I just tried your program, seems interesting.

Here's my wish list for it, sorry if there are any
suggestions in this that have already been mentioned.

1: The 'hit box' for the tabs is very small, I have to
keep clicking around until I finally get the menu to
go to the tab I've been clicking several times.
Sometimes this causes the program to crash.

2: Adjusting the "icon size" settings to lowest
size causes a crash.

3: If deleting the dock causes crashing,
it'd probably be a good idea to not have
it in the options.

4: Add a "bare bones" mode that turns off
all effects except for maybe icon bouncing
and the "zoom icons as you mouse through them"
effect.

5: Add a "stacks / box" docklet like you can have for
Rocket Dock. See link to image.

http://s24.postimg.org/q02k5w5hx/Desktop.png
(The two columns to the left are Emerge Desktop,
also the little right click box is Emerge).

6: Sometimes icons disappear and reappear for no reason.

7: Open it up and try to create a community of people who create new add ons and stuff for it like the Rocket Dock customization community.

I split the post from the "wishlist" topic, simply because it's more of a bug list than a wish list.
If you're experiencing all these crashes, there's probably something wrong with your setup, because they're not bugs that happen to everybody.
Let's see some...


Not sure what you mean by "hit box" or which tabs you're referring to. Do you mean, workshelf tabs or the "settings" dialogue tabs?
In either case, though, I can assure you, we've seen no crashes and the tabs in either workshelf or the settings dialogue work on first click.
Are you sure your system doesn't have anything weird running?


Again, both of these are problems unique to your computer. Obviously, if something *that* obvious caused the programme to crash, Jorge (the programmer) would have either fixed it or removed it from the settings.


That's a rather unique request. Something that's "barebone" for you, could be seen differently by someone else. What would a "Spartan" set-up include? A minimal theme? No effects at all? No sounds at all? You yourself just said "except zoom and bounce". Someone else might say "lose the zoom and bounce but keep the theme". And so on.
The settings dialogue is there for exactly that purpose: amongst other things, turning the effects on and off and select which theme and which settings you want.


The stacks thingy has been at the top of the request list for quite some time now. It'll probably be the first thing to be added in a future update.

HOWEVER... I just realised that you're using an alternate shell. Are you sure that some (or all) of the problems you just described are not caused by that "Emerge Desktop"? Generally, it's not such a great idea to mix up programmes that work "outside the box" of Windows "etiquette". I know for a fact that Winstep (and most other docks for that matter) are at the very edge of 'normality' and in some cases cross it. Windows is not an operating system that's built for those kinds of cases and combining two of them is always a bad idea.
Try disabling that "Emerge Desktop" and see how Winstep (or Nexus, depending on which one you're using) is *meant* to work. Then you can have a point of reference and see whether the "crashes" or odd behaviour that you are witnessing is truly a bug of Winstep or a by-product of the coexistence of two programmes trying to do things Windows was not meant to do.


Again... that does *not* happen with anyone else. See what I wrote right above. Icons in Winstep absolutely do *not* disappear and reappear for no reason.


That's something rather unlikely. Winstep is a commercial product and as such, any badly written add-on will instantly reflect negatively upon Winstep itself. RocketDock, apart from the fact that it hasn't been updated since 2008 (which makes it pretty much abandoned), is free. Nobody cares if it crashes due to a badly written add-on. However, if you buy Winstep (or any other piece of software for that matter) and it "suddenly" starts crashing or misbehaving, you will immediately blame Winstep for the crashes or problems; very few people will realise that, in fact, it's not Winstep that's buggy but the "cool" add-on that they installed last week, which shows... I don't know... stock market stats or bouncing boobies in the dock.
Actually, Winstep has been around for more than 15 years and VERY few people have ever expressed the wish to write their own add-ons.
Even for themes, which anyone can create (relatively) easily, there isn't a whole lot of people that actually do it and, if you bother checking, most of them aren't of a very good quality. Good themes are not *that* many and you will notice that the creators of good themes are very few and always the same people.
With add-ons or plug-ins, I suspect it will be even worse; you'll probably get a majority of badly coded ones, a minority of even "above average" and those good ones will be made by a handful of people. Actually, that's the case even in the "RocketDock community" that you mentioned. Lots and lots of bad add-ons, very few actually good ones and no way of knowing which is which, unless you tried them one by one.
All in all, I don't think it'd be worth the trouble and it could actually create a much bigger mess in the process.

[note: I'm not working for Winstep and my opinions as expressed in my posts are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Winstep or its creator.
Just for the record.]

When I right click the desktop I have the option of rebooting in Emerge Mode, or rebooting in Normal Windows Desktop mode. In either mode, Rocketdock still has its problem where it will sometimes forget my z-layer setting (always stay above in layering, allowing me to still mouse over RocketDock when I have a Firefox window open, when it forgets this, I have to minimize Firefox or whatever window I have open to see it), and I will have to exit the program and reinitialize it, that and the occasional lost of the target path and icon setting for my 'Access' stack docklet, but I'm begining to suspect this might be a result of running RD from a separate partition instead of from 'C drive.' - Other than this, RD and Eemerge seem to get along fairly nicely, and like I said, even after rebooting and entering regular Windows Mode with all the icons strewn over my Desktop, these glitches are still present. I have no other problems running any other software while in Emerge Mode, I greatly _prefer_ Emerge Mode over regular Windows. Also, I cannot "disable" Emerge while I am booted into Emerge Mode, I can kill my individual applets or restart them, but regardless of this I am still operating in the Emerge Shell. And like I said, even in Normal Windows Mode with Emerge completely turned off and its applets prevented from running, these problems are still present.

I realize that Nexus itself is also a shell, but perhaps it would be nice to just have the Dock as its own standalone program. No shelf, no alternate window configuration, just the Dock with icons and boxes of icons leading from those starting points.

Excuse me but, in your first post, you numbered a series of "bugs"; are you now telling me that all these "bugs" that you mentioned are happening to RocketDock and not Nexus???
Otherwise, I have no idea why you went on to tell us how "Emerge" and RocketDock are functioning.
You also haven't answered the questions that I posed earlier, like:
- what do you mean by "the 'hit box' for the tabs ....."?

Now I have to add even more questions, because, in your last post, you're only describing how "Emerge" and RocketDock work.
- When you said "deleting the dock causes crashing"; are you referring to Nexus or RocketDock? Because I can assure you, Nexus does NOT crash by deleting the (/a) dock.
- Same question concerning "sometimes icons disappear and reappear for no reason".
- Same question concerning "adjusting the 'icon size' setting to lowest size causes a crash".

Again, I can assure you, Nexus will not crash by doing any or all of those things. These are elementary settings; Nexus has been around for more than 15 years. Surely, *someone* would have seen those "bugs" by now.
If all these are problems you're having with RocketDock, though... I have no idea why you'd post them in here.


Actually, no, Nexus is *not* a shell. It's a programme launcher; an *extremely* powerful launcher, yes, but still, a launcher. It does not aspire to replace the default Windows shell (i.e. the Windows Explorer, the desktop, the taskbar, etc) nor does it try to do so. A "shell" is something entirely different, like "Emerge Desktop", bbLean, LDE(X), SharpEnviro and others. A shell will (attempt to) reinvent Windows, replace Explorer, change the way everything is presented, from programme windows to the desktop itself. Nexus never tried to be something *that* big. At most, it will try to "hide" the taskbar, but that's about it. Which, by the way, is why you have to reboot, in order to switch from/to "Emerge" mode; Nexus can be simply exited, and even when it's running, it's still Windows as usual.
You can still use Nexus, just disable the shelf and keep only one dock. It's still the same and in any case, Nexus is VERY light on memory usage, in case you're worried about that. And since you only want *one* dock, the **free** version is more than enough for you.

I did mention Nexus, and the bugs I listed out initially
-are- bugs for Nexus, but I also was explaining that I
have two small issues with RD and those also happen
regardless if I am in Emerge Mode or Normal Windows.
I can switch between the two and choose which one to
boot into, and I have done this for both RD and Nexus,
it does not have any affect.

I prefer Emerge Mode because to me, it feels cleaner
and smoother running than regular Windows.

Perhaps you would like to try it for yourself,
maybe the Nexus staff could keep it around as
a way to test future compatibility.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2w29nntx0qwwk ... _BLD_3.zip
Emerge is 100% freeware. But if you don't trust my zip (only posting
it because it has all of my customizations and themes already in it),
you can always find the latest version on their website / forum.

Hit box... okay um, think of a sprite in a video game, like say Mario, or Gradius, and how far into the sprite an enemy has to touch to make you lose energy or die or whatever. The menu tabs seem to only function properly if I am clicking dead center.



Update: Checking out a program called "Standalone Stack" -
http://www.chrisnsoft.com/standalonestack

It looks pretty much exactly like the stacks docklet for Rocketdock, except it's "standalone." You make stacks by linking to folders full of shortcuts, same as how I get my stacks in RD, unfortunately, it seems that SS doesn't support .ico files, which strikes me as odd if it's made by the same person who made the RD Stack Docklet. My .ico show up fine in that... anyway, it is indeed possible to drop a stack from Standalone into the Nexus Dock and have it open up the same way it would in Rocket Dock, but the fact it won't show any of my icons for my shortcuts and I can't define its up and down icon spacing (it has it, but when I go to edit it, it's greyed out) is kind of a downer.

Ok, I'm repeating myself but... Nexus does NOT have those "bugs". That's why I suggested trying Nexus without "Emerge", in normal Windows/Explorer mode.
I've personally installed Nexus in quite a few computers -- all running vanilla Windows though -- and never observed any such problems. My former job was actually exactly that, in case you're wondering. Test labs in a prominent (local) computer magazine.


Thanks, but no thanks.
Again, Windows is a closed software package, which is built around Windows Explorer. Most applications are using Explorer -- and other shell facilities that come with it -- extensively, even when it's not obvious. Replacing Explorer is always a VERY tricky business. Considering it's a closed-source programme, it's near impossible to replicate all of its features, documented and (most importantly) undocumented, quirks and bugs. To make things even worse, most applications out there are built working *with* these features, quirks and bugs that Explorer exhibits. A lot of them don't work properly *without* them.
So yes, it may seem "cleaner" and "smoother", but I've yet to see an alternative shell that doesn't cause problems. I'm not saying that Explorer is the best programme out there, but... it's what Microsoft made for Windows to use, and provided no provisions nor facilities to make it replaceable. Obviously, any programme less complex than Explorer would feel "smoother" and possibly "cleaner"; that does not mean it's replicating all of the Explorer functionality, though.



Again: which menu tabs? From what menu? Where?
Perhaps you can post a screenshot of the offending tabs?



Glad you found my suggestion and tried it. I wanted to answer that in a previous post, but forgot. In Winstep (and subsequently Nexus) the spacing is regullated by the active theme. Of course, you can get into the configuration files and change it, but since it's a display setting, it falls under the jurisdiction of the theme creators to choose a proper icon spacing to suit each particular theme.
Personally, I would add (and will suggest it to Jorge) another setting dialogue (window or tab) where every aspect of the currently active theme could be easily overridden -- perhaps with sliders and/or radio-buttons and/or check-boxes.
About the "Standalone Stack"... I have no idea why it won't support .ico files, but you can very easily convert the .ico files to .png, especially if they're good quality icons, and use them. Any decent icon editor can open .ico and save .png files. There are even some websites that can do that for you, for free.
Also, it's using actual directories to store shortcuts. As you would have noticed from my other post, I don't like that. It's a regression. You see, shortcuts are files that promote location abstraction. The shortcut is a "pointer" to a file; it can be *anywhere* in a directory tree and it can point *anywhere*. The desktop is yet another method of abstraction. Nexus docks, the same. Going back to directories to keep groups of shortcuts there, is a step backwards, from the abstract to the locative.
Again, I just had another idea: maybe it would be useful for Jorge to add another option in the "backup" dialogue tab, to save *only* the contents of the docks (of course, including the number of docks, subdocks and shelf tabs) but without any other settings. That way, you could restore your "shortcuts" in Nexus/Winstep without having to revert to a possibly corrupt or problematic configuration.

Cheers mate.

I've been using Emerge Desktop for almost 6 years,
first on my old 32bit XP machine, and then on 64bit Win 7.
I have never had any problems with it 'breaking' Windows,
Windows Explorer is still in my processes when I look in TaskManager,
along with Emerge's version which basically rides its coat-tails.

http://s22.postimg.org/c56ip2o7l/Task_Manager.png

The only thing it lacks is the little "Start" button,
so that Windows Logo button on my keyboard doesn't
do anything. But that is replaced by this nifty little
"right click anywhere on the empty desktop" thing,
which I actually like a lot better. And you can
set that to have whatever kind of structure you
feel like. From there you can also choose your
shut down / log out options. You can also
choose if you want to be in Emerge Mode
or regular Windows Mode upon reboot.

When I say 'tabs' I mean these.
It's like the hitbox doesn't cover the
whole area of the tab, I have to click
several times sometimes.

http://s14.postimg.org/j3zpu3181/Nexus_Tabs.png

I can answer that right now, but you're not gonna like this answer either.
The problem is that you've set the display's "virtual magnification" to something *other* than the default 100%.
If you go to "Control Panel"->"Appearance and Personalisation"->"Display", you will reach the dialogue where you can change, as Microsoft tries to explain, the "size of text and other objects on screen".
Basically, Windows is using an internal "canvas" where it's drawing everything that is to be shown on screen. Then, every so often (in computer terms which in real life translates to dozens of times per second) it transfers the entire contents of that internal "canvas" to the actual display memory, which corresponds, bit by bit, to the number of physical pixels on your monitor. Up until recently, the "internal canvas" was exactly the same resolution as the monitor, so there was a 1:1 correspondence between pixels.
However, Microsoft decided to allow that to change (because of newer and more dense monitors), so what you see in that Control Panel setting, is the means to change the 1:1 (a.k.a. 100%) correspondence. In order for objects to appear 'larger', the resolution has to actually *lower*. So, in effect, your monitor actually supports a *higher* resolution (i.e. more pixels) than the Windows is set to display.
Unfortunately, Microsoft managed to botch that up as well, so there are always adverse side-effects at *any* setting other than 100%. I would strongly discourage anyone from changing that setting; apart from actually *losing* screen real-estate, but also making most things appear fuzzy, a LOT of things also lose alignment and coordinates get all messed up.
You see, in order for windows and text and rendered objects to appear crisp, Windows reports different resolutions to different processes. For any window or text, it's reporting the physical resolution but with a X% increase in size; in other cases, (mainly bitmap operations) it will report the virtual, lower, resolution. In the end, it'll try to line everything up, but complex coordinate calculations between two sets of sizes, multipliers and resolutions invariably results in glitches and errors.
That's why your "sweet spot" of the tabs is tiny. It's entirely possible that the active region has been reduced in size proportionately -- not to mention that the edges could have "folded" (in other words, the top edge ends up lower than the bottom edge of the tab's active region).

If you change the size to the default 100%, your tabs will work as they should. Maybe even the rest of the "bugs" too.
And for the record, it's not a Nexus bug. As I've mentioned before, Winstep and Nexus are pushing the boundaries of Windows in order to do what they do. And they don't like coexisting with something else that's pushing boundaries. In this case, it's the virtual "magnifier" of Windows itself that's doing stuff in hugely non-standard ways, and it's actually reaching down to the display driver itself.

Hope this helps, even though I'm almost certain you're not gonna want to change your "nice big windows".