I typically run nexus dock set to auto-hide so that I can have full use of my screen. With the latest update however, I've noticed some new behaviour that wasn't present before.

When a program (such as an instant messenger for example) begins flashing the attention effect after an event, the dock now un-hides and pops up. The problem is, it won't hide again under any circumstances unless I put focus back onto the program that's flashing for attention. I've scoured through the options and preferences looking for perhaps a new feature that allows me to disable this attention popup behaviour, but I haven't found anything relating to it.

Have I missed something? Is this a possible bug? Is there any way to disable the attention popup behaviour of the dock? It can get pretty annoying after a while, especially when using something like an instant messenger which has new events very often.

Also, on another topic, excellent work implementing a show/hide toggle function for the dock! Very handy, that. After playing around with it for a bit I noticed however that oftentimes in order to hide the dock, you need to press the toggle hotkey twice. This seems to occur when the focus is on a window other than the dock. Pressing the toggle hotkey the first time seems to bring focus back to the dock (but doesn't hide it), and the second press then hides it.

Just thought I'd bring that to your attention as well. Thanks and keep up the great work!

Yes, that is by design. The Windows taskbar does the same.



Funny you mentioned this, because in v12.2 I specifically targeted this part. If what you mean is that the dock won't hide *automatically* until you put focus on the program that's flashing for attention, then you are 100% correct and, again, that is by design.

This makes sure you will know an application requires your attention if you come back to your PC after some time away.

However, you can still hide the dock manually by double clicking the Nexus control icon even when an application is flashing. The dock will not pop up again until *another* application requires your attention.



It's by design, as I told you: if you are using the dock for your task management needs and it doesn't popup when an application starts to flash, then what is the point of flashing? You won't know something requires your attention until it's too late.

Either re-hide the dock manually *or* check the window that needs your attention.



Again, by design. At first I tried it the other way, and it simply didn't feel right. The principle is the same as when you click on a taskbar button: if the window is in the foreground, it minimizes, otherwise it is brought to the foreground first and a second click minimizes it.

Ahhh, I see. So in regards to the toggle hotkey needing to be pressed twice, essentially what's happening is the first press ensures that the dock is brought to the forefront of any open windows, and the subsequent second press (if no other window is brought to the foreground next) will cause the dock to hide.

In regards to the dock unhiding and popping up when a program requires attention, yes it's very good logic to do so especially if the dock is used entirely for all taskbar needs and functions. However, in practice, sometimes for example I'll be in the middle of something and I'll receive an instant message and the dock then appears and covers up the bottom of my screen until I essentially answer it. The issue is, I may not at any given moment *want* to stop what I'm doing entirely and turn my attention to whichever program is alerting me, just to regain use of my whole screen again.

In the case of instant messages, what we're seeing now is a bit of a redundancy of attention-getting methods. On the one hand, we have the actual IM program making a sound indicating a new message has arrived, and on the other hand now the dock is covering up a portion of my screen as well to alert me. While the default windows taskbar will do this also, the beauty of the nexus dock is that it can be set to auto-hide when not needed. Keeping the dock on-screen indefinitely after an alert basically defeats this purpose in many cases. Additionally, for folks with multiple monitors, they may already be aware that there has been a new event in a particular program just by virtue of the fact that they could have it occupying one of their screens. Basically, in lots of cases, the dock just doesn't *need* to stay stuck on-screen forever until we "silence" it. It just gets in the way.

I propose a possibility to make things a little easier for presumably a lot of folks in similar situations. While the dock popping up to tell us our attention is requested is handy and useful much of the time, would it be do-able to implement an option to have the dock re-hide again automatically after a specified delay, perhaps chosen with a slider bar like many of the other current options have? Perhaps, also, a check-box to disable the function entirely if one desires?

My thinking is that by still popping up to alert us, it's made us aware that something needs our attention, but by auto-hiding after a few seconds it allows us to still continue doing whatever it is we're doing at the moment until the time is appropriate and we're ready to shift our focus to handle whatever needs our attention. This way, we still have the beauty of a full screen while still receiving a perfectly sufficient alert to make us aware of the event calling for attention. Also, advocating adding the option to disable the popup alert function entirely, some users may already be aware of new events through other methods (program on-screen in multi-monitor setup, audible alert sound, etc..) and simply don't need to be alerted by the dock as well. Otherwise, as it is currently, we lose a portion of our screen until we click on the alerting program which ultimately means, in many cases, we're forced to do so (because the dock could very well be covering a critical part of the screen, which is where much of the annoyance factor comes into play). Basically the dock is nagging hehe.

You seem to be ignoring the part where I said you can double click the Nexus control icon in the dock to make it auto-hide again. It's a quick alternative to giving focus to the application that needs your attention: double click, ta-da, the dock knows you are aware of the new alert and auto-hides.

If you don't have the Nexus control icon showing in the dock, you should.

Also, having the dock pop-up only for a short time, as you suggested, is a sure recipe for missed notifications: you get up from your PC to go to the bathroom, an important notification arrives, dock pops up. It hides again after the preset delay, but you haven't returned from the bathroom yet.

Minutes later you return and resume working without being aware that you've actually missed something.

Hours later you immerse from the 'zone' and show the dock to run some other application: THEN you notice you missed an IM from the gorgeous girl next door asking you out for dinner that night.

Well, too late now - your mind goes back to when you asked me to implement the time-out feature and you curse my name for actually having done it.

So, to save you from missing out on that date with the hot girl next door, I'm not going to implement that option.

Admittedly, I do enjoy your example scenario hehehe.

I just had another idea that could provide a nice solution while basically satisfying both of our perspectives.

I understand the thinking behind wanting to ensure the user doesn't accidentally miss out on a potentially important alert, especially if they've gotten up and left the system unmanned for a given length of time. How about if another method to trigger the auto-hide of the dock after an alert is to bring another window into focus?

This way, should a user leave the computer unattended and an alert event occurs, upon returning to the station they will be presented with the dock un-hidden and on-screen flashing the attention alert, which can quickly be silenced by simply clicking on the previously foreground window (if they don't wish to deal with the alert at that time). This way, they've been made aware of the alert and have had to actively dismiss it without keeping an extra icon on the dock for just this purpose.

Additionally, for users already busy doing something else when the alert event occurs and the dock un-hides, instead of having to keep another icon on the dock specifically to hide it (which would increase dock clutter), all they'd need to do is just click/tap on the window they were working with and the dock would disappear from their view until they were ready to shift their attention. It seems like a natural intuitive manner to clear the alert and re-hide the dock, simply clicking on the full-screen window you were working on.

What are your thoughts?

Sorry for the late reply. Your idea in the last paragraph *might* work.

I absolutely love Nexus Dock. The work you guys have put into this has produced a phenomenal system, and it has profoundly changed the way I work and made my computing enormously more efficient and pleasant.

However I am forced to agree with Pyramas, this nagging alert feature of the dock is seriously irritating. I get a lot of instant messages throughout the day from and I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally clicked on a dock item when the dock unexpectedly popped up flashing an alert while I was in the middle of something. I already have the messenger window up on another secondary screen, so I am fully aware when I receive a new message... I really don't need the dock unexpectedly invading a portion of my main screen to tell me what I already know. To me, the whole reason of setting the dock to auto-hide is so that I don't have to see it until I'm ready to see it, when I decide it's time to make it appear and overlap a portion of my screen in a controlled and intentional manner. When it pops up on it's own and I'm in the middle of something else at the time, it just causes a mess and breaks my focus, often resulting in it covering up something important.

There are already so many options and settings to really fine-tune the customization of the dock in great detail, I just don't understand why there can't be another tiny option put in somewhere to disable this frankly intrusive behavior.

Please guys, give us the option to disable this. I used to have no complaints about the dock until this new behavior was put in without any way to turn it off.

Ok, ok, I give in... I'll add an option in the next version to prevent docks from popping up when an application is requesting attention.

Yeah. I experience this when I am working on something and I have a Skype group chat window open on another monitor. It is a bit of a pain. Every time someone posts a message up comes the dock. It's also why i disabled sounds in Skype.

I like the solution where if you just click on the window you are working on, or any one, the dock hides. Just a single checkbox to enable this functionality would be cool.

jorge can you merge my thread beloew with this one? thanks

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4760

Any suggestions as to where to place the option to prevent docks from popping up when an application is requesting attention?

Logical possible locations are in the dock's 'Content' tab ('Running Applications' section at the top), in the dock's 'Behavior' tab in the 'Auto-Hide' section, or the Tasks tab.

But which one is the best, in your opinion?

jorge can you please merge the two topics since they are really about the same thing?

as for where to put it easy under nextstart's rightclick menu under disable auto-hide under taskbar settings, and then preferences, taskbar settings, behavior.

Actually one concerns NextSTART and the other (this one) Nexus/WorkShelf. Let them be separate.



I was asking regarding Nexus/WorkShelf.

my bad on both. i see attention effect and think of nextstart, cause in my book if you have xtreme it makes no sense to have the taskbar icons on nexus, nor the systray icons either. I'll copy my couple of other post to the other thread.

as for nexus then. the nexus rightclick menu above or below autohide, and workshelf preferences\docks - nexus\behavior\more options.

Was this feature ever implemented in Nexus? I would like to disable windows notifications from unhiding my dock and I can't seem to find the setting in any of the proposed locations.

Thanks!