Apple adjusts side-positioned Dock in Leopard
TUAW readers may recall that when the new look of the desktop in Mac OS X Leopard was unveiled, the side-placement of the Dock didn't exactly set the world on fire. In fact, almost everyone decried it as horrific, with John Gruber (of Daring Fireball fame) writing "The lighting and "fake 3D sitting on a tray" visual effect look like crap with the Dock on the side." He (and others) couldn't have summed up the Mac community's sentiment better - or suggestions better.Thankfully, Apple seems to be in a listening mood - are we seeing a return of 'the Apple we know and love' that our very own Mike Schramm talked of last week? - for MacRumors has revealed that the side-located Dock we loathed has been replaced with a 2D, black background Dock with a white border and it looks rather good (at least to me). I'm no fan of the 3D Leopard Dock in general so whilst I'm pleased that Apple has backtracked on one of the most talked-about design points in Leopard, I'm more interested in being able to apply the new look to a bottom-positioned dock. Some of us are never satisfied I guess.
Thanks Sebastiaan!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mo said 6:44PM on 10-23-2007
Your links appear to be broken. The MacRumours link takes me to the “Return of the Apple we know and love?” post.
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paul said 6:51PM on 10-23-2007
this is of zero help to users who put the dock on the bottom, which i believe most people do. using dual monitors, i really have no choice as to where to put it. and the leopard bottom dock is still the worst UI Apple has ever, ever done. I'm not buying leopard until someone release a stable hack to fix the bottom dock.
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geochick said 7:00PM on 10-23-2007
Heck I can't afford Leopard now anyway and even if I could I like the bottom dock so no problems here... Perhaps the new side dock can actually be applied to the bottom as well. Maybe Leopard even have a classic dock option. My dock is currently sitting at the bottom with Clear Dock applied, I'll probably keep i the same way when I get enough funds to upgrade.
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Elliot said 7:00PM on 10-23-2007
That's good, I'm of the opinion that the only functional way to use the dock is hidden and on the side, so this is an improvement. However, given Quicksilver, I think I only reach for the dock about once a week. Maybe stacks will change that to twice a week.
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Jason said 7:01PM on 10-23-2007
Are you serious? Becuase the dock looks funny? To each his own, I guess. :P
Hopefully the user will have control over the dock appearance through the preferences. I wonder why they couldn't have added a third theme under appearance in system preferences to change the scrollbars and buttons to the unified look, too. Would it really be that difficult?
It's these little things that make people happy. ;)
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Sebastiaan de With said 7:04PM on 10-23-2007
Good quick post guys, thanks for linking!
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Jason said 7:04PM on 10-23-2007
P.S. you should really update your "stock" pictures for the leopard posts to something more like this: http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/1331/store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/leopard_box_125.jpg
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Bill Blake said 7:09PM on 10-23-2007
I for one can't understand why anyone wouldn't put the dock (or on a PC the Start bar) on the side. The screen is wider than tall and for use with most documents or file lists it doesn't take away work area like having it at the bottom does. Perhaps if most apps didn't use a large chunk of the top of the screen it would be better at the bottom - but that isn't the case so I just seen no reason to waste more work area. I am not a big fan of hidden features - mostly because on the PCs I used for years they just didn't work well -- guess I need to try it on my Macs
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oshawapilot said 7:14PM on 10-23-2007
Side docker, here - with 95% of our Mac usage being web browsing, I wanted the extra viewable length on my browser.
Width isn't of a whole lot of use while browsing the web, and with a widescreen Mac it seems to only make sense to use some of that otherwise dead width to hold my dock.
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required said 7:32PM on 10-23-2007
Still not a fan of the dock in general even after all these years with it. The thing always gets in the way, activates when you don't want it to, fights with applications, etc. The fact that they upped the fluff by giving it a reflective shelf and tilted spring diddly folders is odd. It makes me wonder how much we pay for these suspect features because if their engineers could knock say $20 off the price by standing back from their "kai's power tools" and left these types of things out I'd be happy. Sadly it'll probably end up costing $20 more for us end-users to remove them.
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PSM said 7:52PM on 10-23-2007
I may be in the minority here, but I am a bottom-docker (feels like less distance for the mouse to travel on average), and I like the Leopard bottom dock (haven't gotten to use it yet myself). I can see the major problem with the design when used on the side, though. Glad Apple is providing an alternative for the side-dockers, but I am actually looking forward to seeing the new dock.
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Mo said 7:56PM on 10-23-2007
I also keep the dock at the bottom, although when using X11 I run WindowMaker, which puts its dock (a clone of the original NeXTSTEP dock) to the side.
I actually really dislike the Mac OS X dock on the side. It looks horribly out of place, and it confuses me no end when I sit at machines with it set up like that—possibly because it still centers itself even when vertical.
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Travis L. said 8:01PM on 10-23-2007
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
Should change the dock to the new look.
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nick said 8:18PM on 10-23-2007
The real story... where the heck is leopard?! Usually its on all the torrent trackers by now. Its been gold for at least a week.
Pirate community.... I'm very very disappointed with you all. You should be ashamed of yourselves!
And yes, I already preordered and paid for leopard. I just want it early.
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Benjamin said 9:10PM on 10-23-2007
Does it still overlap desktop icons like in 10.4?
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pixeslut said 10:13PM on 10-23-2007
THANK GAWD. Now if we could just get the carbon menu bars back id be happy. Semi transparent is about retarded. Why would i want to see a desktop picture... Its hardly my reason for computing. In fact i dont use a desktop picutre.. i use a solid carbon grey...
@8:
Im a total side docker. The right side, because im right handed. I have two modes i work in basically... Mouse when im doing graphic design, and keyboard when im doing web development or other type heavy activities. I keep my dock on the die because i use it to switch apps when im in "mouse mode". Since im right handed its a natural expectation to have my "zero point" for screen navigation be at the right. right next to all my (expndeded!) adobe palettes. Furthermore i never hide the dock so it dosent get unruly. its jsut there. with a 20" ACD at the maximum allowable display size screen real estate isnt really an issue. In fact as a gneral rule i opt for everything within click visibikity i need for a given task this usually results in a screen layout that looks liek on integrated application but is in reality 3-5. Thats why im really excited about spaces... I can group these "super apps" to a space and switch between groups easily.
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Simon Arch said 9:42PM on 10-23-2007
@nick: "Pirate community.... I'm very very disappointed with you all. You should be ashamed of yourselves!"
Apple hasn't seeded the GM build to developers, so the pirates (yarr!) who'd normally be spreading this far and wide haven't gotten their hands on it yet. That makes me curious about the provenance of that screenshot.
I assume they've held on to it for two reasons: one, to prevent that scenario from taking place and two, I guess because there's still something we haven't yet seen.
My thought is we haven't yet seen Leopard's true face. The translucent menubar and the dock shelf were red herrings designed to keep people (read: us Mac nerds) occupied so they could work on the new UI undisturbed.
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Ben the Dog said 9:55PM on 10-23-2007
I use it on the side - it's a nice tweak from Apple, but to be honest it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker in terms of whether I was going to buy it or not.
Given the new features coming with Leopard, I find it a bit weird that someone might refuse to buy it on the basis of a funny looking dock, but each to their own I guess.
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smacklin said 10:09PM on 10-23-2007
I keep the dock on the bottom left and transparent. With the explosion of pallets and toolbars in the apps I use most - CS3 - screen real estate on the sides gets used up quickly.
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Kai Cherry said 10:48PM on 10-23-2007
The side dock is bugged. It doesn't like things under it. It will suck for you :"Sorey" )
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