A new version of ObjectDock is nearly ready to go. ObjectDock and its big brother, ObjectDock Plus, is a utility that lets you have a really cool and useful dock that can sit on an edge or pretty much anywhere else you might want to have it.
New features include:
- PLUS-Enabled activation in Plus build
- BOTH-Added ability to offset dock from edge of the screen
- PLUS-"Automatic distance from edge" (place above taskbar) feature
now fully compatible with multi-monitors. This handy feature ("auto
distance from edge") is only available in the Plus version, and is
enabled by default in the plus version.
- PLUS-Added mouse-activation (different from hotspots) ability for
tabbed docks whose tabs are not always on top. When mouse activation
is checked, docked tabbed docks whose tabs are not AOT will come to
the front when you hit the edge of the screen directly over where
they are for the specified time period.
- BOTH-Not always-on-top tabbed docks that are docked to the edge of
the screen (autohidden) will now un-autohide if you choose from from
the alt-tab list.
- PLUS-Added ability for tabbed docks to reserve the entire edge of the
screen that they are on. Adjustable to be autohidden or not
autohidden.
- PLUS-When dragging docks that are reserving the edge of the screen,
they will detach and turn off their reserve-edge option upon pulling
far away from the edge. If moved back to the edge or to another edge
while in the same move/drag operation, the dock will automatically
re-reserve the edge space upon docking to an edge. Under other/normal
circumstances (just usual docking to the edge), the dock will not
automatically reserve the edge of the screen.
- PLUS-When in "My Docks" dialog, all autohidden or not-on-top
zooming and tabbed docks should come to the front and become
interactive. Upon leaving the application completly, docks go back to
their original positions.
- BOTH-When in the properties dialog for a
individual dock (zoomer or tabbed), that dock will temporarilly
ignore its autohidden and AOT state if present to make itself on-top
and visible to the user.
- PLUS-When using the configuration dialog for a dock, a bouncing
arrow will show up to identify which dock is currently being edited.
Similarly, when in the "My Docks" dialog, upon selecting a dock from
the dock listing, that dock will have a bouncing identifying arrow
pointing to it to identify which dock is currently selected. This
feature can be disabled from the advanced options, and when shown due
to a configuration dialog being active (not "My Docks"), the arrow
will fade out after 5 bounces to prevent it from becoming annoying.
The arrows only show up when there is more than one dock present (and
so are not necessary in the free version).
- BOTH-"Send To" now displays and works in system context menus for
files/folders within ObjectDock.
- PLUS-(less significant change)-In tabbed docks, more effectivly
separated the options for "Always on Top" and "Tabs Always On Top".
Tabbed docks maintain two AOT settings...usual AOT has effect only
when not docked to edge, and "tabs AOT" has effect only when docked.
Checkboxes in the dialog and context menus will change themselves
accordingly based on the current mode (docked or not).
- PLUS-Similarly, the option for if the tabbed dock appears in the
systray or taskbar when not AOT is kept seperatly for when docked and
undocked. This is the case as when just floating and not AOT, by
default the user will want to have it accessible via taskbar as there
is no other means. But if docked to the edge, it is more likly that
they don't want it in their taskbar, but rather they want to access
it by mouse activation (bumping the edge of the screen). Thus, this
allows automatic defaults to accomidate each scenario.
- BOTH-(minor change)-Added ability to set "Autohide" from context
menu of zooming dock
- PLUS-Fixed bug where in changing themes or shutting down, if more
than 1 tabbed dock is present not all tabbed docks have their
resources freed properly
- BOTH-Found and fixed 'handles' leak upon each use of context menus
for File/Folder dock items, amoung a few other small places (such as
during the poof animation)
- PLUS-Changed default tab appearance (e.g. on creation of a new
tabbed dock) to the "Simple Tabs" look.
- BOTH-New logo images in config dialogs for both plus and free
version
- BOTH-Fixed bug, when zoomed dock uses autohide, when you run an app
from the dock you can still click it even when it has disappeared
until the "running" animation ends.
- BOTH-auto-save 5 last 5 crashes into ObjectDock folder
- PLUS ONLY-Added ability to automatically place dock on edge of
screen, above the taskbar
- Updated Free-version's dialogs (the main dialog only. the nicer
for-each-item dialog are still plus-only)
- BOTH-Trash icon did not update automatically when a folder is
dropped onto it. Fixed.
- BOTH-Added 100ms delay in updating the trashcan's image, so that it
will refresh to the proper image when just the standard windows icon
is being used. (eg when no *custom* images are being used for the
trash)
- BOTH-Tweaked drag & drop on zooming docks, fixed issues involving
glitchy drop targets when the taskbar (and systray) is disabled
Stardock expects to release ObjectDock 1.3 officially in the next week or two.
Its home page is www.objectdock.com. Use Stardock Central to download it.