A window hack that copyes the osx dock

[Lucifer_sam]

It seems that windows users are desperate to copy anothere aspect of our lovely osx. http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/

[Vector]

Their slogan is "innovation on demand".

It is at least somewhat true as they have been writing desktop customization software for a deccade, but this app is a fairly blatant copy of the osx dock.

"ObjectDock is a program that allows you to have a nice animated launchbar/taskbar on your screen that reacts to your mouse when you mouse over it."

Hey i think my dock used to do that too before i turned that annoying feature off.

[robbieduncan]

They also appear to have used the Crystal icon set originally designed for KDE. I wonder if they even acknowledge the hard work of the 1 guy who seems to spend his whole life on that icon set!

[Giaguara]

if they want all the nice things taht you have on os x, kde, or gnome why to bother using windows with all those added haxies? just get os x, or if you have no money, redhat or mandrake.

[Lucifer_sam]

I thought that the icons looked like they were the KDE icons. Just an sad attempt to make XP look loke some other OS :o

[rueyeet]

It's definitely a blatant copy of the OS X Dock...but the Dock sure beats the heck outta the Windows Taskbar. For my money, the quick visual recognition of Dock icons is a lot more usable than those Windows taskbar buttons that shrink and get truncated the more windows you open.

Not to mention the redundancy of that "quick launch" toolbar, which will generate another taskbar button to an already crowded space for each app you launch from it.

And most Dock icons give added right-click functionality, even app-specific functionality, whereas right-clicking most taskbar buttons will only get you window controls (minimize, maximize, close, etc.).

I use both the Dock and the taskbar on a regular basis, and if a) my Win 2K work machine wasn't in a strictly controlled environment and b) this wasn't unsupported betaware, I would SO try this.

[Independence]

i took one look at that image and K Desktop Environment immediately came to mind.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by robbieduncan
They also appear to have used the Crystal icon set originally designed for KDE. I wonder if they even acknowledge the hard work of the 1 guy who seems to spend his whole life on that icon set! from what i understand, you can use any iconset you want with this dock thing.

[mathew]

Actually, it's even better than that - StarDock's ObjectDock is perfectly compatible with the files from OS X.

If you're lucky enough to have OS X, you can copy the files straight over to windows and use them with ObjectDock.

I have also written a program to convert mac icons to png images... Bottom line, if you have a Mac, you can make your PC look very like a Mac.

And I haven't even bothered to play with the menu bar yet...

[BigHairyBuds]

Does Windows not support anti-aliasing? That picture looks so fuzzy it makes me want to kick my PC teacher in the nuts for telling me Windows is a better platform (he says its more stable...it's hard not to strangle these people) The first thing I noticed when I went to the Apple store in preparation for my switch was the clarity of the images...Why don't they advertise this more?? I think it's a huge selling point (Keep your eyes fully functional with the innovative AA features of Mac OS X...you may be a dork, but never look like one again!!)

I just noticed the post above me...the icons on the desktop are in the dock as well...isnt the dock for convenience and to remove clutter? don't smoke, it's bad for you.

[mathew]

Yes, it is fuzzy - I had to compress the JPEG to 50% to get MacRumors to let it be posted...

The Dock icons are a bit for bit copy of the ones used in OS X - I wrote my own software to do the conversion from icns to lossless png. They look just as good in Windows as in OS X in actuality.

[shadowfax]

it's fuzzy 'cos its compressed, dude. windows does antialiasing just fine. even if it didn't, though, it wouldn't look that crummy.

[Lucifer_sam]

mathew that is the coolest looking windows desktop ever!

[evolu]

Originally posted by BigHairyBuds
That picture looks so fuzzy it makes me want to kick my PC teacher in the nuts for telling me Windows is a better platform (he says its more stable...it's hard not to strangle these people)

You should still kick your teacher in the nuts. Unless you teacher's a woman. Then leave your teacher's nuts alone.

[BigHairyBuds]

Originally posted by shadowfax
it's fuzzy 'cos its compressed, dude. windows does antialiasing just fine. even if it didn't, though, it wouldn't look that crummy. obviously it wouldn't look that pixelated, but I don't remember my old roomates dell having anywhere near as nice of a picture as my mac...maybe im biased. Then again maybe I'm not...Window's Font Smoothing is horrible.

off topic: how are the frame rates in iTunes for Windows visualizer, and on what type of card? With or without AA?

[Macco]

Originally posted by mathew
Bottom line, if you have a Mac, you can make your PC look very like a Mac.

If you have a Mac, you can make your Mac look very like a Mac, and you don't even have to do anything.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by BigHairyBuds
obviously it wouldn't look that pixelated, but I don't remember my old roomates dell having anywhere near as nice of a picture as my mac...maybe im biased. Then again maybe I'm not...Window's Font Smoothing is horrible.

off topic: how are the frame rates in iTunes for Windows visualizer, and on what type of card? With or without AA? well, it's a catch-22. windows font smoothing is really better than OS X if you tweak it. you can adjust so many font smoothing settings, it's insane. they have a page online that walks you through it. works really well. the problem with windows is that they are stuck with 32 and 64 px^2 icons. in OS X, we get these photo-realistic icoons at 128 x 128 px.

Windows XP's only real interface fault was, well, the visual element--graphics like windowbars, buttons, etc. they looked toyish rather than realistic or professional, and had s surprising level of pixelation--appalling to anyone who even remotely thinks about such things. but again, there was no problem with font antialiasing.

[themadchemist]

imitation is the highest form of flattery.

oh, mathew, where can I get your prog?

[BigHairyBuds]

Originally posted by shadowfax
well, it's a catch-22. windows font smoothing is really better than OS X if you tweak it. you can adjust so many font smoothing settings, it's insane. they have a page online that walks you through it. works really well. the problem with windows is that they are stuck with 32 and 64 px^2 icons. in OS X, we get these photo-realistic icoons at 128 x 128 px.

Windows XP's only real interface fault was, well, the visual element--graphics like windowbars, buttons, etc. they looked toyish rather than realistic or professional, and had s surprising level of pixelation--appalling to anyone who even remotely thinks about such things. but again, there was no problem with font antialiasing.

ah i see...when did windows begin supporting font aa? was xp the first to support it?

[rhpenguin]

Before i bought my iBook i used to use this little app called Yzdock on windows. I found the dock hella handy compared to the xp quicklaunch bar.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by BigHairyBuds
ah i see...when did windows begin supporting font aa? was xp the first to support it? i believe so. W2k may have had some elementary AA on certain things, but i don't think it was very extensive. XP added it well, and added much more control over it right in the control, plus insane amounts of control over it via a little wizard available online (never understood why they didn't add a link to it in the control panel... they're just kind of stupid like that. but if you find the wizard, which used to be prominently advertised on the XP page online, you can do a whole bunch of cool fonty aa things).

[mathew]

Originally posted by themadchemist
imitation is the highest form of flattery.

oh, mathew, where can I get your prog?

The program is called Icon2PNG - It can be found at http://www.bearca.com/software/icon2png.php

I can't give you the Windows theme files - I made them mostly myself using a theme I found somewhere called FinalAQUA - but used a lot of OS X images, which I can't redistribute.