ObjectDock Plus arrives on Friday!
Thursday, July 8, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
ObjectDock is a freeware program that gives users the ability to easily manage their tasks and programs in a very slick way. It also supports plugins in the form of "docklets".
But...
Stardock has also been working on ObjectDock PLUS! The plus version features a ton of new features based off of our own use of ObjectDock and feedback from the thousands of ObjectDock users out there. Things that make ObjectDock Plus a very powerful yet simple program for turbo-charging your Windows desktop.
Check out this preview to get an idea of what's coming. ObjectDock Plus should be available in BETA form quite soon. It will cost $19.95 for new users or $14.95 for current Object Desktop users.
ObjectDock Plus supports multiple docks on the desktop of different styles (tabbed and untabbed)
Tabbed docks can have the system tray in them. Hold down the left mouse button on a system tray item and you can change its image.
Taskbar items can be grouped together like the default Windows taskbar.
Docks can be moved to the edge and then docked where only the tabs show until the mouse goes over them. The size of tabs and docks are controlled from the easy to use configuration dialog.
Example of having multiple tabbed docks with just the tabs showing.
Docks can be set up so that they're always on top (such as where the tabs show up on top of windows) or behave like normal windows that show up on top when you move your mouse to a specific position.
The tabs and dock backgrounds are skinnable. Use the ones in there or download more made by others. Change the color to any color you choose.
Organize your work as you like.
ObjectDock Plus supports Stardock fly-out menus (you have to see it in action to appreciate how cool this is). A great way to zip through graphic files drives, etc.
Manage your various docks through the ObjectDock Plus system tray item. Very straight forward to create and modify
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Reply #122 Friday, July 9, 2004 11:27 PM
an easy solution would be to provide varying levels of subscription
basic would be what OD is now $50
Enhanced would be basic + Wincutomize $60 - $65
Power user would be basic + Wincust + objectdock + cursorXP $90 - $100
and finaly Poweruser premium wich would include all apps regardless of when they were created and a automatic 2 year sub, excluding games of course $120 - $150
yes i do stand by that all the apps should be also sold in seperate standalone purchased programs for those that either dont have the money or do not want all the other apps.
But those of us that do wnat them all it jsut makes sence to have a package with them all.
Reply #123 Saturday, July 10, 2004 12:30 AM
An easy solution yes, but marketing suicide.
The more product options you create, the more confusion you create which translates into lost sales.
We learned this the hard way when we had Object Desktop and Object Desktop Professional on OS/2. OD Pro cost $129 while regular OD cost $90. Regular OD never recovered until we discontinued OD Pro.
Reply #124 Saturday, July 10, 2004 9:05 AM
I personally think $15 is a pittance, but it would be nice to see a small discount for OD users. I think that would eliminate the nineteen plan option, you know? Get 10% or something off of new releases. Maybe $5 for OD subscribers, $2.50 for Wincustomize subscribers. If you are using a decent ecommerce backend, you should be able to add in something like that even if initially you had to cue in your own serial # or something...
Just a thought. I plan on buying it to toy around..
Reply #125 Saturday, July 10, 2004 10:37 AM
So the $15 IS for an OD subscriber.I should read before I open my mouth.
Reply #126 Saturday, July 10, 2004 2:03 PM
But anyway, now you can save your "support stardock" speech. Was it a good investment? NO. The TABBED docks look like a completely different program. They are static, square and UGLY. Its like they bundled TabLaunchPad with object dock. This is not a "dock", it has no animation, no nothing. Isn't this supposed to be like the APPLE dock bar? I mean thats the whole point of the program... maybe with added features and what not... but this tabbed dock thing looks like a completely different thing. Looks like something I would've put on my desktop in my Windows 95 days. 
So I dissabled that. What am I left with? Basically the free dock, with the option of putting more than one on the screen, which to me looks visually cheesy anyway. (the whole point of the dock is to eliminate desktop clutter, in my opinion) They should've added integrated sub-menus for the shortcuts... something like the KKMenu program, at least with that I could've justified the expense.Reply #127 Saturday, July 10, 2004 5:04 PM
Reply #128 Saturday, July 10, 2004 11:01 PM
WizKid: Well it sounds like you should have looked at the screenshots or read a little more into it. What exactly were you envisioning? I mean, there are SCREENSHOTS of what it looks like right here in this news item. If you felt those were "ugly" then why did you buy it?
Reply #129 Monday, July 12, 2004 2:30 AM
Reply #130 Monday, July 12, 2004 2:18 PM
Reply #131 Monday, July 12, 2004 4:32 PM
My sentiments exactly. I always thought OD "looked" cool, but it was just eye candy to me. I would play with it for a day or two and then forget about it. It just didn't work the way that I did. However, the enhancements in OD+ have finally made it a useful and productivity enhancing app... that still looks great, of course!
I'm excited by what's around the corner and can't wait for the next release.However, I understand the requests for an evaluation version. If I wasn't already an ObjectDesktop user and didn't have years of experience with and confidence in the Stardock products, I probably wouldn't have bought it. In other words, if you're on the fence about making the purchase... get off and do it already.
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Reply #121 Friday, July 9, 2004 5:23 PM
neophil, what are you talking about? WindowBlinds 4.3 JUST came out a couple months ago. Nothing forces you to view alphas/betas. We are constantly putting out new betas of our software as we move to the next version. But the released level versions aren't exactly old. And SkinStudio 4.3 works fine on Win98 (does here anyway).
BTW, % of Object Desktop users who use WinME/98: < 3%.