement at all. I really think of the Gnome 3 panel as pure flair.

I have the indicators on the AWN panel: Tomboy, Volume, Wireless, and Synapse. An indicator "power user" might not find it sufficient, but it works for me. On the Cairo side, the indicators are a separate little widget that can be hidden behind app windows, etc... As to the Gnome 3 panel, I agree. Pure flair. There is just *so* much wasted pixelage in Gnome3 Shell. I mildly OCD about wasted screen space, so G3 drives me a little crazy.

[gutterslob]

What at the advantages of having a dock .... [..]None whatsoever.



.... and why might I want to use one?They're convenient if you suffer from short term memory loss.

[Copper Bezel]

Well, given you don't use desktop environments, I don't imagine the question was directed at you.



I have the indicators on the AWN panel: Tomboy, Volume, Wireless, and Synapse. An indicator "power user" might not find it sufficient, but it works for me. On the Cairo side, the indicators are a separate little widget that can be hidden behind app windows, etc... As to the Gnome 3 panel, I agree. Pure flair. There is just *so* much wasted pixelage in Gnome3 Shell. I mildly OCD about wasted screen space, so G3 drives me a little crazy.
Yeah, I just don't mind the extra 20px (or 40px counting the title bar) for the sake of a little visual consistency. It's also useful for distinguishing between the top of the working area and the snap zone for maximizing windows in Shell or Compiz.

I definitely agree that four or five indicators should cover things - it's just difficult to make that happen. I like Shell's distinction between built-in system indicators and everything else, and I dislike having unnecessary indicators in the panel for Unity for Glippy and Jupiter, for instance, or ibus. The indicators in the AWN dock are nice (particularly in the stacked, half-size style.) I haven't played with Cario's detached indicator panel, but it sounds like it could become somewhat fiddly - I lost patience with auto-hiding elements springing out all willy-nilly at all corners of my desktop while playing with AWN.

[neu5eeCh]

I lost patience with auto-hiding elements springing out all willy-nilly at all corners of my desktop while playing with AWN.

Me too. I have one dock, right side, end of story; and it doesn't auto hide. I don't like all that willy-nilly springing either.

[hhh]

Well, given you don't use desktop environments, I don't imagine the question was directed at you.
The original post is directed at Ubuntu forum members, it's a question asking for opinions, any forum member has a right to voice their opinion, your implying that only favorable opinions of docks would be interesting to the original poster and, by the way, plenty of people use docks but don't use GNOME or KDE or Xfce or LXDE.

Think before you post.

[Copper Bezel]

Well, you do have the people using Compiz Standalone with AWN or similar arrangements, yes, and I could have been more specific than to say "desktop environments." What I meant was that, given gutterslob's preference for as little graphical kitsch as possible, I could only interpret his post as sarcasm, because he's not objecting to the dock specifically.


What at the advantages of having a dock and why might I want to use one?

How does it differ from having the various fast links/icon etc in the bottom panel?

[gutterslob]

How does it differ from having the various fast links/icon etc in the bottom panel? In my experience, provided you use the right panel, there's no difference in that department either.

I've had tint2 set with launchers, task selection, systrays and time. Only thing it didn't have over a "typical" dock at the time was a clickable workspace switcher (it did display which workspace you were on, though), which could be remedied by just creating icons for the various workspaces and setting them in the launcher section. You could even create icons to launch scripts that called weather info, system stats (conky), feeds and whatever. Used like a tenth of the memory, but probably does require more work than most people are willing to put in.

But yes, I was just being a sarcastic-a**hole in general. Docks are like Harleys in a supermoto track. They might be fast in their owner's opinion, but they're still much slower than whats around them, and they make all the wrong noises. Btw, this comes from a long time OSX user (required for Corel Painter at work) who refuses to use the included dock as much as possible (heck, I replaced Apple's Aqua UI with Xmonad, but that's a different story), so please save the "but Apple includes docks by default and everyone praises their workflow, blah-blah" speech :P

[DS McGuire]

Unity bascially solved this for me and I have to say I think it's a pretty good one :D. I don't need any other docks because of it.

[neu5eeCh]

In my experience, provided you use the right panel, there's no difference in that department either.

In my experience, provided you use the right dock, there's a big difference in that department. Docks make panels redundant, and are designed to offer more functionality in a smaller and more economical space.:popcorn: