Well, the box auto-scrolls the shelf, just like when selecting multiple files below or above the visible rows in an Explorer window. Actually I intend to do something very similar to how it works in Explorer.

Ouch. File Exploder is the biggest pile of manure, never used it since day 1 of using Windows all those years ago. Not fit for purpose or even porpoise.

Please Jorge, consider using selection with <ctrl> + click for individual file selection, and <shift> + click for a bunch of consecutive files. (Standard in most half-decent file managers, on all platforms.) Pretty please with a cherry on top.

lol. That is what Explorer also does.

Ah, never noticed as use list view, for the odd occasion where something insists on showing me Exploder to select a file or location. Just went by that 'box' in your screenshot and text.

A small suggestion that just occurred to me ..

There are some apps that I click on all the time. Like Firefox. There is small 'searching' time as I hunt for it in my ridiculously long ultrawide monitor filled dock. It would be nice if I could make some icons maybe 50% bit bigger so that they really stand out in the dock. Perhaps a 'priority icon' option or similar. Just a thought.

That would almost certainly not even be possible. I've yet to come across any dock on any platform that supports differently sized icons. Or, for that matter, any Desktop Environment or any kind of utility that displays icons.

Simple answer to your problem - smaller dock with sub-docks perhaps instead of a silly over-long dock. Or get rid of the ridiculously long ultrawide monitor.

Hmmm, I was just reading an article in El Reg about useful features the author would like to see Microsoft implement into Windows rather than features nobody has asked for, and one of the requests is something I have seen before being requested for Winstep applications as well: the ability to launch a *group* of applications with a single click.

Even I would find such a feature useful, as there are groups of applications I tend to launch together.

At the time this was suggested to me there was no easy way to implement such a thing - but now there is. I'm thinking something like a Grid Stack of regular type (so you can place the grouped applications into it, remove them, launch them individually, etc), but instead of opening the Grid Stack when you click on the parent Grid Stack icon, it launches all the items inside it.

To actually open the group as you would a grid stack, you would right click -> open group, or something like that (shift left click, I don't know).

Yep, totally agree, that really would be a very useful feature for many. Would have been extremely useful when I was still working in Windows a fair bit but nowadays tend to only use about two apps together and of course do most stuff in Linux. Still, definitely something worth thinking about, and the Grid Stack solution sounds perfect Jorge! How about single click = start all, <shift> + click, open - <alt> + click is often used e.g. to simulate middle mouse button.

A nice name for it to distinguish it from a Grid Stack, while at the same time acknowledging the origin, might be "Launch Stack"

Yea, nice one Jorge! Gets my vote, any day.

Ok, I think I got it working as I wanted it now.

You can select multiple icons via a selection box, CTRL+Left Click to toggle single items or SHIFT+Left Click to select consecutive items. You can also press CTRL+A to select all items at once.

This multi-select ability, of course, only applies to shelves, grid stacks and drawers. Docks do not have selection boxes.

I'm also adding an option to toggle multi-select on and off (on by default, I would say?) in case any users prefer the previous behavior (for instance, with multi-select on you can no longer use SHIFT + Left Click to force launch an item, although you can still use the middle mouse button)

Brilliant! Multi-select off by default would seem more natural/logical.

Icon will be something like this, to go along with the new Grid Stack icon... not sure if I should use a static image with the white rocket or dynamically overlay the icon of the first item in the launch stack onto the blue pad (using the rocket overlay only when the stack is empty).

So, the idea of the Launch Stack is that when you left click on it all items inside are launched all at once (i.e.; group launch).

Thing is, you also need a way to open it so you can edit the contents. If the Launch Stack is empty left clicking will open it, but what about when it already has items?

With the new multi-select option we can no longer use the SHIFT and CTRL modifiers, as this are now used to multi-select items.

You can always open the Launch Stack by right clicking on it and selecting "Open" in the right click context menu that pops up, of course, but I am not sure if this is enough.

At the moment I am using the middle mouse button to open the Launch Stack regardless of it being populated or not, but I'm probably going to ditch this idea since the middle mouse button is also used to always launch items regardless of the "do not launch multiple sessions of the same application" setting.

So, if you middle click a Launch Stack instead of left clicking it, the application should always launch another session of whatever is inside the Launch Stack (rather than simply opening the Stack).

My question therefore is: will users get confused if the only way to open a Launch Stack once populated is by right clicking it and selecting "Open" in the context menu that pops up?

As already mentioned, "Launch Stack" sounds perfect.

As for the icon, I think the static one with the white rocket seems the better option to me. Also, less risk of something (I.E., Win) messing things up...