ObjectDock freeware beta
Monday, November 18, 2002 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Stardock has had ObjectDock floating around internally for a long while. But with the recent releases of a host of "dock" programs we figured it was time to go ahead and let people give it a try.ObjectDock is a task manager / program launcher that does it with style. It was created to test out new Object Desktop technologies for seeing what could and couldn't be done reasonably on Windows 2000/XP. It's inspired by the dock on MacOS X (which is one of the reasons why we've never made it available previously and why it's freeware).
Feel free to post news on this elsewhere. This isn't a "product", it's more of a technology demo that we've made freely available. Make sure you read the page carefully.
tinkergaloot
Reply #2 Monday, November 18, 2002 8:05 PM
Reply #2 Monday, November 18, 2002 8:05 PM
Works beautifully here on Win 2K, with the exception that it does make Transitions with WindowsFx extremely unpredictable, to the point where I have them now switched off. I do hope Stardock continue developing this...
tinkergaloot
Reply #3 Monday, November 18, 2002 8:06 PM
Reply #3 Monday, November 18, 2002 8:06 PM
Jafo- great to be in Australia where we often seem to get these goodies first!
nfx
Reply #4 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:00 PM
Reply #4 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:00 PM
i think this is a very nice program. Besides the fact that it uses 25 MB's of ram on my xp system, I see no other problem with it.
Question: how do i get this to dock at the top of the screen?
Question: how do i get this to dock at the top of the screen?
Wet Monkey
Reply #5 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:17 PM
Reply #5 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:17 PM
Works great on my W2K. I'd like to know how you move the X/Y poistion 
Really nice app with tons of potential.
Really nice app with tons of potential.
DarkFlame178
Reply #6 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:36 PM
Reply #6 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:36 PM
This has been so far the smoothest dock app I've used on my machine, even with the GDI engine, plus not to mention the fact that it's one of the best-looking!
I can't wait for an update!
Keep up the good work there!
I can't wait for an update!
Keep up the good work there!
Garoo
Reply #7 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:42 PM
Reply #7 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:42 PM
This is great. Amazing. I'm in love Thank you so much for finally releasing it
Thank you so much for finally releasing it
DixonHill
Reply #8 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:44 PM
Reply #8 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:44 PM
Excellent program... the graphics rendering is fabulous. It would be nice to see two things:
1) Theming - since the icon configuration actually uses ICO files, it would probably be easy to make theming options using IconPackager files, with the matching config file, and allow switching between icon sets.
2) Enable/Disable the "always on top" feature - it's great working just like a mac, but for Windows apps that are not designed well enough to accomodate devations from standard UI features, it throws a few things off. For instance, some apps like to start full-screen no matter what, and with my taskbar set to be at the top of the screen, with an OS X theme applied, some programs have their title bar hidden behind the taskbar, and their entire lower section hidden behind the dock. I can make the taskbar auto-hide, but I can't auto-hide the dock, or keep it from being over top of the window.
1) Theming - since the icon configuration actually uses ICO files, it would probably be easy to make theming options using IconPackager files, with the matching config file, and allow switching between icon sets.
2) Enable/Disable the "always on top" feature - it's great working just like a mac, but for Windows apps that are not designed well enough to accomodate devations from standard UI features, it throws a few things off. For instance, some apps like to start full-screen no matter what, and with my taskbar set to be at the top of the screen, with an OS X theme applied, some programs have their title bar hidden behind the taskbar, and their entire lower section hidden behind the dock. I can make the taskbar auto-hide, but I can't auto-hide the dock, or keep it from being over top of the window.
dan.wright
Reply #9 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:47 PM
Reply #9 Monday, November 18, 2002 9:47 PM
Excellent stuff as always all, thanks for this nice little app.
ChrisNYC
Reply #10 Monday, November 18, 2002 10:27 PM
Reply #10 Monday, November 18, 2002 10:27 PM
This ROCKS! I've been waiting for this for a while now I heard rumors about it. I hope you guys keep working on it. 
I heard rumors about it. I hope you guys keep working on it. 
Jafo
Reply #11 Monday, November 18, 2002 10:59 PM
Reply #11 Monday, November 18, 2002 10:59 PM
Ah...painless to install and painless to run.
Ticks over at 12meg of ram and 0% CPU....frantic mouse-overs get that to over 80% but instantly back to 0 at rest.
LiteSTEP in XP doesn't appear to have any qualms about it at all....recycling still works, no crashes or shell-loss.
My only 'odd bit' is the grey background to the static icon bar....doesn't enlarge vertically to include the magnified icons, but extends laterally to suit them.
This is 'slightly' transparent, partly showing the wall, etc, but would be ideal if 'invisible'.
This could just be some odd setting in Exploder [the shell I don't use]....
Ticks over at 12meg of ram and 0% CPU....frantic mouse-overs get that to over 80% but instantly back to 0 at rest.
LiteSTEP in XP doesn't appear to have any qualms about it at all....recycling still works, no crashes or shell-loss.
My only 'odd bit' is the grey background to the static icon bar....doesn't enlarge vertically to include the magnified icons, but extends laterally to suit them.
This is 'slightly' transparent, partly showing the wall, etc, but would be ideal if 'invisible'.
This could just be some odd setting in Exploder [the shell I don't use]....
Aleatoric
Reply #12 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:11 AM
Reply #12 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:11 AM
Nicely done! Very responsive, much better than any of the others I've tried.
Thanks for letting this out
)
Thanks for letting this out
)
Jafo
Reply #13 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:30 AM
Reply #13 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 12:30 AM
Ah..found a problem...It's not aware of the LS VWMs....remains visible, but non-functional in other desktops...
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Reply #1 Monday, November 18, 2002 7:48 PM
Jafo rushes off to kill LiteSTEP with it....[or not]...