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My great idea!

B

Broken Friday

macrumors member
Original poster
Wouldn't it be cool if our Leopard docks had a grouping feature for applications, and it was applied with stacks?

Think about it, having Safari open and having two separate windows open, you minimize both, then click on the window dock icon on the far left, and the stack unrolls showing all of your minimized Safari windows.

Wouldn't that be cool?


Please don't steal this idea. 😀
 
Yuppi said:
It was the first feature I always switched off in Windows..
Click to expand...
Heh, yeah me too. They had something very, very similar to what the OP described in Windows XP. It was an option called, "Group similar taskbar buttons". It was annoying.
 
Firstly, to all the people above who find the "Group similar taskbar buttons" feature annoying. What about when you have a large number of windows open at once? Haven't you ever noticed how hard it is to read the titles of each window when there's only space to display a few characters of it?

Grouping windows together by application makes it much easier to navigate through them and keeps your taskbar looking nice and clean. Granted, I do like to do a lot of things at once and have many windows open.

Secondly, there's already an option in the dock to show you all the windows for a particular application (which coincedentally enough is more or less the same as the Windows implementation). When you right click the application icon in the dock it gives you a list of all the windows for it AND indicates whether each window is minimised or not.

If Apple modified this feature to show mini representations of each window (like when you minimise to the dock) in a stack like view, it would be the coolest and most productive thing ever! A lot of times it's easier to find the window you want by seeing a representation of it rather than having to go through each of the titles.

It's not difficult!

Take the minimised image of all the windows for an application and stick it into a folder which has also been put onto the dock as a stack so it would update automatically. I'm still fairly new to the world of Mac programming - anyone know of a way to get the minimised dock icon for windows from other applications? Cos I've already implemented this for applications I've written myself, it'd be great if I could access other applications as well.

Of course we already have Expose which provides some similar functionalty except that it only works for NON-MINIMISED windows. Man, I wish they'd introduce an option to show ALL windows, e.g. Command+F9 and Command+F10. Anyone know of any 3rd party applications that can do this?

Also, about your idea Broken Friday, I remember someone in the MacRumors forums ages ago suggesting how cool it would be if the windows for an application actually showed up as mini icons behind the application icon. In a way that augmented the new 3D look of the dock. That would be cool, especially if they only appeared when you hovered over the icon for example.

Broken Friday, the best thing you can do mate is make a suggestion on the Apple website and who knows what new surprises may come in the next Leopard update ... 😀
 
Yuppi said:
It was the first feature I always switched off in Windows..
Click to expand...

Me too. I HATED that feature in windows. It is also the first thing I turn off. And it wouldn't work as well with os x. The dock is not the same as the task bar.

The Stig
 
Neutral Gamer said:
Firstly, to all the people above who find the "Group similar taskbar buttons" feature annoying. What about when you have a large number of windows open at once? Haven't you ever noticed how hard it is to read the titles of each window when there's only space to display a few characters of it?
Click to expand...
You're basically pointing out the major flaw of the Windows taskbar here, grouping windows together is a bad hack to get around this an even less intuitive than the old method, which is why most people turn it off.

If Apple modified this feature to show mini representations of each window (like when you minimise to the dock) in a stack like view, it would be the coolest and most productive thing ever! A lot of times it's easier to find the window you want by seeing a representation of it rather than having to go through each of the titles.
Click to expand...
Sounds nice in principle, but isn't this really just covered by clicking on the dock icon and pressing F10? I personally don't minimise windows that much (if ever) so I don't see the big issue there.
 
There was a 3rd party app I had once, can't remember the name, and yes this is slightly off topic, that allowed you to set different docks, as in what applications and folders were down in the dock, and you could switch between them.

So for instance, a regular dock with your daily apps. Then a dock for graphics with all your graphics apps in it, then a dock for video with all your video apps, etc.

I wish I knew what it was, and whether it was 10.5 compatible.
 
dr_lha said:
I personally don't minimise windows that much (if ever) so I don't see the big issue there.
Click to expand...

You've got a good point there and that's one thing I forgot to mention. Ever since I've been using Spaces in Leopard I hardly ever need to hide applications or minimise windows anymore.

But there's also a disadvantage to Spaces as well. Pressing F10 only brings up the windows in your current Space. Surely in that situation there needs to be a solution as described by myself and the OP to see your windows at a glance regardless of which Spaces they're on?

Going to the Bird's Eye view and pressing F9 isn't a good enough option because you still have the windows from all your other applications on show as well making it harder to quickly find and access your application windows.
 
roland.g said:
There was a 3rd party app I had once, can't remember the name, and yes this is slightly off topic, that allowed you to set different docks, as in what applications and folders were down in the dock, and you could switch between them.

So for instance, a regular dock with your daily apps. Then a dock for graphics with all your graphics apps in it, then a dock for video with all your video apps, etc.

I wish I knew what it was, and whether it was 10.5 compatible.
Click to expand...

Haven't you just described Stacks? Or am I missing something? 🙂

If only Stacks supported Smart Folders, Quicklook and nested folders; they'd be far more useful than they are right now. Here's hoping for the next update ...
 
Neutral Gamer said:
Haven't you just described Stacks? Or am I missing something? 🙂

If only Stacks supported Smart Folders, Quicklook and nested folders; they'd be far more useful than they are right now. Here's hoping for the next update ...
Click to expand...

No I guess I'm talking about something like DockYard or DockFun but originally I think I used something called multiDock 1.5 back in the 10.2 - 10.3 PPC days.

P.S. has anyone used AutoStacks also here.

Or DragThing?
 
Neutral Gamer said:
Firstly, to all the people above who find the "Group similar taskbar buttons" feature annoying. What about when you have a large number of windows open at once? Haven't you ever noticed how hard it is to read the titles of each window when there's only space to display a few characters of it?
Click to expand...

I think expose already takes care of that problem. As does Witch.
 
roland.g said:
There was a 3rd party app I had once, can't remember the name, and yes this is slightly off topic, that allowed you to set different docks, as in what applications and folders were down in the dock, and you could switch between them.

So for instance, a regular dock with your daily apps. Then a dock for graphics with all your graphics apps in it, then a dock for video with all your video apps, etc.

I wish I knew what it was, and whether it was 10.5 compatible.
Click to expand...
Sounds kind of like DragThing, which basically brings the "tab" feature of Mac OS 9 into OS X. It's fully compatible with Leopard.
 
Vinnie_vw said:
I think expose already takes care of that problem. As does Witch.
Click to expand...

But I was talking about the problem in WINDOWS and a possible solution that could be employed. The solutions above are for Mac OS in which the problems don't really exist.

Us Mac owners are lucky; when, like myself, you use Quicksilver, Witch, Expose, Spaces and Command+` (Tabbing through Windows) and Command+Tab (Tabbing through Applications) you've got more or less everything you need for efficient windows/application management. 🙂

Now spare a thought for those users who only have Windows as an operating system choice ... 😱
 
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