Talk:Dock (computing)

Iconbar Removal

AlistairMcMillan why do you keep removing a vital piece of information about the Docks origins? The OS X Dock and RISC OS Iconbar are practically similar. The RISC OS was the first to arrive with such a feature, you have to acknowledge that, —Preceding unsigned comment added by NorthMist (talk • contribs) 01:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Show us a source that actually says the Iconbar behaved in a similar way to the Dock i.e. that you could "dock" items to it. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh by the way, this article is about the Mac OS X dock. If you want to talk about similar features of other operating systems then you are looking for the Dock (computing) article. However you still need sources to back up your edits. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have an Image I took of my Iconbar. I know that I do not have the right user permisions to add one, but can I send it to some one who does so they can add it? --NorthMist (talk) 04:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I invented the Arthur/RiscOS Icon Bar. The implementation in Arthur was entirely different to that of RISCOS - but Yes you could cause additional application icons to be added to each. Under Arthur the App(lets) had to be integrated with the overall desktop application, registering themselves to be added to the bar. Under RiscOS the system took responsibility for the desktop and the iconbar and additional apps could be added by being dropped into the correct place. What is interesting is that some apps appear on the left of the bar, and some on the right. The Idea was that icons representing real physical things (printers, floppy drives, networks) would appear on the left, and abstract apps (painting programs, calculators etc) would appear on the right. This model didn't last long and the line between the two rapidly became blurred and then lost. Under RiscOS 3 the "apps" icon appeared which held a collection of draw,edit and paint apps within it - this was on the left.

Newly running apps appeared on the right.

Both this confusion of left and right, and the new-apps run on the right rule have flowed through into the Windows task bar which has these same properties.

What I should though perhaps say is this. My motivation and logic for inventing it was this. The Apple Mac's of the day set the standard for GUIs. They had a textual menu bar across the top of the screen. So, in order to design something that was not a copy of apple's design, firstly we had to move the bar to the bottom of the screen, and secondly, swap from textual items, to graphical "icons". This the icon bar was invented on a whiteboard at Acorn Computers, Newmarket Road, Cambridge, UK in 1985.

82.21.98.46 (talk) 00:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)paul fellows, arthur development team leader.

patent

U.S. patent 7,434,177 Ording , et al. October 7, 2008 anon

Illustrating the article

Appetizer showing the Tango icon set.

I've created this image some time ago to illustrate the article. It's entirely made of GNU/GPL graphics so there are no copyright issue. Could someone add it to the article? Laurent (talk) 19:21, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Please stop trying to add mentions of your application to Wikipedia. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Please do not make changes to my edits as you just did. I'm simply proposing a change, and we should let other editors decide whether it's a useful one or not. Laurent (talk) 20:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Please be unambiguous then. You developed an application called Appetizer and you've been trying to insert mentions of your application into articles for at least four months now. Please stop. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 22:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I am in agreement with AlistairMcMillan above. I removed the requested edit template because it is obvious that this edit will not help the encyclopedia. ThemFromSpace 17:58, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Your comment makes it look like I'm doing some massive promotional campaign on Wikipedia, which is obviously not the case. Just have a look at my edits and see how many are related to Appetizer. The app is notable, I've disclosed my COI very early, and I do think that the picture would improve the article. The "request edit" template is the proper way to deal with COI and you shouldn't come here making misleading comments, to try to prevent other editors from inserting the picture. Laurent (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are quite open about being the author of Appetizer why didn't you mention that in your above comments on 20 May and 8 June? Why don't you mention it on your User page? Should other editors have to check back through all of your past edits to try to work out if you have a COI? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 02:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Focus on user interfaces not operating systems

Linux (being a kernel) does not implement any dock like features, like this article claims to do. Operating Systems which use Linux typically have dock like features from their respective user interfaces (such as GNOME, KDE, LXDE, Enlightenment etc.), which usually also run on non-linux using operating systems, like BSD systems, and to some extent Windows (KDE is at least working on it — I don't know how far they've gotten). Considering that a lot of domain experts cannot agree on just what an operating system is and when software is not part of the operating system, I suggest that focus be placed on describing which user interfaces, not operating systems, implement dock features. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.145.223 (talk) 07:02, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

This article could benefit from a discussion of the Docky, Cairo Dock, and Enlightenment Dock. It is correct to point out that these are modules that can be incorporated into an OS, though the Enlightenment Dock is a part of the Enlightenment Desktop Environment.

Article is Poorly Written

This article is poorly written, unencyclopedic, and incomplete. I've considered rewriting it. Signature (talk) 19:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Citations are definitely needed. For example, the date attributed to NEXTSTEP (1986) is two years earlier than the 0.8 release listed in Wikipedia's NEXTSTEP article. Where does the earlier date come from and who can be given credit for the Dock concept? Is the "dock" in NEXTSTEP really a dock as we now understand it?

File:Mac OS X Desktop.png Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Mac OS X Desktop.png, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests December 2011 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:00, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Alternate images added 83.104.51.74 (talk) 01:44, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Windows 1's bar?

Would Windows 1.0's bar count as a dock? It looks similar to it and holds icons to minimized windows. Upon double clicking a icon, its corresponding window is restored. It's empty when there aren't any minimized windows as you can't dock programs to it, which makes me unsure about whether it could be considered a dock. - Wikizzer (talk) 12:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Video games with desktop-like HUD - 46.173.4.68 (talk) 10:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Settlers (and both of its FOSS remakes) has a small "dock" at the bottom of the screen. The main viewport is the backdrop of the screen, extra viewports and command menus are made into individual windows.

Change redirect (or turn into disambiguation page?)

Currently it redirects to the Taskbar article, no section. This is plainly wrong as that article, and the very term itself, primarily refers to Ms. Window's™️ taskbar.

There is a macOS section in that article, so we could just change the redirect slightly, adding the section.

However, there is also a Dock (macOS) article, so perhaps we should actually be redirecting there?

Or maybe the term Dock as it relates to "computing" is so unclear that this should be a disambiguation page? (can you even make a page that doesn't end in "(disambiguation)" a disambiguation page?)

 – 99.146.242.37 (talk) 09:37, 30 April 2023 (UTC)