The Case for better Dock support in KDE Plasma

[KDEaster]

Hiya,

I'm a lifelong Mac user since 1986. Then and now I've preferred Apple's operating system to the alternatives. This has nothing to do with me being a sucker for marketing or needing the 'bestest' hardware or any other dismissive reason non-Mac types inflict upon me. I simply consider Windows, Mac, and Linux -- and prefer the Mac interface/usability best, Linux second, and Windows a sad distant pathetic third. Maybe a fourth even. It's terrible. Anyway --

-- so when I use Linux, I'm altering it to behave more like OS X. Please note: I didn't say LOOK more like OS X. I'm talking behaviour. My needs are rather simple: a robust yet out of my way operating system -- and -- a reliable dock. This almost year long search has currently brought me to Ubuntu Gnome 15 and Kubuntu 15.

I hear people say KDE is more 'Windows' like. I only agree in that a dock never seems to be built into the distro. It's almost like the way KDE insists on being different is no dock, no way. Sure, I can add Docky or Cairo, but I'm hear to explain why this isn't the same thing.

First of all: Cairo is bug city. Moody. I prefer it over Docky but not if it means bugginess. And so I've added Docky to Kubuntu and all is almost well. My problem is that KDE doesn't offer a ready and fast way to support a person who likes Docky. You know how the KDE launcher offers two flavors: application launcher and application menu? I'd like a third option: application dock.

If a user chose application dock, what would happen is the 'K' launcher icon would leave the panel entirely. And it would show up in a KDE native dock. If this occurred, the functionality could dramatically change and simplify for the user --

1. There would no longer be a need for a favorites list in the launcher. Why? A dock is a list of favorites. You could also eliminate the computer list (home, trash, network) because simply dropping DOLPHIN in dock takes out this as well.
2. If you clicked the K in the dock, you'd still get that application list.
3. The LEAVE functions could run across... let's say... the bottom of the application list.
4. The 'type and search' function could... let's say... run across the top of the application list
5. And for simplicity I'd lose the recently used listing.

In other words -- EVERYTHING the launcher does now via five or so different menus would be reduced to ONE menu from the K 'dock' Launcher. (Except for recently used.) Of course key stroke support would be available so that you don't have to actually click the dock to invoke the launcher. Plus, if you like to hide the dock, the same keystroke could make the dock come out of hiding.

Doing this would also free up a 'hot corner' for the computer, since the K would no longer be there.

I share this idea because you may have Mac users like me drifting your way. And they won't like that the dock is gone and a third party thing. Sure, we can go to other distros, but I don't really see what KDE has to lose by being Windows & Mac friendly.

Just know that if Mac users like me come this way, they're not mad at Mac for the interface. It's mostly the pricing that has gotten out of hand.

(Mock up below)

[KDEaster]

Here's a mock up. I'm not a graphic designer, folks. I just play one on television.

[claydoh]

There seem to be a decently large number of Mac OS-like docks out there, and even some specifically for KDE - though these are KDE4-only, until their authors rewrite them in qml for Plasma 5. I don't foresee a need for yet another implementation of the concept, though all it takes is someone with an itch to scratch Why is the 'third party' method a negative? Most of linux is a poster child for the concept

Personally, I can't stand docks, they are just not my thing. But that is just me.

I guess that simply having a clock at the bottom right, and a menu at the bottom left is enough to make KDE windows-like?. It sure didn't feel all that widows-like to me when I switched over back in the KDE 2 days. Windows feels completely foreign to me when I have to do more than the basics.


Gnome, Unity, and KDE (as well as the others) are quite mature things, and I don't see a need or desire to "cater" to how Windows or MacOS do things so much, or to how their respective users are used to doing things, especially since for the most part one can make things that way if they want to.

[KDEaster]

I don't foresee a need for yet another implementation of the concept, though all it takes is someone with an itch to scratch

Oh if I had the skills -- I wouldn't talk about it. I'd just do it. No ifs, Annes, or Bancrofts.

Why is the 'third party' method a negative? Most of linux is a poster child for the concept

If plasma doesn't directly support a third party dock, it won't support a third party dock. Or am I missing something Linux-y here?

Personally, I can't stand docks, they are just not my thing. But that is just me.

Nothing directed personally against your opinion, but I find most people can't stand things that are new and different. Until they get used to them. But even then they don't look at them critically enough. As a culture we accept what's forced upon us instead of asking for what we need or adjustments.

For instance, and this is from my vast Apple experience (as a user and former store rep): people who've never encountered a dock don't like it. I'd ask, "What's wrong with it?" And they say, "I don't know. I just don't like it." 9 times out of 10 that's this aforementioned 'new thing' anxiety.

There is something horrifically wrong with docks. That even Apple doesn't get. All Mac screens are landscape, which means scrolling up and down pages happens a lot. If the screens were portrait, you wouldn't have to scroll up and down a lot. Right? And so why oh why would Apple put the dock along the bottom of a screen? Eating up more desperately needed portrait space? If you look at my mock up, you see it's on the left... where landscape space is available.

I can't tell you how many users I've asked to move the dock to the side. After a while they 'get it', wake up, and wonder why they ever allowed it at the bottom. Otherwise, as my mock up demonstrates, the dock takes care of a lot of things the Application Launcher handles.

To me it's not if I love a dock but why I'd like that application launcher. To me it's clearly designed by someone who likes to click things. Loves to pour through menus. To me that's the #1 shortcoming of Windows. It's takes 20 clicks to do anything in Windows. Less clicks means more doing what you want to do. That's why I like docks. They put nearly EVERYTHING I used %98 of time in front of me. Meanwhile watch Windows 10 continue to struggle to figure out what to put in their app launcher. It's embarrassing.

[claydoh]

Oh if I had the skills -- I wouldn't talk about it. I'd just do it. No ifs, Annes, or Bancrofts.



If plasma doesn't directly support a third party dock, it won't support a third party dock. Or am I missing something Linux-y here?

Plasma supports a dock, as one does not have to use a panel widget at all, or only use specific parts (a panel is a plasma widget, and all the parts of it are separate plasma widgets), and run Docky or something similar, or someone could write a plasma widget for a dock (qml is supposed to make this sort of thing a lot easier). If you look at kde-look.org, you will see a number of docks for KDE4, though they all seem old, unmaintained, abandoned (I wonder why).
It is not that Plasma does not support docks, it is that no one is making them specifically for KDE (at least at the moment, for this brand-spanking new version).

Nothing directed personally against your opinion, but I find most people can't stand things that are new and different. Until they get used to them. But even then they don't look at them critically enough. As a culture we accept what's forced upon us instead of asking for what we need or adjustments.

For instance, and this is from my vast Apple experience (as a user and former store rep): people who've never encountered a dock don't like it. I'd ask, "What's wrong with it?" And they say, "I don't know. I just don't like it." 9 times out of 10 that's this aforementioned 'new thing' anxiety.

Perhaps for some that is true. It is also a load of crap sometimes I only speak for me, as that is the only area I am a good authority on . I do not want or need launchers on my desktop, I only want info for the most part. Most of what I need to run is already running. It is the odd thing that I have to go to a menu for, and even there I will just type in the first few letters of the program, or even a general category, and never dive into the full menu structure. Heck, I don't even have to open the menu, as alt-f2 will give me the same things. BeOS used to be my main OS for a while, until they died, and *everything* was easily accessible via the right mouse button, which was very efficient, and new, and different. No "new thing anxiety" here. Which is more rubbish.

There is something horrifically wrong with docks. That even Apple doesn't get. All Mac screens are landscape, which means scrolling up and down pages happens a lot. If the screens were portrait, you wouldn't have to scroll up and down a lot. Right? And so why oh why would Apple put the dock along the bottom of a screen? Eating up more desperately needed portrait space? If you look at my mock up, you see it's on the left... where landscape space is available.

I can't tell you how many users I've asked to move the dock to the side. After a while they 'get it', wake up, and wonder why they ever allowed it at the bottom. Otherwise, as my mock up demonstrates, the dock takes care of a lot of things the Application Launcher handles.

To me it's not if I love a dock but why I'd like that application launcher. To me it's clearly designed by someone who likes to click things. Loves to pour through menus. To me that's the #1 shortcoming of Windows. It's takes 20 clicks to do anything in Windows. Less clicks means more doing what you want to do. That's why I like docks. They put nearly EVERYTHING I used %98 of time in front of me. Meanwhile watch Windows 10 continue to struggle to figure out what to put in their app launcher. It's embarrassing.

In the end.......who cares which is smarter, more logical, more efficient, more betterer or more apple-like, or any of those useless concepts? We get to choose how we want things to be, in the way that best suits us. The stock configuration of most Linux desktops is a reasonable set of defaults, but they are just defaults.

[KDEaster]

In the end.......who cares which is smarter, more logical, more efficient, more betterer or more apple-like, or any of those useless concepts? We get to choose how we want things to be, in the way that best suits us. The stock configuration of most Linux desktops is a reasonable set of defaults, but they are just defaults.

Actually I care. Because of all the stock configs of Linux I've seen, I haven't seen one with a dock that behaves the way I'm suggesting. I don't get to 'choose' a dock that drops the application menu within it.

Elementary OS made big waves for having a native dock, but even they make you go into slingshot to find something which could be sitting right in the dock.

In such discussions where it becomes what I want vs. what you like, I simply ask: what do you lose by my idea happening? Nothing. You can still use your Kubuntu your way.

I can't use it my way. Unless I switch to Unity. Which is an 'okay' solution but I prefer Ubuntu Gnome and Kubuntu.

[vinnywright]

is something like this what you were after ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,



with the Kickoff menu ,,,,launchers for some faves ,,,and a task manager to work with open windows





if so ,,,,,it was a right click the desktop>add panel>empty panel> then add the "application launcher" widget to it ,,,,,drag from the launcher menu to the panel to add your launchers then add the "task manager" widget ,,,,,,,,,,done.

my default panel is hidden for the screenshots.


VINNY

[KDEaster]

Well that's just mind-blowing, Vinny. Thank you. I couldn't believe the pieces of this were right in front of me.

It lacks one 'dock' function which is opened apps should appear in the dock. This is useful because it makes it easy to keep it there if you so choose. However, in Linux, I typically use a handful of apps and so they can almost all hang in the panel ('dock'). Like so --



But since you addressed nearly every concern, including the 'dock' being native to KDE -- I'm a happy customer.

[oshunluvr]

I have to agree on some points with the OP's complaint. I generally don't like Apple (not since the Apple ][e) or any of it's products but the dock they have runs smooth and is very visually appealing and functional at the same time. I've tried a few of the potential docks in KDE over the years (since the early days of KDE3), but they've always been buggy at best and often unusable. The dock (or panel) really needs to be rock solid because if you think about it - it's the one thing on your system you interact with constantly no matter what you're doing.

BTW, I'm not using 15.04 daily yet (I use my machine to work and ya'll have to get more bugs out first ), but does it have the plasma-widget-icon-tasks ? If I recall, it works much like the others (Apple and Unity) docks in that opened apps appear in as icons.

I use widescreen monitors these days and I've taken to keeping my panel on the right side. It doesn't have the very-cool bouncy icons or parabolic curving effect that Apple has - but it works.

[claydoh]

I'm trying to see if I can build the plasma 5 version of PlasMate , I am wondering if creating this dock might be as easy as taking some pieces of existing widgets and modifying them to suit.

Qml is supposed to be fairly simple to learn, and the simple plasma widget ide might be enough to figure things out.

[vinnywright]

Well that's just mind-blowing, Vinny. Thank you. I couldn't believe the pieces of this were right in front of me.

It lacks one 'dock' function which is opened apps should appear in the dock. This is useful because it makes it easy to keep it there if you so choose. However, in Linux, I typically use a handful of apps and so they can almost all hang in the panel ('dock'). Like so --

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6009[/ATTACH]

But since you addressed nearly every concern, including the 'dock' being native to KDE -- I'm a happy customer.

you forgot to add the task manager widget to it,,,,,,,,this will show all open aps and give some interaction with them

VINNY

[KDEaster]

So I've been kicking the tires with my new 'Panel Dock' and ultimately don't like it. The reason is that it doesn't utterly behave like a Dock. Docky does, but won't let me drop KDE Launcher into it. If it did, we'd be done here -- since Docky is relatively stable.

I'm not a developer type, but isn't it true that Docky is open-source? And so really all anyone needs to do is alter the code to remove the docky icon and port the KDE launcher to it? I mean is that was eOS is already doing with their 'plank'? If not, if they wrote plank, is IT open too?

[vinnywright]

plank is avalable in15.04 "if it's the same one anyway" ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

        [FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ apt search plank [/COLOR]
Sorting... Done 
Full Text Search... Done 
[COLOR=#18b218]hildon-theme-mobile-basic[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.37-0ubuntu3 all [/COLOR]
  Basic Ubuntu Mobile theme 

[COLOR=#18b218]jgraph[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 83-22 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Jim Plank's program for producing PostScript graphs 

[COLOR=#18b218]libplank-common[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 all [/COLOR]
  Library to build an elegant, simple, clean dock (shared files) 

[COLOR=#18b218]libplank-dev[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Library to build an elegant, simple, clean dock (development files) 

[COLOR=#18b218]libplank-doc[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 all [/COLOR]
  Library to build an elegant, simple, clean dock (documentation) 

[COLOR=#18b218]libplank0[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Library to build an elegant, simple, clean dock 

[COLOR=#18b218]libplank0-dbg[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Library to build an elegant, simple, clean dock (debug symbols) 

[COLOR=#18b218]plank[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Elegant, simple, clean dock 

[COLOR=#18b218]plank-dbg[/COLOR][COLOR=#000000]/vivid 0.9.0-1 amd64 [/COLOR]
  Elegant, simple, clean dock (debug symbols) 


[/FONT]

and

        [FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:~$ apt show plank [/COLOR]
Package: plank 
Priority: optional 
Section: universe/utils 
Installed-Size: 327 kB 
Maintainer: Rico Tzschichholz <ricotz@ubuntu.com> 
Version: 0.9.0-1 
Depends: libplank0 (= 0.9.0-1), libc6 (>= 2.2.5), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.32.0) 
Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.6) 
Download-Size: 34.3 kB 
Homepage: https://launchpad.net/plank 
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug 
Origin: Ubuntu 
Task: ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-mate-cloudtop 
APT-Sources: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ vivid/universe amd64 Packages 
Description: Elegant, simple, clean dock 
 Plank is a dock enabling you to start applications and manage your windows. 


[/FONT]

maby I will try it ......................

VINNY

[vinnywright]

The reason is that it doesn't utterly behave like a Dock.

? what dose that mean to you ,,,,,,,elaborate .

⨙VINNY⨙

[SteveRiley]

Vivid, like several releases prior, includes the Icon Only Task Manager. Interestingly enough, the functionality of this appears to have been fully incorporated into the standard Task Manager that's the default in KDE 5. After starting a program, you can right-click its icon and choose Show a launcher when not running. This provides dock-like behavior, if not exactly dock-like population techniques.

Oshun, since you're still on the prior release, check out Icon Only Task Manager.