HiQDock ... New Dock coming soon

Hello Haiku users and fans,

I’m the creator of BeDock that I wrote way back when in YAB for BeOS. I’ve been working now on a Qt (and QML) version of the dock, called HiQDock.

Features:

  1. use .svg or .png images as icons
  2. drag and drop re-ordering of launch icons
  3. auto-hide option
  4. Dock can be on left, bottom, or right screen side (still need to code for the top position).

Here’s a video demo: (new May 2015: https://youtu.be/iDqlDc1r-nM ( older: http://youtu.be/MQqFO4OkPO0 )

What this really needs however is for Haiku to support window transparency (app_server window compositing: http://www.haiku-os.org/articles/2011-06-15_how_transform_app_server_code_use_compositing ) looncraz was working on it.

For now transparency is faked by taking screen shot.

Regards,
hey68you

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Hej hey68you

Nice. Waiting for your dock probably two or three years. But maybe I can live to see :wink:

Regards

Hi hey68you ! I saw the video and looks very interesting !!!

waiting for the realease ! :smiley:

Uhm, it’s very “MACisch” so I (as an OS/2 before and now Windows user) really don’t like it.

As already suggested in the past a cool dock (and not only) inspiration could be taken from SkyOS, IMHO.

Screenshots: http://www.skyos.org/?q=node/404

It looks very slick, and as a Mac user I have no complaints on that score!

But when you say “use .svg or .png images as icons” does that mean that your dock does not extract an app’s icon and use that? That could be a problem. Much of the software we use is ancient abandonware and I don’t see anybody sitting down for weeks to make hundreds of new icons in either format.

This design is definitely for users who appreciate or are otherwise accustomed to using the Mac OSX dock. (But if that’s not your cup of tea, I recommend the built-in Launch-Pad or Dockbert)

Currently, there is no automatic “extraction” of the actual App’s icon (or other object’s mime type icon). You have to manually set an icon with an existing .svg or .png image file for each launcher you add.

You can export an existing app’s icon to an .svg file as follows: open an app with File Types app and then double-click on the icon, then the app’s icon is opended in Icon-o-matic, and from there you can export the native HVIF into an .svg file.

If someone can provide code on how to convert (on-the-fly) from the Haiku HVIF or legacy to an svg or png binary data stream, then I could automatically extract in run-time. But until I know how to do this, you can do it by running the HiQDock and changing the icon (you can see this in action in the video clip linked above).

I think I’ll post on the 3rd-party dev list for a solution for this issue.

By the way launchers (for now) are only added manually, and I have not yet implemented the Mac OSX dock feature of adding externally launched apps to the Dock and then giving the user the ability to “Keep in Dock” so that the launcher stays in the Dock permenantly.

Regards,
hey68you

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BTW. When you complete the dock maybe you can porting with Qt weather widget for Haiku… :wink:

Launchbox and/or the Icons screensaver? just a thought.

Regards,
Michel

Well - sorry - this is very close but still not quite ready for public consumption :(.

It’s been so long now that I guess I have to make a Yosemite theme instead (or configurable).

Regards,
hey68you

Hi Everyone,

We’re much closer today: https://youtu.be/iDqlDc1r-nM

Just to be clear - you supply your own .png or .svg icon for each launcher cell (independent of the icon shown in Tracker). Just download an icon (or set of icons from the web) and save in the icons folder in the same folder as my Dock app. Then right click the launcher to change the icon shown in the Dock.

Please let me know what you think!

New video: https://youtu.be/iDqlDc1r-nM

and new screen shot for top screen position which didn’t make it to the video: HiQDockOnTop

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There are a new versión?

How did you get the nice glass effect on your taskbar!?

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Hi Cosmo - no sorry - unfortunately I haven’t had time for this. But please keep requesting here to motivate me to get this out!

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You should give us a link, this dock have a good look for haiku men! please join the facebook group :slight_smile:

FYI - I can release/give out a version that will work on R1/Alpha 4 only (pre-package-manager). Requires Qt 4.8.5 - please respond here if you’re interested. (I’m not ready to release to source code yet).

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@dwt: Are you asking about my Dock or about the Haiku task bar? If you’re asking about the Haiku taskbar - I think I just played with the menu colors in the “Appearance” preflet.

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Yeah i want it :slight_smile: but i really apreciate an update too c: it looks so great!

That’s what I was referring to - thank you!

Good luck on getting this released!

That looks awesome! Is there a guide on customizing the Haiku UI colors? Have you heard from looncraz lately? I miss his BeShare antics.