When One Dock Just Won’t Do
Even though I’ve got a nice, big, 20-inch iMac, my dock always seems to stretch the full width of the monitor. In addition to all of the usual apps, like Mail, Address Book and iChat, there’s all the stuff I need for work, such as InDesign and Photoshop. Then there are essential tools, including Skype and Parallels, and then there’s the fun stuff — Civilization IV and a spot just waiting for Spore. And that’s just what I keep in the dock. Finally there are the programs that always seem to be open, like Flock, iTunes, Pages and the recent addition of Times. There’s just too much stuff here.
Of course, it was just a matter of time before someone came along and decided that what we need is more docks.
iDock is the latest application from Samuco, and what it does is simply allow you to create custom docks and switch between them. Make a dock with just games on it, another with just work tools and maybe one with communication apps. Organize each one anyway you want and there you go — custom work spaces for whatever you are in the mood for.
The first time you run iDock, you begin on dock zero. Click Change Dock, select the next dock and if one doesn’t already exist iDock will offer to create a new dock. The new dock will be the default for OS X with Safari, iChat, iTunes and all of the standard applications. This won’t effect any running applications, which will show up but won’t be locked in the new dock.
After you’ve customized iDock to the way you work and live, you can click Go To Dock and the number of the dock you want to switch to.
Just how many docks can you create? Well, if the help documentation is to believed, it’s more than a billion.
iDock is a handy tool and a cool idea, but it does have a couple of shortcomings. For starters, the program must be running for you to switch between docks. The are no options to run it in the background. Also, there are no keyboard shortcuts to switch between docks, and whoever heard of a Mac application without convent keyboard shortcuts?
Switching to a new dock also seems to affect some of your preferences — Spaces, for example. Although I have Spaces turned on in my system preferences, when I create a new dock Spaces is turned off by default for that dock. My only other complaint is that you cannot name your docks, so you have to remember what numbered dock is for work and which one is for play. However, this is version 1.0, so there are very likely to be improvements in the future.
iDock is only for Mac OS X 10.5 and up (sorry Tiger users) and it costs $5. You can download a 10-day trial here.
Screenshots from yourself or the developer would be much appreciated. There is no way I would install some modification like this without first seeing how it looks.
Also, if you expect people to pay $5 for your application at least make a half-decent website that doesn’t promote your host in the bottom and have some screenshots (like I already said). This application could be great and all, but I’m not going to dish my money out to a dev that can’t even be bothered to make the background of the repetitive and tacky “Buy Now” Paypal pictures match the background of the box they are in. The website looks like amateur hour. Once the guy gets some screenshots up, I might just download the app and try it out, because it’s a great idea. But much like any great idea, it also needs a great pitch.
This is like the Wright brothers building the first plane, testing it between themselves only, selling it to people with a single trial run in which potential buyers must get in the plane and be pushed over the cliff. Everybody who wants to buy it would rather see it work and not have to run it to find out if it works or not. Same principal applies here.
Seems to fall far short of the functionality already available in OverFlow, LaunchBar, and DockFun!
Not as much fun as Sapiens.
What would be really great for a Dock add-on is one that could create difference Docks for different desktops in Spaces.
Hmm, it´s a awesome idea. It will be more interest if came with Spaces integration and the possibility to rename the dock’s. that’s it
“there are no keyboard shortcuts to switch between docks, and whoever heard of a Mac application without convent keyboard shortcuts?”
Showing your age (lucky you). There was a time when no Mac software had keyboard shortcuts and everything was just point and click.
@joshua: Totally agreed. The first thing I thought of when I read this (and because the author also suggested that a custom dock = custom workspace, which it doesn’t) was that this needs to be space-assignable, somehow. Really, the ideal solution would be to have this integrated in Spaces–but as pointed out in the article, this seems like it is probably a ways out as the dock itself seems to get reset with each new dock (which is why Spaces gets turned off, I think).
“Showing your age (lucky you). There was a time when no Mac software had keyboard shortcuts and everything was just point and click.”
@ Paul : Hmmm, I wonder when that was, but even in my dim childhood memories of MacPaint and MacWrite, there were keyboard shortcuts for most things.
Yeah, Paul… Mac apps have always had keyboard shortcuts. In fact, many OS X shortcuts are the same as System 1.0.
There is a bit of a grammar mistake in this application though…
“Help, my Dock’s gone!” should be “Help, my Dock is gone!”