Docks (was: Re: How to remove things from task bar

[Peter Flynn]

On 04/05/2022 13:10, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Wed, 4 May 2022 at 13:50, <ubuntu at howorth.org.uk> wrote:
> 
>> A dock to me is a hardware device where I plug in something like a
>> laptop to access other devices.

Oooh, yes, I'd forgotten about physical docks. Wonderful devices. People 
used to have one on their desk in front of a monitor, so they could sit 
their laptop onto it and use it as a desktop. I remember HP laptops 
would have a long receptacle on the underside which provided some 
massively parallel connectivity.

> The term "dock" is from Apple macOS, and is inherited from NeXT and
> the NeXTstep UI.

I knew macOS but not NeXT. I only ever saw them, never used one: working 
in a university they were way out of my price bracket.

> It is some of the only prior art of any kind for the Win95 UI, along
> with the RISC OS "icon bar".

Sorry: confused. What did Win95 call it? I thought it was "toolbar".

> Dock was ™ to Apple at one point, I think.

I assume that was why Linux UIs all avoided the term in favour of panel etc.

> GNOME 3 & 40+ calls this a Dash.

Oooh, yet another.

> Unity called it the Launcher.

What I said. It sure sounds like novelty-hunting.

>> I've no idea what a 'bryce' is.

It's what some versions of enlightenment call the panel, but I believe 
it is being superseded as it was essentially an in-joke.

> Panel: control placed along a screen edge which contains mainly
> notification icons and system-wide controls. It to me is a generic
> term.

To me, a "panel" is a much larger control surface, specifically one 
whose proportions are much closer to square, not the elongated shape of 
the toolbar.

> The main thing distinguishing a launcher type panel from a dock is
> that a dock floats and does not extend from one screen corner to the
> other.

A dock floats? How? The only ones I have seen have been bound to the 
bottom edge of the screen (optionally to a different edge). Do you mean 
it can be clicked loose and sit anywhere on the screen?

The real distinction is that it contains ONE ROW ONLY of icons. I think 
this is why my brain rejects "panel".

> If it's part of the length of the edge, it's a dock. It it's the whole
> length, it's a panel.

Most docks seem to expand to fit the number of icons added, so 
eventually they will reach the full width of the screen.

> To me, a taskbar is a Win9x thing, copied by most Linux desktops now.
> 
> The distinguishing features of the Windows taskbar are:
> 
> * an app launching menu, which may be hierarchical
> * some system settings and preferences controls, maybe embedded in the
> app launcher menu, maybe separate
> * at the opposite end, a clock
> * usually next to the clock, some status icons
> * in Win9x these were contained in a special dedicated area that was
> visually recessed. MS called this the System Notification Area but
> users called it the System Tray.

Excellent summary, thanks.

> A distinguishing feature between early taskbars and docks was that the
> taskbar contained a _menu_ for launching apps but _not_ icons for
> launching them. 

Yes. This always struck me as wholly perverse, and very poor usability.

> The dock is _both_ a launcher _and_ a switcher and contains icons for
> both inactive, not-yet-running apps _and_ icons for open apps allowing
> you to both launch and switch with the same action.

Much more useful.

> But in Win98 MS blurred the lines by adding the "quick launch toolbar"
> After Windows Vista, MS deprecated the quick launch bar and allowed
> apps to be "pinned" to replicate the Dock functionality.

By way of trying to make amends :-)

> Docks have a launcher icon that  _becomes_ the switcher button if the
> app is already running.
> 
> It's an important functional distinction that GNOME 3 preserves.

I don't think I've used GNOME3 yet. Last time I looked, it required too 
much learning for a change at the time. I need to revisit.

I still prefer enlightenment's minimal approach, but it's unusable at 
the moment because it won't handle two screens with one portrait and the 
other landscape.

Thanks for the definitions.

Peter