First Public Beta Of The Winstep Nexus Dock Released! (free)

[yanquis1972]

woohoo! thanks jc. 2 things i notice, though:

1) leopard dock still doesnt 'reserve screenspace' properly, when i maximize windows. (magnify effect seemed to work fine, tho ive gotten to where i prefer the simple zoom now)

2) re running indicators - they work great, BUT: since many of us here at least are using standalone stack, is it possible to add that (maybe optionally) as an 'exception'? for example right now no less than 13 icons are lit up even though im only running 4 apps.

[JcRabbit]

1 - The problem with reserve screenspace and the Leopard theme has to do with the theme itself: the Leopard dock background image actually extends above the icons, but it is fully transparent so it cannot be seen. I think you will be able to understand this better if you look at the Leopard background image.

2 -Not sure I understand, sorry. Are you saying that some icons are lit even though they belong to applications that are currently NOT running?

[yanquis1972]

no, simply that because standalone stack is always running on any stack, it shows various closed folders as 'running', which kind of pollutes the space & renders it unusable, or at least unattractive to use imo.

so this is what my dock looks like w/ indicators on even though i am running no task other than chrome -- http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4877/capturekgc.png

obv it's not a bug, it'd just be nice to be able to add standalone stack as an exception.

[JcRabbit]

I think it would be silly to create yet another exclusion list (as we have already for tasks, window thumbnails, etc...) for the running indicators. Perhaps in the next version I can add a setting in the Properties Panel of each item to 'Do not show running indicator' or something like that.

[yanquis1972]

yes, that would be nice. as it is i really can't use running indicators because it's just too cluttered & inaccurate to be useful. since a lot of people are using the standalone stack program (or should be if they aren't) i think it'd be worth it to make it possible to disable the indicators underneath those icons.

[Impheatus]

@yanquis1972: Why don't you try using Stacks Docklet instead of Standalone Stack? I don't know if it's compatible with Nexus but you should give it a try.

[mps69]

@yanquis1972: Why don't you try using Stacks Docklet instead of Standalone Stack? I don't know if it's compatible with Nexus but you should give it a try.

Pretty sure the stacks docklet doesn't work with this dock.

[Impheatus]

well, that's a shame as that Docklet is superb and it would work with running indicators.

[yanquis1972]

@yanquis1972: Why don't you try using Stacks Docklet instead of Standalone Stack? I don't know if it's compatible with Nexus but you should give it a try.

i dont know if stacks docklet has been upgraded since i used rocketdock (and the above poster is correct, it isnt compatible w/ nexus anyway), but standalone stack is much better imo, as you can explore w/in the folders, which is a huge plus.

[zexe]

i stumbled upon another issue:

tasks being shown on dock, grouped up

i had 3 pdf's open

right click on the icon that grouped them

noticed the option "close similar" and imagined it would end acrobat task and the 3 windows. instead it killed only one of the 3 pdf files open while also killing nexus dock itself.

[JcRabbit]

Did you get an error message?

[Smaky]

Do you plan to support some kind of stacks functionallity?

[zexe]

Did you get an error message?

sorry, no error, just nexus task vanished from process list.

[aka120]

Hi JcRabbit,

I have tried your free version of Winstep Nexus, and it's pretty interesting. Not quite like the other docks, and has a personality of its own.

All in all, it functions stably, and very responsive to interactions.

However, I find it lacking a feature that most might agree, is very expected(or needed) with a dock's behavior - Minimizing windows to dock.

If you take a look at the Mac OS X dock, this integrated functionality is where all windows are minimized to. Unlike Windows, where the windows are minimized to the taskbar, can become cluttered and an eye sore, much less aggravating to sort through. Now, while it is true that this functionality on Windows would be more geared towards aesthetics(or mimicking MAC), it does serve the purpose of having a visual idea of what minimized window you are looking at, without reading the window's title or opening it.

Usually, the Windows aspect ratio is kept just as you had for it to be on your desktop, but shrunk to an icon size(i.e. 48 pix) in the dock when minimized, with the applications icon(i,e. 16 pix) overlaying the shrunken minimized window icon. Then, there is the minimizing and restoring effects, such as the genie effect, which that is purely eye candy and serves no other purpose.

Hope I was clear in my description.

In no way am I criticizing your work, from the looks of it you have done quite and outstanding job developing Winstep Nexus, and I see you give excellent support as well!

I was just hoping to know if there was any chance that you might decide to implement a minimize windows to dock function in Nexus, which, I would uninstall XWindows Dock and use Nexus from here on out for the Windows platform, not to mention, happily pay for your Xtreme edition of Nexus.

P.S. Sorry if my query has been asked/answered before, I realize your a busy person and I wouldn't want to waste your time!

[JcRabbit]

If I understood correctly, you seem to think that Nexus cannot hold a list of running applications. While it's true that there is no minimize 'Genie' effect, Nexus is perfectly capable of displaying a list of running applications (just like the Windows taskbar) but as thumbnails of the actual windows: simply open Nexus Preferences -> Tasks tab and enable the 'Show Running Applications on this dock' setting.

[edgordil]

I second aka120 and Smaky, I would like these features (the Mac like stacks and minimization), with all this i'd pay as well! I think this two things are the key to complitely make us forget about XWD. I would like to mention that if you can make hiding/appearing of the dock in the ordre of ns instead of 1 second that would be nice.

One quetion, can I disable the "please wait" screen while the dock is starting?

JcRabbit, continue your great job!!! and thanks!

[JcRabbit]

I second aka120 and Smaky, I would like these features (the Mac like stacks and minimization), with all this i'd pay as well! I think this two things are the key to complitely make us forget about XWD.

For Stacks you can use StandaloneStack 2 by ChristianS for now, which works with any dock.

I would like to mention that if you can make hiding/appearing of the dock in the ordre of ns instead of 1 second that would be nice.

Not quite sure if this is what you mean, but if you are talking about the speed at which the dock pops up or hides, you can set by changing the 'Animation Speed' setting in Nexus General Preferences. If you are talking about the response delay between you bumping the screen edge with the mouse pointer and the dock responding, then you can change that using the 'Edge Bump Delay' setting in the same Preferences tab.

One quetion, can I disable the "please wait" screen while the dock is starting?

Nope, sorry.

JcRabbit, continue your great job!!! and thanks!

Thanks! Did you already get the Update Manager prompt to upgrade to Nexus 9.8 public beta 3? There is a MAJOR bug in beta 2 that causes Nexus Preferences to stop responding after 35 days. Sigh. :-(

[zexe]

i have updated it just now, is it just that "major" bug fix?

[JcRabbit]

Essentially, yes. Took August and part of September off to recover from working non-stop for one and a half years. Now I'm back to 'business as usual', so expect to see some serious upgrades soon.

[zexe]

thats very good news.

as a smal comment, i am experiencing weird behaviour while in fullscreen games, with nexus trying to get up in focus, again it may be from the game itself not keeping itself on top of things. also when exiting the game sometimes nexus will go tits up. but its not hapening all the time.

i was thinking about how much people would tend to expect stuff to be exactly like macosx's dock is. for me having the bar down, quick access to my apps, switching to them (i have an icon with internal command to show/hide taskbar and only showing it when i need some stuff from sys tray), and a few gauges for cpu/ram/net/clock is ok.

what i could think of right now is perhaps instead of a "simple running indicator", the hover effect would be a snapshot of the apps' window. not running would get no thumbnail of the window. have 3 windows open, you could get like windows7's twin-thumbs and you could select the desired one. something like that might indeed be both eyecandy and helpful. then again, right now i am trying to get stuff from window7 into the dock, heh. it would rock though cause it would make "show running applications" in the right part of the dock obsolete.

[yanquis1972]

another small but nagging problem ive noticed, when i hover over to magnify the icons i have to wait a full second or so for it to overlap the open windows (i have the 'prevent windows from overlapping the dock' option on). i have the delay set to to as short as possible, if that's the appropriate toggle for this.

[sirsmeghead]

A feature request I would like to ask for is a slider to adjust the vertical-wise location of the indicators for running applications that goes under the icons.

As it is now (at least for me) the indicators is showing up at the exact lower edge of the icon, not below the icon just inside the outer edge of the dock.

Or maybe I'm missing some hidden Advanced preferences for this?

Other than that, it's a damn nice dock-app which has now taken over my previously used XWindowsDock

Edited September 25, 2009 by DaveLister

[yanquis1972]

an addendum to my last post -- ignore it.

for some reason it seems to be working smoothly now. not sure what the issue was.

[JcRabbit]

another small but nagging problem ive noticed, when i hover over to magnify the icons i have to wait a full second or so for it to overlap the open windows (i have the 'prevent windows from overlapping the dock' option on). i have the delay set to to as short as possible, if that's the appropriate toggle for this.

I think the problem here has to do with Windows automatically 'paging out' part of the Nexus memory to disk when not in use for an extended period of time. Check your HDD activity LED. I bet that when you immediately mouse over the icons again, the dock this time responds nearly instantaneously, right?

[janie09]

Oh. It looks good. I actually like it better than rocketdock. Will be downloading.

Regards,

Jan

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