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Extra Dock (Not the Apple Dock) Programs

C

Corrado33

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 2, 2008
62
0
Hey guys, I searched, but I didn't find anything useful. If you could just point me in the right direction. I want another dock for my macbook pro. It doesn't have to be one that's on the side of the screen, but just somethin to hold more programs or apps or even recent docs would be cool... I've found something called DragThing but I don't really like it, it looks too much like a window... Any suggestions?

TIA
 
Can't you just create a "stacks" folder that will expand with all your secondary apps?

I just got my MB and have been PC forever. I had to task bars on the PC, one on the bottom and one with my fav. docs/apps on the top.

My plan, when I get this thing figured out, was to use stacks as mentioned above.
 
Stacks is a good alternative...You should also know that the OS X dock can hold up to 100 icons...

I hope you don't need more than that...
 
Corrado33 said:
Hey guys, I searched, but I didn't find anything useful. If you could just point me in the right direction. I want another dock for my macbook pro. It doesn't have to be one that's on the side of the screen, but just somethin to hold more programs or apps or even recent docs would be cool... I've found something called DragThing but I don't really like it, it looks too much like a window... Any suggestions?

TIA
Click to expand...

Actually The Drag Thing is the best, that happened to OS X, when it comes to additional software.

Without this app, OS X would have been a pain for me.

Dont get fooled by the funny colored pictures of the drag thing all over the net.

The visual presentation is to the fullest imaginable extend customizable!!!

You can set as much docks with as much different layers in as much different styles, as you want.

You can lock them to a place on your desktop, you can combine them with Expose, Spaces, key short cuts, ...

You can make them look like you want it, with or without name bars, windows title bars, reflections, with or without background, transparent, ...

You can size them as you want from very tiny little icons, barely visible to huge icons. You can change all colors and themes from all items of all docks and layers differently.

It will start up automatically with OS X or manually.

It is my connection to my apps and data on my harddrive. The next most used one is spotlight and then the finder.

The original OS X dock is only used as a very small status bar, that shows me which app is running and how many windows are minimized and running.

On top of that Drag thing comes with a fantastic original trash bin, that can be fully optimized to your liking, to the same extend as everything of the drag thing.

The best: reasonably prized (you can dl and try for free) and it did not cause any troubles what so ever with my OS X (other apps did a lot).

I would say, when even this guy here recommends it:

http://www.asktog.com/columns/060MonsterMac.html

It can not be that bad :)

I bought my version after a few minutes!

Sorry for the gushing, but it is that good (I didnt like the stupid windows look either, so mine is transparent and shows its icons with a smooth move into my view, when I hit the top monitor edge with my mouse for 0.5 seconds, which you can specify also)!
 
I've always found Overflow very useful. It's very customisable, so you can change it any way you like.

It must be said that if you're really looking to make things easier for yourself then you should invest some time in learning how to use quicksilver. It'll virtually eliminate the dock for most tasks and it'll speed up your workflow.
 
Thanks guys. Maybe I will try that drag thing out.

And no I don't need more than 100 things to put in a dock. I just want an alternative to the apple dock.

I'm surprisingly a very organized person, I have nothing on my desktop (including hard drives and other things like that), and my dock is hidden, and only contains about 20 apps.

(Actually I lied I use dockspaces for different reasons on my mac, if I'm doing homework, I have one dock with word processing and number processing apps... if I'm havin fun makin some videos, I have a dock with all my video/audio editing needs, it keeps things nice and organized)

And... to top it all off I have xgestures to switch between the docks or even bring up a finder window (for some reason I can't figure out quicksilver...)

So... what was I talkin about again?? Oh yeah organized... yeah more docks.. um I really just wanted somethin to put my volumes on that I could hide (I know I can on the apple dock but I wanted another one) that could come down from the top or somthing... I don't know I'm weird like that.

Anyway, thanks!!:apple::apple:
 

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I ran into the same problem. I just made a folder on the right of my dock and filled it with aliases (so the original stays in the applications folders). This folder has all the programs I only use occasionally. The dock isn't cluttered, and I can easily access them.
 

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You might want to look into Dock Spaces, it's an application that lets you create and swap between 10 different docks whenever you want.
 
But beware of Dock Spaces if you have more than four docks and want to use the Dock Spaces Spaces integration.

It totally fracked up my Spaces, as I only have 4 Spaces now (were 12 before) and I can't add more rows or columns.
 
Corrado33 said:
Thanks guys. Maybe I will try that drag thing out.

And no I don't need more than 100 things to put in a dock. I just want an alternative to the apple dock.

I'm surprisingly a very organized person, I have nothing on my desktop (including hard drives and other things like that), and my dock is hidden, and only contains about 20 apps.

(Actually I lied I use dockspaces for different reasons on my mac, if I'm doing homework, I have one dock with word processing and number processing apps... if I'm havin fun makin some videos, I have a dock with all my video/audio editing needs, it keeps things nice and organized)

And... to top it all off I have xgestures to switch between the docks or even bring up a finder window (for some reason I can't figure out quicksilver...)

So... what was I talkin about again?? Oh yeah organized... yeah more docks.. um I really just wanted somethin to put my volumes on that I could hide (I know I can on the apple dock but I wanted another one) that could come down from the top or somthing... I don't know I'm weird like that.

Anyway, thanks!!:apple::apple:
Click to expand...

This sounds, that Drag Thing is THE perfect fitting app for your needs. It does exactly the right thing, for helping your needs.

I am a similar person and hate everything complicated or messy looking. I use for each different working area one different dock (you create in drag thing docks, with layers) with only one layer.

I have all docks semitransparent and have them adjusted, to scroll down smoothly, when I park my mouse for a splitsecond (which is fully adjustable) above the menu bar.

I have set only simple icons without descriptions, reflections or extra window or name bars - as simplistic, as it gets.

All icons are set as buttons, so to start app x, I just move my mouse to the top of monitor one and click once on the icon, which is ALWAYS at the same position (unlike with the stupid Apple dock, which always shifts shape, scrolls, rolls, moves, blurps, ...).

Mac without Drag Thing - unthinkable!
Btw - there is no slowdowns, loading times or other hickups. It reacts as crisp and responsive as any other native Mac.
It even has the possibility, to completely make the Apple dock obsolete with a running app dock, that shows all active apps.

There are a lot of tricks, I do not use - its an impressive complete app for vey little money.

One of its tricks improved my work flow in the office a lot:

I have a quite big and deeply threaded working folder for my company with all projects, product data, spreadsheets, which weights a few GB.

I mounted an alias of this folder to the drag thing and can access every single file of it in the deepest folder structure within splitseconds! I just right mouse click once on the icon and scroll by mouse movement through all instances until I have the folder or file and open it. For even quicker access to some key files, I just marked "crossroads" in apropriate colors in the finder (project files - blue, financial reports - red, tool data - grey, ...).

This is ages quicker than any Finder operation or Apple Dock Stack and alike!

When I look back to my Windows years, I can only shake my head, as how many days I could have spend on the island in the sun instead of hauling Outlook and the Windows Explorer around - that was slavery!

This app is surely one huge improvement.
 
Corrado33 said:
....
(Actually I lied I use dockspaces for different reasons on my mac, if I'm doing homework, I have one dock with word processing and number processing apps... if I'm havin fun makin some videos, I have a dock with all my video/audio editing needs, it keeps things nice and organized)

And... to top it all off I have xgestures to switch between the docks or even bring up a finder window (for some reason I can't figure out quicksilver...)
....
Click to expand...
How does DockSpaces compare to SuperDocker? I am going to download one of the 2. (who knows maybe both)
 
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