Windows 7's Taskbar....Err.....Circle Dock (My New Program)

I have made a program that will allow you to get a feel for what a circular taskbar might be like in Windows 7. You can get a copy and the code at:
http://circledock.wikidot.com/

Details below:

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What Circle Dock Allows You to Do:

Drag and drop your files, folders, and shortcuts onto a circular or spiral dock.
Rotate the dock with either your mouse wheel or the keyboard arrow keys.
Change the image shown for the icons and change the skins (compatible with icons and skins for Rocket Dock, Object Dock, etc.)
Ability to run the program from a portable USB memory stick and have the links in the dock point to the documents on the USB memory stick.
Ability to synchronize the links on the dock with the files, folders, and shortcuts on your desktop or other folders in real-time.
The dock appears where your mouse is by pressing a hotkey.
Works on computers with multiple monitors.


The Idea Behind Circle Dock

The idea behind Circle Dock is that the dock should appear where your mouse is instead of you having to move your mouse to the dock like with other programs. This is accomplished by making the dock a circular or spiral shape so that it can be placed anywhere, even near the edge of the screen. The offscreen portions of the dock are easily reached by just scrolling with your mouse wheel or arrow keys.

A user defined hotkey combination is used to make the dock appear and disappear. By default, this combination is CTRL-WINDOWS KEY. You can change it in the settings area of the program.

If you have a mouse with extra buttons or you want to make one of your mouse buttons activate the dock, I recommend you use the program from http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm and use it to remap your mouse buttons. This makes it very convenient to toggle Circle Dock.

The current version of Circle Dock is 0.9. It is not feature complete when compared to the full fledged docks out there, such as Rocket Dock and Object Dock, but this program was coded in under 2 weeks for a programming competition at www.donationcoder.com so there was not enough time to investigate every standard dock feature and code it. As the program develops, more standard dock features will be added.

 

impressive......

 

Innovation & Windows

 

good work
downloading/testing now
+rep

 

Great idea but it keeps crashing on me when I go and try and add an icon or two.

Are you suppose to install this program or just run it from the unzipped folder? I didn't see an option other than to run it within the folder or create a desktop icon.

 

There's no problems on my end adding icons. I'm using Vista Premium 32 bit. What OS are you using? Is there an error message that pops up?

There is no need to install, you just double-click the Circle Dock icon to run. You keep everything inside the folder.

 

is it possible to make it hide when you click back on the desktop?

 

I can make the program hide when it loses focus. The code for it is commented out in the source code. I can add it in as an option if that is what you are looking for.

What OS are you using out of curiosity?

 

I'm just starting to learn code (im only a sophomore in HS)
so idk about the source code

Im using Vista Ultimate SP1 32Bit

 

Yup i'm running Vista Prem 32bit SP1. I did double click on the icon and I got a message saying "CircleDock.exe has stopped working"

Windows can check online for a solution to the problem

1) Check online for a solution
2) Close the program
3) Debug the program

 

Ok, I added in the option to make the dock hide when it loses focus. I'm having trouble reaching my website right now so it will be up in a couple of hours.

 

Did you check to see if you already have a copy of CircleDock.exe running in the Task Manager? Try pressing CTRL-Windows Key and see if it pops up. You can only run one instance of CircleDock per folder/copy of the program.

 

I checked and it's only running 1 copy of CircleDock.exe and it crashed the instant I tried to drag and drop an icon into the dock.

 

Was this meant to work in xp, becuase when I try to add shortcuts to it in XP, the whole program crashes

EDIT: hmm i changed the skin to one of the astros and now I can add shortcuts to the outer circle and changing it to spiral made it sweeter! Thanks for the program!

 

Ok s after adding a couple icons I notice that it crashes once in a while when adding an icon, but when you relaunch teh program then icon you tried to add is there (XP pro 32-bit)

 

Impressive. Thanks.

It's just not very stable and consumes too much CPU power while used

 

Hmm, these crashes are really weird. I can't get it to crash on my computer and I can add lots of icons. I'll have to try it on some other computers myself and see what happens.

I'm looking through the code for the drag and drop feature and can't see what would cause it to crash. The lack of error messages here is a problem.

And yes, it should run on XP.

 

To definitively find out what is causing the program to crash, I'll need one of the people with trouble to download Visual Basic Express: http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ and use it to run the source code of the Circle Dock: http://circledock.wikidot.com/source-code

When the program crashes with Visual Basic Express running, it'll show what part of the code is causing the problem and give a detailed error message.

 

This is weird. I have it running pretty well in XP. Not a single crash yet.

 

Okay, I'm going on a hunch here but I think I may know what is causing instability for some people. I think it may be the version of the .Net Framework you have on your Windows computer. I have the latest version of .Net, which is 3.5. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/net/DownloadCurrent.aspx and install the latest version of .Net and try running Circle Dock again. Tell me if it helps.

 

It's cool looking, but I don't understand the functional purpose.

 

Wow it seems you are right. Now it works perfectly! Thanks for the suggestion. You might want to add that as a req to the first post.

 

Hey, did you add in the hide feature yet? Just wondering..

Also, btw you share the same name with me lol.

 

Interesting program. +rep

 

Circle Dock 0.9.1 is up and you can get it at http://circledock.wikidot.com/download-circle-dock. Go to Settings -> Behavior -> check Hide Dock When Lost Focus.

I have compiled Circle Dock 0.9.1 to be used with the .Net Framework 3.5 instead of the older 2.0 version so this should help with stability for those that are having trouble. This also means that you must now have the .Net Framework 3.5 or later installed on your computer to use the program. Instructions are on the download page.

Let me know if this new version helps out.

I'm going to rewrite Circle Dock from scratch with a better design because I've learned a lot from this first version. I'll address the performance and modularity issues of the current version. It may take a while.

 

The main idea is that your taskbar/dock should go to where your mouse is instead of your mouse going to the taskbar.

 

Alright, that sounds good...you should try to spread the word a bit more. I think this is much more useful than let's say ObjectDock or any other dock, just because IMO its more versatile.

 

I don't think software marketing is one of my strong points. I have no idea how other freeware writers get so many hits to their websites without paying out for advertising.

Anyhow, I don't think Circle Dock 0.9 is ready to be mainstream because its missing a lot of features and the ability to use current docklets. Once I finish a rewrite of the program, then it should be ready for the masses. But it'll take time.

 

Well, I already love the program. And for some reason, its stable for me lol. I've already replaced ObjectDock for it.

 

That's pretty Cool Mr. Bart...
You have tons of potentials.

Keep on Rockin'

 

Do you do this by scrolling thru the dock?

 

Circle Dock is set up so that when you press a hotkey combination, it will pop up or go away. The default hotkey is CTRL-WinKey, which you can change. Pressing the hotkey combo makes Circle Dock appear and centre itself at your current cursor location.

If you want to take it all the way, you can use a third party program like http://www.highrez.co.uk/downloads/XMouseButtonControl.htm to remap one of your extra mouse buttons so that it activates the hotkey and then you really have the convenient solution I am shooting for.

(Correct me if this is not what you are asking.)

 

Ok, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. That is pretty neat and I admire the programming skills

I kinda feel like you think we're lazy though cause we cant move the cursor to our dock :laugh:

I'll be looking forward to future updates to see how you've refined it

 

I found a bug with the multiple monitor thing. On my Asus G1s with the latest version of your program hooked up to a 20" (I think) Dell LCD monitor at work, I can't access your program on the Dell. It works on the laptop's monitor, but not on the big one.

 

Same here.

Not to be poisonous to the invention and convo in progress, but what I find baffling is why a typical computer user would exchange near-instant gratification (i.e., moving the mouse to the docket program) for the timely scroll method employed by this program.

Again, not to be cancerous, but the program's functionality and relevance strikes me as nonsensical and extraneous.

That said, I sincerely wish Bart the best wish in his endeavors. (Just because I don't find the program useful does not mean the program is without merit.)

 

Noted. I will check it out.

 

No offense taken. I don't expect everyone to like the concept of the program. I just think that it is convenient to have the ability for the dock to show up anywhere the mouse is and be centered around the mouse. If you have a large monitor or multiple monitors (support is a bit buggy right now) it can save a lot of moving your mouse down to where the dock is.

 

Thanks...I really do think it saves you much more time then a traditional dock or start menu. My two cents

 

Um, I have the latest .NET Framework installed (3.5) but everytime I want to start CircleDock.exe, it is always CircleDock has stopped working.

Seems like a great program, I can't wait to be able to try it out.

 

I played with it and I think it's pretty nifty... but I had a few suggestions:

- Instead of having the dock hide, I'd rather just turn off the always-on-top functionality. When I launch apps, they can just appear over the dock, obscuring the dock. And the hotkey (ctrl-win or whatever) could just bring the dock to the front of all the windows. That's how I'd like it to work.

- Allow me to use the smooth-scrolling rotation when using the mouse wheel or arrow keys. (Instead of just the jumpy rotation.)

- Allow me to turn off the jump-to-mouse-cursor functionality (although it's nice to have the option).

- The zoom seems to unfairly favor the icon in the counterclockwise direction. That is, if I have my cursor in the middle of an icon, the icon in the counterclockwise direction (relative to the mouse cursor) is larger than the icon in the clockwise direction.

- In the Settings, I don't quite understand the relationship between the "Zoom Factor" setting and Zoomed Icon Size setting.

 

These mysterious crashes are going to drive me nuts. Its a good thing I'm doing a grounds up rewrite of the program. I gonna do testing with lots of computers this time before I release it.

It seems that installing .Net 3.5 helps some people and not others. I have no idea why right now but you could help me out by downloading Visual Basic Express from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ and then downloading the source code for Circle Dock at http://circledock.wikidot.com/source-code. Then:
[1] Install Visual Basic Express
[2] Unzip the Circle Dock Source code and double-click the icon with a "9" on it.
[3] Visual Basic Express will then load the program. You will see a green arrow on the task bar. Click on it to run (debug) the program.
[4] When the program crashes, Visual Basic Express will point at where in the code it is crashing and give you a detailed error message. I require these two pieces of information to determine what is happening. Taking screenshots will work.

 

For what it's worth, I have .NET 3.5 and I haven't encountered any problems.

 

- Instead of having the dock hide, I'd rather just turn off the always-on-top functionality. When I launch apps, they can just appear over the dock, obscuring the dock. And the hotkey (ctrl-win or whatever) could just bring the dock to the front of all the windows. That's how I'd like it to work.

I'll add this in for the next minor release that'll also address the the multi-monitor issue. It was something that I had thought about.

- Allow me to use the smooth-scrolling rotation when using the mouse wheel or arrow keys. (Instead of just the jumpy rotation.)

The animation and the way the program renders graphics will be revamped in my rewrite. Right now, I'm just using crude drawing techniques because I only had two weeks to do the program.

- Allow me to turn off the jump-to-mouse-cursor functionality (although it's nice to have the option).

I'll add this in for the next minor release that'll also address the the multi-monitor issue.

- The zoom seems to unfairly favor the icon in the counterclockwise direction. That is, if I have my cursor in the middle of an icon, the icon in the counterclockwise direction (relative to the mouse cursor) is larger than the icon in the clockwise direction.

I'll address this in the rewrite. Currently, the code calculates how many radians you are away from the icons and uses that to determine what level to zoom to. I had to do this because the code was not set up to be multi-threaded and I need a mathematical way to simulate the zooming in other docks. In the rewrite, I'll make the zooming like what is seen in the other major docks.

- In the Settings, I don't quite understand the relationship between the "Zoom Factor" setting and Zoomed Icon Size setting.

You got me on this one. They are both controlling the same characteristic, which is the size of the zoom icons. I'll see if I can fix this for the next minor release.

 

Take your time. So far it's working out great, you did a great job with this program.

 

Sorry for the delay.

I just download and install Visual Basic Express, when I try to run the program using Visual Basic Express, it doesn't give any error and is working properly now. Then, I tried running the program from the zip and it is not showing the error. Weird, I don't do anything significant to my notebook which can prevent the error to stop happening...

 

I think it is probably something wrong with your installation of .Net 3.5 because installing Visual Basic Express comes with the latest version of .Net 3.5.

Anyhow, it isn't a big deal. The new version of Circle Dock is coming along nicely. It uses much less CPU power and moving the dock around is much smoother. This should also translate into smoother animations if I do it correctly. Right now, I'm just planning out how the dock saves the configuration of the dock and what kind of layout I want the dock to have. This is an important step because it will dictate how flexible the program can be in the future.

 

Great program, I love it, though I'd love a way to remove the icon in the middle and start from there with the spiral.

 

But, if you remove the icon from the middle, you'll have no way of draging the dock around. Or is this acceptable?

Argh, I've stumbled into a dumb quirk of Microsoft's in my program. Dang thing doesn't tell you when the left mouse button goes up.

 

For me it certainly is, I've never dragged it around, I'll just put up the bar where my mouse is again.

 

Just make it an option, or make an invisible icon in the middle.