OD+ Requests, Bugs and Questions
Thursday, January 27, 2005 by Stakk3r | Discussion: ObjectDock
Hey people,
First of all, thanks for this great piece of software! Object Dock Plus has actually managed to replace the standard taskbar in my laptop permanently in heavy-duty daily work use. It's the first one of its kind that has managed to do it after years of toying with different apps. This is because it's really well integrated into Windows and, well, actually works quite reliably and quickly
So I'm reasonably happy, but there are some things that still bug me. Here I go:
Requests:
- Drag & dropping files onto app icons (both taskbar and shortcuts). The Windows taskbar behaviour (hovering over an icon will spring open the app, letting you drop the file there) would be nice, but even better would be if you could drop the file onto the icon directly without waiting for the app window to open first. (The Mac way.)
- It would also be nice to be able to drop trash into the recycle bin when the icons are locked.
- Would make things a lot easier if Explorer folder icons in the taskbar looked like their respective customized icons look in Explorer.
- Would be nice to be able to arrange the icons in taskbar in certain ways. For example, folders always on the left or right side. Also, perhaps you could allow the manual re-arranging of taskbar icons even when icons are locked? Or even that you could set a position for each dock entry that would be automatically applied (left, middle, right or something). I hate how the icons are always a mess... I'd like to always find my browser on the left had side etc.
- Perhaps there could be a secondary way of showing the active icon under the mouse if you're not using magnifying? Like making the active icon brighter or animate it somehow. It is a bit hard to see which icon you're pointing at right now if you drag the mouse all the way to the edge of the screen (as I'm sure everybody usually does).
- It would be nice if you could set a maximum amount of letters to be shown in the active icon title. Especially browsers tend to have texts that sometimes span across the entire screen
- Would also be nice to be able to show both task and tray icons in one dock. Tray icons could be smaller and in multiple rows (a grid).
- I really miss the feature of being able to hide selected icons in the standard XP tray. It's nearly the best feature in XP
- When using a Wacom pen, it is hard to click just a one pixel area. (When you lift the pen, usually it moves a bit.) This makes it a bit hard to click icons, because if you move the pointer after mouse down, the icon is deactivated. Would it be possible to make it so that the icon would stay "pressed down" for as long as you hold mouse down even if the pointer moves? (This while icons are locked of course.)
Bugs: (Running OD 1.1.510u Plus on Windows XP SP2)
- The "running" indicators do not work at all. Never have.
- Sometimes when shutting down Windows, OD crashes and after that Explorer. It might have something to do with having open apps and/or folders. (I'll let you know if I can reliably reproduce it.)
Questions:
- Are you thinking about making OD a full shell replacement? I haven't tried, but I guess it might already work pretty well. Why have Explorer and the taskbar hidden in the background, eating resources, if they're not needed at all.
- I'm sure I had other questions but can't think of any right now
Well, I think that's enough for one post.. Cheers!
Stakker
First of all, thanks for this great piece of software! Object Dock Plus has actually managed to replace the standard taskbar in my laptop permanently in heavy-duty daily work use. It's the first one of its kind that has managed to do it after years of toying with different apps. This is because it's really well integrated into Windows and, well, actually works quite reliably and quickly
So I'm reasonably happy, but there are some things that still bug me. Here I go:
Requests:
- Drag & dropping files onto app icons (both taskbar and shortcuts). The Windows taskbar behaviour (hovering over an icon will spring open the app, letting you drop the file there) would be nice, but even better would be if you could drop the file onto the icon directly without waiting for the app window to open first. (The Mac way.)
- It would also be nice to be able to drop trash into the recycle bin when the icons are locked.
- Would make things a lot easier if Explorer folder icons in the taskbar looked like their respective customized icons look in Explorer.
- Would be nice to be able to arrange the icons in taskbar in certain ways. For example, folders always on the left or right side. Also, perhaps you could allow the manual re-arranging of taskbar icons even when icons are locked? Or even that you could set a position for each dock entry that would be automatically applied (left, middle, right or something). I hate how the icons are always a mess... I'd like to always find my browser on the left had side etc.
- Perhaps there could be a secondary way of showing the active icon under the mouse if you're not using magnifying? Like making the active icon brighter or animate it somehow. It is a bit hard to see which icon you're pointing at right now if you drag the mouse all the way to the edge of the screen (as I'm sure everybody usually does).
- It would be nice if you could set a maximum amount of letters to be shown in the active icon title. Especially browsers tend to have texts that sometimes span across the entire screen
- Would also be nice to be able to show both task and tray icons in one dock. Tray icons could be smaller and in multiple rows (a grid).
- I really miss the feature of being able to hide selected icons in the standard XP tray. It's nearly the best feature in XP
- When using a Wacom pen, it is hard to click just a one pixel area. (When you lift the pen, usually it moves a bit.) This makes it a bit hard to click icons, because if you move the pointer after mouse down, the icon is deactivated. Would it be possible to make it so that the icon would stay "pressed down" for as long as you hold mouse down even if the pointer moves? (This while icons are locked of course.)
Bugs: (Running OD 1.1.510u Plus on Windows XP SP2)
- The "running" indicators do not work at all. Never have.
- Sometimes when shutting down Windows, OD crashes and after that Explorer. It might have something to do with having open apps and/or folders. (I'll let you know if I can reliably reproduce it.)
Questions:
- Are you thinking about making OD a full shell replacement? I haven't tried, but I guess it might already work pretty well. Why have Explorer and the taskbar hidden in the background, eating resources, if they're not needed at all.
- I'm sure I had other questions but can't think of any right now
Well, I think that's enough for one post.. Cheers!
Stakker
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Reply #1 Tuesday, February 1, 2005 11:44 AM
Otherwise it's pretty good.