RK Launcher 0.3 - FEATURE REQUESTS

Wow - just discovered RK Launcher yesterday (I know, I've been living under a rock) and am mightily impressed - this app looks great! As a long time Mac user and "every now and then" Windows user, I've been looking for a good dock application for a long, long time. Currently, I am trying to get by with Object Dock - but that thing is so ugly, I'd rather ditch it yesterday than tomorrow.

All that being said, I have scribbled down a couple of notes while taking a first peek at RK Launcher, some of which I'd like to share in this post. Please don't take this as a "Your app sucks because it can't do X, Y or Z" comment - but rather as a "Wow, this looks very promising and with a couple more features, this app could very well be the perfect dock to replace Object Dock and the Windows Taskbar".

1 - General Comments:

• It would also be nifty if I could drag & drop files onto an application shortcut to open said file with that app
  
• It would be even better if I could drag & drop a file onto a folder icon to move/copy the file into that folder. The perfect behavior (from my very personal POV) would be the ability to drag a file onto a folder shortcut and, for as a long as I don't "drop" the file yet, a menu opens to show me the contents of that folder so that I can move/copy the file into any subfolder inside that folder as well.
  

2 - Menus, Applications + Misc

3 - Menus, Folders

Just my $0.02 and most importantly - keep up the great work!!

#298147

yep. thanks for makeing very detailed request. very much appreciated. i love the feature to be able to explore folder shortcuts in section 3.

#298222

thanx for the detailed request

the folders will be implemented soon

#298332

@eff: wow. that would be complete and utter greatness

#298339

very very impressed with ur app raduking:)

just some ideas from here:

-for minimise to dock + show new apps, can u put an option to choose where u place them? Id like to put the to the right of the last icon at the end, as opposed to the left.

-also, for minimised windows can u perhaps update the window title every second? this helps when u minimise say a media player, where the title is the song name. If this takes up too much resources, then dont bother:P my computer is too old...probably should geta new one.

Thanks again

#298362

WOOOT!!..

Let me kiss you RAdu... MMwwwahhh

#298366

Very very nice ideas there eff. Number 3 is particularly sweet. 2 is also something I've always been wishing for in a dock

#298374

thank you very much belgrano you're doing a nice job with the list

belgrano (or raduking)...is there a place you can post this list you're working from? I see lots of feature requests from folks that have already been asked for because folks don't want to read through 12 pages of posts. It might also cut down on the bug reports on the nightly builds if folks knew what features were unimplemented, but are on the list to be worked at some point. Just a thought.

#298732

i was thinking about a progress-bar like thing

many programs show a percent when working, and it could be used to draw a stripe, or even a nifty circle ... just a mere idea

and a bit more down-to-earth idea: there should be a "switch to this" (or something like that) line in the rightclick menus for those apps, that can create more copies of themselves

#298921

RK Launcher conflict with Kaspersky Antivirus and Download Master (this program free)

www.Kaspersky.ru

http://www.westbyte.com/dm/

#299134

a feature request. the ability to have a shortcut, (duh) but, to show running indicator when a diffrent .exe is running. the reason is that i use portable firefox as my primary browser.

( it's so convenient when i have to reinstal my entire operating system and i don't have to reinstall extensions, and all that annoying stuff.).

but, even when firefox is running, it won't show a running indicator because portablefirefox.exe is not running. it runs for a second, launches firefox.exe, then closes.

EDIT: also, to be able to close the process/.exe that the indicator is monitoring. i sometimes don't know if firefox is actually running or not.

once, actually yesterday on sunday the 10th i don't have any windows running, and when i checked the task manager, there it is. firefox.exe eating 120 mb!

quite annoying sometimes. firefox has a problem of managing and cleaning itself when closed.

#299198

^ that's would be really useful, steelfist. It would make programs that run using launchers not so annoying.

The only thing that prevents me from using RKLauncher is that it takes focus on mouse over. It would be great if you could fix it.

#299907

Yz Dock does the same thing...

you cannot bring any window to front in windows without having the focus...

#299929

I never got to try this, but according to MSDN you can use SetForegroundWindow() if one of those conditions are true:

# The process is the foreground process.

# The process was started by the foreground process.

# The process received the last input event.

# There is no foreground process.

# The foreground process is being debugged.

# The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).

# The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).

if all of them aren't true, you can make the lock time-out expire.

besides, maybe you could take the focus only when the mouse is clicked, not on mouse-over. That's how ObjectDock works.

#300138

Dear Raduking,

i want to thank you for RK Launcher - an amazing piece of work. Very smooth.

But the absence of two features makes me go crazy. Well, i like the launcher to be on the top of the screen (position) and auto hided. That's the problem - if i move the mouse pointer to the top for selecting a menu item (in any kind of an application) and miss the menu a little bit, the rk launcher slides down and i lose the focus.

Yzdock solves this problem with "ShowSensitivity" and "DisappearDelayTime".

May you can find some time to implement this two features in to the next Nightly Build.

Many Thanks.

#300167

I never got to try this, but according to MSDN you can use SetForegroundWindow() if one of those conditions are true:

# The process is the foreground process.

# The process was started by the foreground process.

# The process received the last input event.

# There is no foreground process.

# The foreground process is being debugged.

# The foreground is not locked (see LockSetForegroundWindow).

# The foreground lock time-out has expired (see SPI_GETFOREGROUNDLOCKTIMEOUT in SystemParametersInfo).

if all of them aren't true, you can make the lock time-out expire.

besides, maybe you could take the focus only when the mouse is clicked, not on mouse-over. That's how ObjectDock works.

the idea is that this is what I want when I go to the hotspot (screen margin) for RKL to get to the foreground...

I have no ideea how you can make 2 active windows at the same time in windows...

If you know it please tell me...

btw Did you try the latest Nightly build ? it gives back the focus to the window as soon as you leave RKL.

#300954

i'm pretty sure it's impossible. but when RKL is set to be always on top, it doesn't need to be activated.

I tried it, but the main problem is that programs like WindowFX change the shadow when a window is activated/deactivated. also, for programs like iTunes it takes about a second to activate/deactivate the window. it's kinda annoying to see it when you just move the mouse.

#301158

I also think that RKLauncher should adhere to our chosen platforms limitations:

Its role is to replace or extend the taskbar - not to introduce new problems.

An example: I have just created a new folder and I have typed over the "New Folder" text in explorer's edit control. I push the mouse out of the way to see what I am typing and RKL catches focus. On explorer, this has the same effect as hitting ESC. The folder name remains at "New Folder".

The same thing happens in Word or any other application expecting real input - the caret goes away and it does not help to get the focus back when leaving RKL, because moving the focus away is perceived as voluntary user input from an application, in fact, some apps do input validation on focus loss and you are going to provoke errenous user input on them...

In extremo it is like having a jerk at your back hitting randomly ESC or Alt+Tab while you were typing.

Summary: Do as you wish but leave us "crude motorics" the choice to opt-out.

I'd be contented to see RKLauncher with the following optional features:

• The optional focus catch behavior as-is
  
• Option to limit maximized windows not to overlap the dock (same as task bar)
  

The new 152 rocks hard!

(want that IPB headbanger emoticon back : punk: )

#301340

Hi, would it be possible to have a "keyboard shortcut" to show and hide the laucher. instead of having to move mouse over it....for example if the launcher is on "auto-hide" mode, pressing some combination of keyboard (say keyswin+s) slides the launcher on top of all windows and stays there until a mouse click or keystroke happens.

another request was to have launcher slide sideways (left or right)

Thanks for the wonderful launcher its the best.

#301463

This might be a stupid quetion, but how come when I check the option to have RK launcher start w/ windows, & then close the options box, then re-open it, the box is unchecked? IMy OS is XP, SP2

#301717

THIS FEATURE DOES NOT WORK YET

#301756

One thing id love to see would be support for all the other dock's zoom algorythms (totally probably most likely spelled that wrong) itd be wicked to be able to switch between y'z dock style zooming for fast processors and mobydocks zoom for slower processing, etc. Most likely not possible but would be cool to have options for stuff like that.

Id also like to see an option to undock it from the edge of the screen and move it a few pixels up from the bottom

#304085

One thing id love to see would be support for all the other dock's zoom algorythms (totally probably most likely spelled that wrong) itd be wicked to be able to switch between y'z dock style zooming for fast processors and mobydocks zoom for slower processing, etc. Most likely not possible but would be cool to have options for stuff like that.

Implementing this feature is like flying with you hands.

EDIT: I think this is impossible.

#304090

Raduking,

If you are still working on the 'genie' effect, perhaps this will help...

http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=27013

He uses it as a sucking effect to remove desklets. Maybe you guys can get together and share coding ideas. Just a thought. AdverseYaw

#305668

Make Changing Icons Easier, I like to store my Icons in their own directories. Make it be able to browse the icons through the folders in RK Launcher but still in nice directories in Windows Explorer.

#305743