XWindows Dock: The Best Mac Dock Emulator

XWindows Dock: The Best Mac Dock Emulator
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#1 Gragier_521

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 06:41 AM

XWindows Dock - or XWD for short - is the newest free dock application for Windows Vista and XP. But it's not just another one like RK Launcher or RocketDock or ObjectDock. You can call it the real Mac Leopard dock emulator because it has all the features you only dreamed that your dock would offer.

Features:

Minimize applications for replacing boring taskbar
Icon reflections
Customizable visual affects
Portable and doesn't write anything to registry
Skinnable

Download
XWD Website

I just saw this on Vishal Gupta's website and thought I'd share it.

#2 Vishal Gupta

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 07:14 AM

Thanks for posting it here. I really liked this dock as it provides lots of eye candy features like Genie effect, reflections, etc and also event sounds are awesome.

#3 SamiWiecieKto

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 09:37 AM

0) how application can be portable with installer - I guess I missed new trends

1) Cames with installer - yuc
2) Requires more than 256 ram - sure...
3) If someone writes their software is the best - and it isn't the only one in its category: from experience - it's probably not
4) "ulgy icons" - I live in century when icon can be 32-bit alpha 256x256 image...
5) Installer look worse than a page...
6) 10 mb ram usage and as always CPU goes crazy (why developers use so much CPU power on so simple tasks...)
7) Interface of settings - I could start lawsuit if I were Apple
8) Picture on page isn't exactly what we get... by what I mean it's far worse(guess it's not so easy to achieve some effects isn't it ;P)

Overall opinion: 6/10 but I'm not dock fan - or to be precise, I think they use to much resources. Still it's a good choice for less experienced users looking for complex, quite easy to use solution (except I hate and I'm against settings - that's why I'm working so hard in all Nimi projects to apply autoadapt system)

...and don't force me to write dock too :whistle:

... but I guess from watching customization community I will really need to use one-blast strategy now

This post has been edited by SamiWiecieKto: 28 March 2009 - 09:38 AM

#4 P.A.I. Djo

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 10:28 AM

graphic quality not as good as expected and advertised (like, at all)
comes with NO uninstaller :|

despite all that: nice work done by its developer, but sorry, not for me :-)

#5 Lord Devrexster

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 12:14 PM

This has been on for about six months now on aqua-soft

Actually most Mac emulators at aqua-soft is using this ... Its the closest u can get to the Mac dock. Even the installer looks like those on Macs

The whole(almost) aqua-soft community contributed to it.

BTW, the installation folder is completely portable. Only the icon zooming needs a bit of work and then it wud be a "complete rip-off" (in the good sense) of the Mac dock...

#6 AMIRZ

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 12:22 PM

Thanks for posting this

#7 SamiWiecieKto

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 01:06 PM

Lord Devrexster, on Mar 28 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

~Devrexster I think You exposed finally all truth behind it ;P

More seriously - if You say so, then I can believe it's the best what's out for now.

#8 Freka

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 01:39 PM

Too slow and buggy. I tried to have that preview thing showing my pictures and it just crashed. They really need to make be able to position wherever you want on the screen not just the bottom.
Going back to Rocketdock.

This post has been edited by Freka: 28 March 2009 - 01:45 PM

#9 Lord Devrexster

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Post icon Posted 28 March 2009 - 02:01 PM

SamiWiecieKto, on Mar 28 2009, 06:36 PM, said:

Lord Devrexster, on Mar 28 2009, 01:14 PM, said:

~Devrexster I think You exposed finally all truth behind it ;P

More seriously - if You say so, then I can believe it's the best what's out for now.

Its actually more close to the original Mac dock. BUT its not the fastest. Rocketdock is surely a hell faster and easier to work with.

But if u r a hard-core Mac emulator (like I sometimes become

) then this is the better bet. AND it was made by some of the best "Mac-emulating-developers" out there - including Matias Moreno (most dock users know him by his stack docklet plugins). AND there are many window-minimizing animations - so it goes one-up from the MAC dock

Other than that, there is no real "productitvity" advantages over Rocketdock.

BTW, this one got its own plugins too. Check out its forum at Aqua-soft.

#10 vD3stroyiR(666)

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Posted 28 March 2009 - 07:19 PM

I didn't like. :/
It's hard to manage, slow, and heavy on RAM and CPU.
I did like all the eye-candy it has, but that wasn't enough to convince me to stick to this dock permanently.

Will try again when more work has been put into it.