Dock Gripes/Suggestions +Poll

Ok i need some dock help. here is my dock, well actually my whole screen but you get the idea. yes ive made a few modifications im sure you are all familiar with, but im still not happy with the darn thing (im a perfectionist, thats why i use a mac!) Anyway. I never use the Finder button on the dock and i find it annoying how it sits there eating up screenspace. Also I wish the dock was more application and window aware. Windows shouldnt be able to go behind it, and we should have a preferance panel that lets us choose applications that autohide the dock even if we normally have it visible. Like id likethe dock to autohide when i launch photoshop but the rest of the time i want the dock visible. Also I dont like how I cant rearrange the groups. I think its a good idea to keep applications separtate from folders and disks but id like some control. Id prefer having my disks and folders up top, id settle for just the disks. Also in our preferences we can choose to have disks on the desktop, servers on the desktop, and removable media on the desktop or not. Id like these things to open in my dock the same way an opened application appears in the dock. If anyone knows little hacks, tricks, apps that can do any of the things I described please let me know.

I addition Id like to hear what sort of gripes the rest of you have with the dock and Id like to see how everyone has put their own dock to work for them. Do share, maybe if we cant come up with the hacks i mentioned then we can work within the system to come up with something more useful.

yeah im frustrated. ive spent more time messing with that dock than anything else in X. I remember when X first came out. i dove in at DP4. everyone was in arms over the dock. it lasted all the way up to the release of the "finished" X. and then no more complaining. Apple received waves of complaints about the dock and didnt make a single change. Its quite frustrating to have apple pass of this impetent dog of a application switcher off as a finished product. ive read so many reviews of the dock making constructive comments on how to fix it. there are a lot of ideas out there, and no one has given it to us. simple little things like what mischief said would help out so much. Ive got TinkerTool and it doesnt really give us many options just unlocks some of apple's hidden features. the translucent dock hack was quite helpful in improving the aestetics. but nothing else has been done to really help.

just let me customize the dock the same way we customize every other button strip in osx. they did it everywhere else why not the dock? the defaults are good but i dont want to be stuck with them. and yes alpha i know i can hide the dock, but i want the dock to show some intelligience. windows appearing behind it is very frustrating. and ceratin full screen apps like photoshop should be given the full screen. no special privs im just saying a window with hide the dock in the following apps feature where we can add the apps we want to be included in that category would be nice. and since apple seems to want us to have very few things on our desktop then help us out a bit. connected servers and removable media should show up on the dock just like opened apps (this should at least be an option just like drives on the desktop). and if i do want icons on my desktop and i want my dock on the right (the most logical place for it) then i want the icons to be dock aware as well. no icons hidden behind the dock and no icons "suddenly" becoming aware of teh dock and jumping several inches to the right. just move them so they rnt hidden that all! and who wants that nasty mac smiley guyy there? let me get rid of him! hes just sitting there smiling at me mocking me with his happy happy macos smile. stop staring at me macos!

but dont get me wrong some apps are really doing amazing things with their dock icons. check out adium for the best dock icon an application could have. Adam's brilliant. and mail has some neat email notification icon action going on. the dock like much of osx shows potencial, but is clearly in its infancy. but in the mean time im just lookin for some tips. wondering how the rest of you are coping. and wondering if we can help eachother out some.

mrtrumbe: great idea. some applictions are taking their dock icons to great heights but i have to see such innovation with window icons and document icons. i think apple needs to make this possible for application creators.

please take a look at Adium this guy is doing some great things with his dock icon. even if you dont use aol instant messenging just take a look at the application just to see its execution of what a dock icon should do. when someone signs on a little note appears on the dock icons telling you who. same with signing off, someone messenging you etc. the icon also indicates your status, away, idle etc. and of course the item notifies you when u r messaged. and further more the features and complete look of the icon are customizable.

some people are doing neat things with the dock, but apple needs to give such creative people more tools, so they can do the stuff that mrtrumbe suggested.

lets hear some more ideas like this.