There is something about sub-docks that has been on my mind:

For some of my docks i have dock fully transparent, while icons are semi-transparent with fade in effect on mouse over, while in dock properties -> behavior -> sub-dock, there is animation option which also has a Fade in effect which works different than that of mouse-over.
Took me a while to realize that its not a bug, but working as intended with two different effects sharing a same name

beside the issue of same names for different effect, i think sub-docks would benefit from opacity changing effect (maybe the main dock's themselves to, an option that would make whole dock opaque on mouse-over, not just several icons)

That's the animation applied to the appearance of the sub-dock (you can also select different animations for the main dock, i.e.; when it's hidden and comes back from the edge of the screen). Has nothing to do with icon mouse-over, attention and launch effects though.



It's an idea, indeed. The Desktop Modules already have this option.

i realized that, but the animation and the mouse-over efect having the same name was misleading

Is it possible for the dock to change color to match the wallpaper, like windows 10 does with the Taskbar.

WinStep:

I would definitely use different settings for Sub Docks!
My main dock is mostly Sub Docks, some of which also have Sub Docks.


TheDude23112:

Right click and select Dock Properties
on the Appearance Tab Press the Color Settings button
check Colorize with Dominant Color of Desktop Background.

Ah, and the other big change I mentioned?

Currently when you open a sub-dock the parent dock unmagnifies and stays that way until the sub-dock is closed, even if you mouse over it.

The new way would allow parent docks to magnify normally even when sub-docks are open... but for this to work the sub-dock must open a little bit further away from the parent dock, so that magnified icons from the parent dock do not overlap the sub-dock.



Thanks, Dan. TheDude, you can also do this globally (i.e.; docks, Shelf, desktop modules, menus, NextSTART taskbar, etc...) from the Themes tab in Preferences.

Here is a video showing off this feature:

WinStep wrote:

I normally only use the Zoom mouseover for my docks but I can see where that might be a useful thing, especially if you have more than a few Sub Docks stacked up. You can then tell where you started from!

Well, not really.

I have been playing with this since yesterday, and while I actually like having the parent docks still being able to magnify even when sub-docks are open (I'm going to keep that option, and probably even turn it on by default), keeping the parent sub-dock *icon* magnified at all times while the sub-dock is open is not really an option anymore.

RocketDock gets away with it because it actually freezes the dock when you open a Stacks docklet (i.e.; absolutely nothing happens when you mouseover the dock until you close the Stack).

This is not functional behavior, IMO.

Besides, if the dock is to remain functional, when you mouse over another icon in the parent dock the sub-dock icon has to de-magnify anyway.

Cairo dock (for Linux/Ubuntu) remains functional and the parent icon remains magnified when you mouse away from it into the sub-dock/Stacks. However, it does this by not un-magnifying at all when you mouse away from the dock while the Stack is open. So, if you open a Stacks docklet and instead of going up to it you go to, say, the last icon of the parent dock, the parent *icon* de-magnifies and when you mouse away from the dock it's this last icon that remains magnified. Weird, to say the least.

I was actually surprised to see a video where the original MacOSX dock kind of does what Nexus does now: when you click on an icon pointing to a Stack, the Stack opens and the dock *immediately* de-magnifies even if the mouse pointer is still over the magnified parent icon. Unlike what Nexus does now, however, the dock will magnify again if you mouse over it even if the Stack is still open.

Absolutely yes! Individual settings for sub-docks is one of the few things I always wanted to have in Nexus. Already forgot about that. No unmagnification when opening sub-docks would also be great! Never thought about that, but it's an unnecessary animation after all. Would be smoother without it.
And you're right about the indicator function of the magnified icon, to see to which icon the sub-dock belongs. Especially useful if the sub-dock is too large to be centered over the parent icon. (if it's near the edge of the screen)
Can't wait to check it out!

I tried implementing that (leaving the parent sub-dock icon magnified), problem is that it doesn't work well in practice.

There are a couple of different ways to accomplish this and they all have drawbacks:

1. We freeze the parent dock to mouse overs like RocketDock does when you open a Stack (i.e.; the parent dock would stop responding to mouse-overs and remain magnified and frozen in place until you closed the sub-dock).

Besides being a somewhat weird solution, this doesn't work for us because Nexus allows you to drag items from parent docks to sub-docks and vice-versa. So we need the dock to remain responsive to mouse overs.

2. We prevent the dock from de-magnifying while the sub-dock is open.

There are two drawbacks with this:

a) Because the dock remains responsive to mouse overs, if the user returns the mouse pointer to another icon in the parent dock without having already closed the sub-dock, the dock MUST magnify this other icon. Since the dock is already fully magnified, this means an instant full magnification of this other icon and its neighbors while the parent icon and its neighbors return to normal size just as abruptly.

Not smooth at all and makes the dock look glitchy.

b) If you now leave the dock again, the icon that remains fully magnified (i.e.; the last icon you moused over) might have nothing to do with the sub-dock that is currently open.

Now, I suppose I could fix both these problems - e.g.; if you leave the dock it would automatically re-magnify the parent dock icon, and if you re-enter the dock at another place it smoothly magnifies the new entry point at the same time that it de-magnifies the parent icon - but both solutions are incompatible with the current dock magnification algorithm.

Now, this algorithm is tremendously complex, not so much because of what it does but because it has been optimized to death for speed. A lot of work and time would have to be invested in this so all the movements would be smooth... and for what? So you can leave one icon magnified?

Not worth it, IMO. Especially not on what is supposed to be mostly a maintenance release.

I see. Well, it's not that important after all.
The individual settings for sub-docks would be great though.
Always thought it looks a bit silly to have the leopard background floating above the dock, since it's designed to be attached to a border.

It's working here already. Currently tying loose ends.

This way you can have not only different themes for each sub-dock but also different icon sizes, transparency, icon spacing, etc...

If you want the theme associated to a sub-dock to be persistent (i.e.; remain the same even when you change the current global theme) you can simply lock the theme for that sub-dock in the sub-dock's Properties panel (otherwise when you change the global theme all sub-docks will revert to the new global theme, just like it happens now with docks). I added a new 'Lock Theme' setting to the Themes tab of the Dock Properties panels to make this easy.

Nice, that surely is a great addition! I find sub-docks extremely useful. They are great to categorize similiar applications. Now you can customize each with a matching background. Can't wait to check it out!

Ok, new beta available.

For those Winstep Xtreme users who installed the previous beta, please let me know how the Winstep Update Manager handled this new beta. All going well, you should only see the UAC prompt and the progress dialog, then bang, you're running the new version.

Better? Same? Meh?!

Parent dock magnification now remains enabled by default even when sub-docks are open. Please let me know what you think of this, especially those who use a lot of sub-docks.

You can now configure sub-docks individually, but that setting is turned off by default. To turn it on, open the Dock Properties dialog of any dock -> Behavior -> Sub-docks -> disable 'Sub-docks inherit parent dock settings'.

DanDaBear, check the new Alarm weekly options.

Chuck, if you're reading this, check the General tab of NextSTART Preferences. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Finally, if you are a Nexus Ultimate user and you've got a calendar module on a dock or the Shelf: click on it! I think you will be pleasantly surprised too.

seems to work good, although it increases the distance between the dock and sub-dcok so i prefer to have it disabled



nice

i did notice one thing, the transparency setting seems bugged
if i try to increase opacity of the icons that were previously semi-transparent it has no effect
i can make them more transparent, and then opaque back to the level they were before
(ie, my icons are 50% transparent. if i slide transparency anywhere from 50 to 100% it has effect, but if i try to set it between 0 and 50 nothing changes)
happens with both docks and sub-docks

second transparency bug that i noticed before but forgot
i had CPU and RAM meters z-order set to always on Bottom, but because of the flicker i mentioned before, i set it to normal
With Z-order normal, if i select RAM meter it becomes more opaque than CPU meter, but doesnt go back to same level of transparency if i deselect it
(nether module has make opaque on mouse-over turned on)

Z-order Normal(or on top), after selecting RAM meter module)
http://prntscr.com/dym131

normal behaviour:
http://prntscr.com/dym26c