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.
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dukeofchutney
Reply #22 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 3:37 PM
Reply #22 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 3:37 PM
Very nice, curry and rice - lap it up in chunks! 
The Custom Engine works a treat on my old 400Mhz, 192MEG RAM, 8MEG Graphics, steam-driven clunker.
The Custom Engine works a treat on my old 400Mhz, 192MEG RAM, 8MEG Graphics, steam-driven clunker.
Chef Garry
Reply #24 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 4:43 PM
Reply #24 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 4:43 PM
I didn't think I was going to find a use for this but it is wayyy cool!
GUI freak
Reply #25 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 5:46 PM
Reply #25 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 5:46 PM
if only it could work on win98.I know that that it needs the alpha blending sh*t but still, would there be a 9x version in the future?
kwyjibo
Reply #26 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 7:01 PM
Reply #26 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 7:01 PM
You don't need me to say it, but I can sleep better at night knowing I've voiced my ideas. So! A few feature requests:
-The mouseover text in the real OSX dock kind of 'falls' behind the dock when focus is lost.
-Custom mouseover fonts
-Custom dock background
-Dock to any edge
-Skinnable context/right-click menus for dock items
-Recycle Bin context menu, with option to empty without having to Explore the bin...
-Custom text shadow direction (X,Y)
-Custom dock transparency
-Autohide
I put a bunch of icon's i've collected in the dock's folder. Naturally, these are high quality, and can be large (120K per icon). If I have a couple hundred of them, things get very slow. It takes a good couple of minutes on my P3-500 to bring up the list of icons when changing one. After I've changed a couple, it slows to a crawl, until I exit OD. Possible memory leak...
On a lighter note, I love it! Thanks a lot.
-The mouseover text in the real OSX dock kind of 'falls' behind the dock when focus is lost.
-Custom mouseover fonts
-Custom dock background
-Dock to any edge
-Skinnable context/right-click menus for dock items
-Recycle Bin context menu, with option to empty without having to Explore the bin...
-Custom text shadow direction (X,Y)
-Custom dock transparency
-Autohide
I put a bunch of icon's i've collected in the dock's folder. Naturally, these are high quality, and can be large (120K per icon). If I have a couple hundred of them, things get very slow. It takes a good couple of minutes on my P3-500 to bring up the list of icons when changing one. After I've changed a couple, it slows to a crawl, until I exit OD. Possible memory leak...
On a lighter note, I love it! Thanks a lot.
SilverSurfer2k2
Reply #27 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:08 PM
Reply #27 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:08 PM
This is wayyyyy kool. Now, make it better!!! 
Colorado 33
Reply #28 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:25 PM
Reply #28 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:25 PM
Now make it available for win98 as well and you got a winner!
feline
Reply #29 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:58 AM
Reply #29 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:58 AM
this isn't going to replace my beloved ObjectBar, but it is Seriously cool and impressive!
Garoo
Reply #30 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:17 AM
Reply #30 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:17 AM
One thing would be great: having ObjectDock respond to Alt-Tab.
Feels weird to see all the beautiful icons down there, and then when I want to use Alt-Tab I have the old ugly ones again, so I have to memorize two icons for each running program
Feels weird to see all the beautiful icons down there, and then when I want to use Alt-Tab I have the old ugly ones again, so I have to memorize two icons for each running program
JMB1984
Reply #31 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:35 AM
Reply #31 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 9:35 AM
Hey I'm glad the dock is working great for all of you New release coming out hopefully today with some nice improvments.
hehe feline: I don't want it to replace your beloved ObjectBar! Actually, I hope to be able to have ObjectDock use ObjectBar for its menuing system at some point.
Garoo: Interesting idea... I wonder how ObjectDock taking over alt-tab would look. Hmmmm.....
New release coming out hopefully today with some nice improvments.hehe feline: I don't want it to replace your beloved ObjectBar! Actually, I hope to be able to have ObjectDock use ObjectBar for its menuing system at some point.
Garoo: Interesting idea... I wonder how ObjectDock taking over alt-tab would look. Hmmmm.....
DixonHill
Reply #32 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:33 AM
Reply #32 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:33 AM
Well, while everyone's in the mode of making suggestions, since it seems we're all falling in love with ObjectDock... here's a couple:
1) How about task grouping? If xx number of windows of same app are open at once, group them under one icon, with a little arrow to expand by way of a pop-up menu.
2) If too many windows are open, the dock sometimes sizes itself beyond the edges of the screen. Perhaps the dock could automatically shrink if too many icons are added. Though, task/app grouping might help take care of that problem.
3) Perhaps the "grouping" concept would also allow for grouping apps not just active tasks. That way, I could have an "MS Office" icon or something, with 4 or 5 apps available from the popup menu. This could also allow for pop-up access to the start menu, or tray items.
Just my 2 cents...
1) How about task grouping? If xx number of windows of same app are open at once, group them under one icon, with a little arrow to expand by way of a pop-up menu.
2) If too many windows are open, the dock sometimes sizes itself beyond the edges of the screen. Perhaps the dock could automatically shrink if too many icons are added. Though, task/app grouping might help take care of that problem.
3) Perhaps the "grouping" concept would also allow for grouping apps not just active tasks. That way, I could have an "MS Office" icon or something, with 4 or 5 apps available from the popup menu. This could also allow for pop-up access to the start menu, or tray items.
Just my 2 cents...
DixonHill
Reply #33 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:44 AM
Reply #33 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 10:44 AM
Sorry to do two posts in a row like this, but in regards to loupy's comment about the custom icons being around 120K or so... I don't know if the performance will be the same on every machine, but I've made a bunch of PNG files that keeps the size low, and the speed is excellent. I have a 1.2GHz and a Radeon 3500 so that probably boosts the graphics performance, but just the same, the PNG's work very well, and my largest one is only 34K.
The easiest way I've found to do it is to open a favorite XP-style icon in GIF Movie Gear, and export the largest frame as a Photoshop file. Open in Photoshop, resize the image if necessary, and save as a PNG file. As long as it's the size of your zoom setting, you'll get a pretty high-res image, even when it scales it down.
The easiest way I've found to do it is to open a favorite XP-style icon in GIF Movie Gear, and export the largest frame as a Photoshop file. Open in Photoshop, resize the image if necessary, and save as a PNG file. As long as it's the size of your zoom setting, you'll get a pretty high-res image, even when it scales it down.
werewolf
Reply #34 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:49 AM
Reply #34 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 11:49 AM
JMB1984: How will the updates be handled? At www.objectdock.com? or CM or how?
RoodVargas
Reply #35 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:18 PM
Reply #35 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:18 PM
Looks like starduck is keeping out windows 9x,everything is now xp/Win 2000
Surj
Reply #36 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:22 PM
Reply #36 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:22 PM
>>Looks like starduck is keeping out windows 9x,everything is now xp/Win 2000 <<
perhaps thats because 9x doesnt support any of the kew effects. Upgrade your OS
perhaps thats because 9x doesnt support any of the kew effects. Upgrade your OS
Carlitus
Reply #37 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:35 PM
Reply #37 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 1:35 PM
i can resist to post this screenshot (of OjectDock):
http://www.carlitus.net/public/noiaobjdock.jpg
My first 128x128 icons in a OSX like dock under WinXP!
http://www.carlitus.net/public/noiaobjdock.jpg
My first 128x128 icons in a OSX like dock under WinXP!
DixonHill
Reply #39 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 2:40 PM
Reply #39 Wednesday, November 20, 2002 2:40 PM
we really need a full-out ObjectDock discussion forum.
Now that beta 0.51 is out... it's great to see that some of our suggestions have been implemented, specifically the label font, and some options for how the magnification is handled.
Keep up the great work, Stardock.... maybe we'll see an objectdock newgroup soon
Now that beta 0.51 is out... it's great to see that some of our suggestions have been implemented, specifically the label font, and some options for how the magnification is handled.
Keep up the great work, Stardock.... maybe we'll see an objectdock newgroup soon
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Reply #21 Tuesday, November 19, 2002 3:27 PM
the object bar can have the systray and probably startmenu