Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Leopard, Developer
Leopard's Dock doesn't work on the side
Rogue Ameoba's got a legit complaint with the Dock in Leopard: it looks horrible sitting on the side. Personally, it's not really a concern for me, because I've never moved my Dock from the bottom of the screen (seems weird to have it on the side, like the workspace is off balance). But they're exactly right-- Leopard's "perspective Dock" just looks strange in the vertical. The icons seem to float in space, and the whole perspective looks weird.Of course, they have other problems with the Dock as well-- the reflections of the Desktop and the Windows happen in Leopard no matter where the Dock is, right? But yeah the angles that normally look like a shelf for the icons to sit on when the Dock is on the bottom of the screen look literally "off the wall" when the Dock is on the side.
With something like Cleardock, this is easily fixed. And we're still looking at a dev build of Leopard, so maybe Apple has a trick up its sleeve to fix it before release. But would you put the Dock on the side of your screen if it looked like this?
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Weevie833 said 7:23PM on 8-30-2007
On the contrary -- for those of us who use Apple Pro Apps, having the dock on the side makes it a lot easier to prevent it from popping out when using a timeline or image editing layout where the ccommands are sometimes right along the screen edge.
el weevie
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Browzilla said 7:26PM on 8-30-2007
I actually rather like it. I'm not really sure why, but I do.
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Ryan E said 7:49PM on 8-30-2007
In addition to Weevie's reason, with a big, widescreen monitor I have a lot more space to spare in the horizontal dimension, so that's why I keep my dock on the side.
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Simon said 7:38PM on 8-30-2007
I have my dock on the side. It seems to make more sense on a wide screen, and just generally a better use of the screen real estate. I have been wondering about the new dock design, but I always assumed Apple had something up it's sleeve, you can't see them letting something so un-sleek slip out into the wild. Can you?
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Edwards said 7:38PM on 8-30-2007
I certainly wouldn't use the Dock on the side- I much prefer to have it hidden at the top of the screen, where it will never pop out unless I explicitly tell it to. Of course, the transparent menu bar will make that setup look extraordinarily bad in Leopard, even without the problem of icons hanging from the ceiling, but there should be enough appearance hacks available to fix most problems.
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ally said 7:50PM on 8-30-2007
It looks fooking horrible anywhere.
Leave the dock's aesthetics alone apple!
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vectr said 7:39PM on 8-30-2007
I'm in the minority I suspect, where I don't auto-hide my dock.
I'm probably going to have to change that, however.
Where will a maximized window* stop? At the shelf? At the top of the icons?
This will clearly be user-definable. Graphite/Classic Dock please.
(Don't get me started on the blurry smudges that are supposed to indicate open apps)
*(I know, I know... that's not the Mac way. Have you seen CS3?)
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Tomo said 7:40PM on 8-30-2007
I always have my dock on the left, in order to maximise the limited vertical resolution of my macbook. The leopard dock does look a bit funny on the side, but I think i'll be able to live with it.
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Tim3308 said 7:42PM on 8-30-2007
I totally concur w/ all 3 of the above pro remarks regarding side dock. Much, much better use of space on a wide screen...and I'm a double monitor guy w/ the dock all the way to the right of right monitor.
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chewbee said 7:47PM on 8-30-2007
does anyone know how to permanently hide the dock? and bring it back with a keystroke? I hate having it pop up when I mouse near it.
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kertong said 7:48PM on 8-30-2007
Looks great to me - I actually like it on the side. Looks almost exactly like my magnepan mgmc-1 speakers.. just with some pretty icons floating on it. :)
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Dylan said 8:12PM on 8-30-2007
I find it ironic that the "anti-delicious" guys are bringing this up. It works just fine it just looks off.
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mark said 8:00PM on 8-30-2007
It looks "horrible"? That's really an overstatement. I'm generally bothered by a bad design -- and boy, is there a lot of it out there. But this is a clear case of "much ado about nothing."
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Jonny1964 said 11:26PM on 8-30-2007
Even on the bottom the perspective of the 'shelf' is tilted up far more than anything like what you would naturally see; the icons look like they are floating there too, and the whole things looks abstract, not naturalistic.
So why worry about it not looking naturalitic on the side?
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adrian said 8:37PM on 8-30-2007
If there's one thing I can't stand about OS X and that is dock. It's like the parasite of the Mac interface, always there in some form, always getting in the way. Just bring back the application switcher in the menu bar, plus a text list of minimized open documents, also in the menu bar and ill be happy with that.
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FamousPete said 9:14PM on 8-30-2007
As an avid "left-docker", I find this look so incredibly unappealing in Leopard that I've already started trying to ease myself into an auto-hiding bottom dock in these lame duck days of Tiger. Granted, with Quicksilver, I rarely (i.e., almost *never*) access the dock. But come on, this just looks hideous.
Truth be told though, as long as the Fat Nano never sees the light of day, I may be able to keep the Leopard dock hidden away enough to forgive this particular design sin.
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fernando said 9:41PM on 8-30-2007
Most of the younger school setups I've seen have the dock on the side because kids seem to unintentionally active the dock more often when it is at the bottom of the screen.
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HandyMac said 9:29PM on 8-30-2007
I've had the Dock on the right side, anchored to the lower corner (so the Trash is in the same location it was in the classic Mac OS -- though I seldom drag anything to it, using cmd-del instead) since I moved to OS X 10.2.2 or thereabouts -- the first version of OS X that looked usable for a Mac veteran since 1988. I've also always used ClearDock to do away with the milky background.
I've been wondering if 10.5 would even allow the Dock to be moved to the side; I suppose it must, since that option has always been officially available. How it'll work I'm waiting to see.
Anyway I'm counting on Unsanity, whose FruitMenu I've also used since I moved to OS X (in fact, I waited to make the move until I could customize the Apple menu as I had since System 7), to provide the necessary fixes. So far I haven't heard anything about 10.5 that provokes any excitement; what's been announced has been more dazzle than substance, unfortunately. I do hope the Finder (which is still significantly, and frustratingly, inferior to OS 9's Finder) has been really fixed, not just prettied up more.
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LoneTomato said 9:32PM on 8-30-2007
I use ProTools and no matter where I used to put the dock, it would pop up when I didn't need it. Finally I found a hack that let me put the dock on the top of the screen. It's a bit of a pain to access it (you have to place the pointer just under the menu bar) but it's easy to get used to and I don't have a problem anymore with the dock getting in the way.
All that said, I bet the dock will look especially stupid up on top, assuming it's still allowed in Leopard.
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Simon Arch said 9:33PM on 8-30-2007
I really wish people would keep the hyperbole in check. If I had a nickel for every use of the words "hideous" and "horrible" in various TUAW comments alone I'd be able to retire early.
ANYway, I wouldn't go so far as to say it looks "horrible". I don't much care for the new look, but then I don't much care for the dock in the first place.
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