Docky should be positionable on any screen edge

[Alwin Garside]

There should be an option to place docky on any side of the screen.

Especially on widescreen monitors, placing Docky on the left can save a lot of vertical screen estate. Besides, aiming vertically with the mouse tends to be easier than horizontally.

[Alwin Garside (yogarine)]

Jason, could you please tell me why this won't be fixed? I switched to Docky in the hope this would be addressed, but if Docky is always going to take up precious vertical screen real-estate on my widescreen monitor... I might just as well switch back to AWN.

[Jason Smith (jassmith)]

Sure, its a matter of summon mode. Namely docky cant cleanly perform
summon mode as a side dock solution. I have decided (and not lightly)
that attempting to hack a side dock solution for summon mode will be too
great of a challenge both in code and artistically. I know for some
this is a deal breaker, and I recommend AWN for them. Docky will have
to continue to focus on its core functionality.

[Alwin Garside (yogarine)]

I thought this mock-up looked pretty neat:
http://img91.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gnomedoverticaldesigntw5.png

And there are plenty of other possibilities. Including having an independent search box show up. Or are there architectural limitations to that?

As for artistic limitations... I don't think it's right to have artistic opinions stand in the way of functionality.
A vertical Docky will have a lot's of use for me, even if it _would_ look butt-ugly... Those that think it's ugly can just use a horizontal Docky. (That would be the default anyway, most people wouldn't even look for the option to set Docky vertically.)

So _please_ reconsider a vertical dock... Even if it means I'll have to wait until GNOME Do 2.0 to get it, just knowing it's coming some day (like Pidgin Voice and Video :-P) will be somewhat consolidating to me. ;-)

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Alwin Garside <email address hidden> wrote:

> . I don't think it's right to have artistic opinions stand in the way of
> functionality.
> A vertical Docky will have a lot's of use for me, even if it _would_ look
> butt-ugly... Those that think it's ugly can just use a horizontal Docky.
> (That would be the default anyway, most people wouldn't even look for the
> option to set Docky vertically.)
>

This is 100% wrong, sorry.

--
--Alex Launi

[Alwin Garside (yogarine)]

And why is that?

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

Because beauty is as important as functionality. If you can't do something
beautifully, then you need to reproach the problem, or it shouldn't be done.

--
--Alex Launi

[Alwin Garside (yogarine)]

I agree with the "you need to reproach the problem" part, but not with the "it shouldn't be done" part. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to implement a feature in a less-than-ideal fashion just for the sake of learning and getting feedback on what would be the best way to implement it.

After all, GNOME Do is still in beta state (0.8 mean beta to me). So there's no shame in experimenting at times.
That's also the way Pidgin introduces most of it's UI features. They put in something experimental, then there is some feedback from the users. They modifications according to feedback so everybody (or at least most people) end up liking it. And the final result is a well polished and thought out feature. That's the way free software development works best, and is most innovative.

If you just say "no way" from the start, then you're just throwing a perfectly valid idea out of the window.

[Alex Launi (alexlauni)]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Alwin Garside <email address hidden> wrote:

>
> If you just say "no way" from the start, then you're just throwing a
> perfectly valid idea out of the window.

This is nothing like what we've done. We've spent hours contemplating the
problem and have not found a suitable solution. None of the mockups provided
have been satisfactory, if you can provide one we'll be happy to reconsider,
but at this juncture our answer on this feature is, "no".

--
--Alex Launi

[Jason Smith (jassmith)]

I deeply respect your desire and intentions for this feature, but as the
primary developer of Docky I think there are some things that you need
to additionally consider.

1) click on the clock, see what happens? How do you do that on a side
dock?
2) Summon mode (already discussed)
3) The code, by necessity, would become more complex?

and then there is the really big one

4) Docky has limited developer time, and the more of that time that is
spent working on "fundamentals" and the basic feature set, the more
likely we are to get those "right". There is a right way and a wrong
way to do everything, and the more features we add the more likely we
are to do it wrong.

Jason

[Marco Hunsicker (marcohu)]

From an end user's point of view, I don't see what should be problematic with a vertical dock. It's obvious that a vertical position does not fit with the current model, which probably means it would be a lot of work to support it, but I don't understand the claim that it cannot be done in a satisfying way.

I don't know the internals and whether there are some hard requirements, but I would simply display a separate window, exactly like with the other themes. IMHO this would be preferable in any case, because displaying the information at the bottom of the screen is more distracting than to pop up this information in the middle or upper part of the screen. For my needs, without the ability to position the dock on the screen side, Docky is of no use and I will have to stay with the classic theme.

Anyway, thanks for providing a very useful tool, it's really great to have such an interface handy on Linux as well.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

I would like to add for those interested, that Docky 2 supports vertical docks! Docky 1 still does not and never will (Docky 1 will only be around for most likely 1 more release, at which point it will be removed from Do).

Docky 2 should be released in the next month or so but you can download from source at lp:docky (http://do.davebsd.com/wiki/Installing_Docky).

[Marco Hunsicker (marcohu)]

Cool! Thanks, Robert.

Looks very promising. It's great to be able to use Docky on its own. I really like how lean and snappy it feels, and visually it's also very appealing. The only thing I somewhat dislike, is the way the currently active application is emphasized. I don't understand why any highlighting at all, but I will raise that question in the Docky tracker.