“Those of you who use Windows on a regular basis are undoubtedly very familiar with the taskbar that has been a part of the operating system since Windows 95. It has a variety of components, and although we’ve been able to work with it for quite some time, it’s by no means a perfect representation of what a taskbar should be. For example, if you have an abundance of open items sitting on your taskbar, they can begin to become crammed together, and when this happens, the buttons for each item start to shrink, and this causes any of the useful information that may have been contained within to become just another glob of goop on your taskbar,” Brandon Watts writes for OSWeekly.
Watts writes, “Windows XP does contain a feature called taskbar grouping that can group the taskbar buttons of several windows from the same application into one button, and this helps to some extent, but even with this approach, you’re still not getting the whole picture at a glance.”
Watts writes, “Aside from the taskbar, the dock presents open applications and frequently used programs in its own unique way. When you think of the dock, you probably think of OS X, however, the dock has been around longer than Apple’s latest versions of its operating system; and you can see this by looking at NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. Apple’s version is so memorable because they redefined what a dock was, and they then launched it into the mainstream. Computer users suddenly realized that the Windows taskbar isn’t the only solution, and experimentation with this newfangled dock started to take place.”
Watts writes, “Personally, I prefer the dock to the Windows taskbar, and it’s one of the things that really drew me to OS X… it’s nice to look down at the dock and see, in a graphical way, how many e-mail messages and RSS feed entries are available for me to read. Instead of having to open the applications to see this information, it’s already right in front of my face, so I know what to expect. In certain cases, when an application is working on something, you’ll even see a graphical progress bar. It’s also nice to see a snapshot of the content of a window when you minimize it to this dock.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’d prefer a root canal to the Windows taskbar. We’re interested to hear your ideas on how to make the Mac OS X Dock even better and also how you use your Dock. For example, we run our Mac OS X Docks as small as possible, always visible, on the bottom, with magnification disabled (the text rollovers and our grouping and memories work for us to quickly locate what we need. The magnification, while pretty, tends to slow us down since hitting a moving target isn’t as efficient as a stationary one.) We also place folders and hard drive icons in the right side of the Dock on all of our Macs; why Apple doesn’t ship Macs with the hard drive already in the Dock by default is beyond us. We also use Dock separators; Apple should give us something like them as a built-in option. How do you use your Dock?
I like the dock, but not its limited funcionality.
My dock hides at the top of my screen.
I use a dock replacement called WorkStrip by Soft Chaos software.
Works very much like OS X traditional but I can have both multiple docks based on needed tasks. Plus, every dock icon can have it’s own functionality, like showing what’s in a folder icon and it will also show live previews of images and movies without having to launch Preview app or QT or having to switch to column view in a open window to do this.
Just to name a few.
Hywel (and any others who launch apps with Spotlight):
I am SOOOO surprised more people don’t know about Cmd-Enter/Return (it’s a shortcut for ‘open the top hit’).
Just type in the first few letters of the app you want (in your case Grab), and press Cmd-Enter. Zippo.
Also… Cmd-Clicking on a Spotlight item will reveal that item in the Finder.
If you already knew that, forgive me.
“The best and easiest way to switch (or switch-hide) between apps was taskmenubar.
An OS X version is needed.”
Mark – I totally agree, taskmenubar was a brilliant little app – very much missed (I think the guy who made it went over to the dark side).
Do try out Butler though it’s very close, the only drawback is it doesn’t include open docs.
Mine’s on the right-hand side of the screen so that the Finder icon is at the top and the Trash is at the bottom. (Makes it a bit more like the old Mac OS.) I’ve got a bunch of icons. Let’s see… 34, not counting the Trash. And magnification is turned to the size of the Dock when the OS was first installed.
I use the dock on the left and small with a micro of magnification, AND ALWAYS use Transparent Dock to get rid of the STUPID white background screen.
Why do you have to go to the START menu in order to shut down?? Real brains there, Micro$oft.
START the viruses aroll’in is more like it.
START the sheep at the front of the herd before the back of the herd
START the blue screen of death on your black Dell
START the swiss cheese IE penetration
START the START of the end of your machine
START unintuitiveness
START the ten second count before your computer is invaded by some form of eventual death.
START the suffocation of technological prowess and progress
multiple docks would be nice:
for instance: left dock holds the usual stuff, like apps and minimised windows;
then imagine there is a ‘right’ dock as well, which could offer quick and hierarchical access to recent items, frequently used folders, scripts, system prefs (like screensaver settings), spotlight etc. All the things you need quick access to, to manage your mac in general terms.
Ooh, and some kind of integration of Quicksilver, that brilliant can-do-all-app!
That taskbar is worse than ass man!
Geo’s cheer for FruitMenu goes a long way with me.
Nearly everyone has a preference for how they like to see (or not see) the Dock. But the point that still seems to stand is just how useful it is for keeping regularly used apps in a handy and predictable spot. Regardless of how you like it to look, few seem to dislike it’s main purpose.
What I DON’T like is how OSX makes me do something unintuitive to access the -less-than-regularly used apps. Before Spotlight, I had to bore down to the Applications folder if I wanted to avoid overloading the Dock with a bunch of icons I rarely click. With Spotlight, while it’s easier, I’m still using a tool that I’d rather reserve for legitimate power searching (it’s main purpose).
The ‘happy middle’ was – and still is – some form of the Classic Apple Menu. There I can load up every damn app & file that doesn’t classify as regularly used, but that I still like to get at a moments notice (without spelling it’s name or doing a slightly slower search). The Apple Menu as provided in OSX now is needlessly spartan and overly restricitive. Recent Items should be My Items, and configurable by me. Why do I need Dock Preferences in there when the same thing is in System Preferences, and moving the Dock around is for most people a fairly rare action? I should be able to get rid of it. Software Update is fine, but Mac OSX Software is clutter – the latter would be better served by simply putting a prominent tab for it on Apple’s main web page.
I’m not trying to rant, just point out that ‘in the old days’ none of those questions/critiques needed to be answered by anybody because I could configure the Apple Menu ANY WAY I WANTED, so that it worked best for me. Now, unless I buy extra software and take on the added worry that a new OS update might break it, I have to try to make the Dock do/hold everything. The frustration of trying to make that happen is what I think leads the Dock-Haters to their position.
How about it Jobs? Not everything from your past was bad. Bring back the original functionality of the Apple Menu.
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I too have to use windows at work. I prefer the dock because it has all my applications handy-without the overbloated start button that brings up everything-but my lunch-so I just made short cuts on the desk top. I have a powerbook 12 in. so I need all the space I can get. I have it hidden on the righ with maginification on. Keep it going steve!!!!
The Task bar actually makes sense in some cases, at least when working with a lot of open windows inside of Windows. Different strokes for different folks.
The only time I use Exposé on my Mac is when I accidentally hit the F keys when I’m deleting something. I’ve since moved the Exposé keys to a different set of F keys where I won’t hit them accidentally.
I use Desktop Manager if I want to see what windows that are available. I’m able to spread everything out and work with it easily I’m happy to see that Apple will be moving closer to this kind of set up in their future OS X upgrade. I hope that Apple will develop a pager type graphic representation as a permanent docklette like you see in other Unix distributions.
Oh well, this is just my opinion.
–Rudge
Oh, I almost forgot. I keep my dock kind of on the small side at the bottom where the icons enlarge as I mouse over it. I keep a folder full of less-used alias applications so I can simply hold down the mouse button and then go up to the application that I need. It works even better than the Start-up thing on Window’s Task-Bar.
–Rick