Best Dock for Windows Vista -- PART 2

After part 1, looking at ObjectDock and RocketDock, we move on to part 2, with CircleDock and XWindows Dock. CircleDock: CircleDock took a look at docks, and changed them a bit; took them in a different direction. Circle dock is, in fact, circular. Since there are so many ways it can look, I'll just point you to this Google image search. CircleDock was created, I imagine, on the idea that a dock should be able to appear at your fingertips, by your cursor. Hence, the circular design. That being said, there is a checkbox one can uncheck to stop it from appearing around your cursor, although I can't imagine anyone wanting to. You can spin the icons with the scroll wheel, click and drag the Windows button to move it, and click the center button to make it disappear or open the Start Menu (your choice). Icons are, of course, dragged on to the dock, although not as seamlessly as RocketDock or ObjectDock (the icon only appears after you let go). You cannot drag an item off. To remove it, you must right-click it and select "Remove". The "Item Settings" is in the same context menu, and in the settings dialog you change change the icon, the path, the arguments, and the way it starts up (normal, maximized, minimized). CircleDock provides icons for use, some taken from RocketDock (acknowledged in the "About" section of the general settings. The icons are used under a Creative Commons license), others not. CircleDock does let you change the icon of an item directly from the context menu, rather than having you go to the item's settings and then change it. Not only that, but it also features an "Icon Replacement Mode" which allows you to drag an item onto another one, and the icon will be replaced by the one on the item being dragged (in other words, were I to drag iTunes onto Firefox, the Firefox item's icon would be replaced by that of iTunes). The settings for CircleDock could have a post of their own. I'll go over them section by section, quickly. -------------------------------- General - enable dock rotation, use same rotation value for all levels, key presses/ mouse wheel scrolls per rotation, set rotation value (radians), enable portability mode, use memory saver, click sensitivity, Z - level Dock Shape - icons per circle, min. radius, separation between circles, format (constant number of items per circle, maximum number of items per circle) Background - background image, opacity, size Centre Button - centre button image, opacity, size, show/don't show start menu when clicked Dock Items - size, opacity, show Windows file folder menus for right-click menu, hide dock after opening files/folders Labels - font, style, colour, opacity, shadow, shadow size, shadow darkness, show/don't show labels Animation - FPS, use poof animation when deleting, rotation animation duration (ms) (say that five times fast!), fade in/out duration (ms) Location - Centre dock around cursor when shown, lock dock at current position Toggling - Toggle Visibility Hotkey : You can select any number of the four checkboxes (Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Win) as well as choose a combo key (pretty much alll keys on the keyboard) Toggle Visibility Mouse Button : None, MButton, XButton1, XButton2 Show Dock When I move my Mouse to... : Choose any number of the four checkboxes (Screen Left Edge, Screen Right Edge, Screen Top Edge, Screen Bottom Edge), Edge Width/Height, Dwell Time File -> Dock Icon Associations - Dock Folder -> Icon Association (don't ask me why this is here) Language - Language file location, + info about chosen file ------------------------------- Whew. I've never seen so many options. And after that, there's still the About and Help section. The options do give you a lot of choice, and the circular idea is a good one, but I've gotta say, it's not for me. For one thing, I don't like having to use the keyboard to toggle a dock. But if I choose to have it appear when I move the cursor to the edge of the screen, only half of it appears, because it appears around my cursor! It's a good dock, and I know a lot of people will be happy with it, but I won't be included in that list. XWindows Dock: Finally. The last dock. The XWD homepage calls it "Simply the best application launcher ever" and goes on to hype it up as if it were the greatest thing since sliced bread AND chips (salt and vinegar, please). Of course, the download link is broken. I had to do a google search and download it from some other site. Installation was easy and very fast, but then I ran it. "Access violation at address 004D9B18 in module 'XWindowsDock.exe'. Read of address 00000010." reads the error message. Broken link AND an error message on startup! Good start, guys. However, XWD does open once you click "OK". At first glance, XWD isn't much compared to some of the others. And honestly, it isn't. The graphics are chintzy, as is the animation, but the biggest con is the options. There are too many options. Just too many. David Pogue has spoken in the past about this. You keep adding things on and on and on, and eventually, it's just either a massive duct-taped together piece of crap, or something with a 60 pound, 1500 page long manual. And I'm sad to say that in my opinion, XWD is the latter. If you want to take the time to go through every option, and tweak it to your hearts desire, then go ahead. You can do it, and I'm sure you'll be quite happy. The thing is, XWD can only profit from these features if it finds a user whose looking for something specific, like the ability to minimize windows to the dock but exclude certain applications (XWD can do that), edit the sounds for certain actions (XWD can do that), or even have a "Gallery" docklet which can display all the images and videos in a folder of your choice, just by you clicking on it, and let you scroll through them just by moving your mouse to the right or left (XWD can do that, too. It's actually awesome). But the average user isn't going to want these things. XWD is too bloated, and has forgotten what a dock, or launcher, is: a shortcut. And a shortcut should be simple. That's why it's a shortcut. So when you start to fill it up with too many options, it loses its purpose. I will however say that XWD does do the above things very well, and I was impressed. Well, there you go. My reviews of four docks for Windows. I should mention, in conclusion, that all of these docks worked fine in Windows Vista 64-bit, so if you were concerned about that, don't be (although RocketDock's site says it won't work in x64, they were LYING... or something). And after this two-day experiment, I'm proud to announce that I'll be using RocketDock for the foreseeable future, until the point when a new dock will come along, and I'll have to try it out. And when I do, maybe I'll review it for you. Until that day, I'll continue with regularities. My friends, I'll see you Tuesday.