Best Dock

[JordanV0712]

I'm just curious as to what you guys believe is the best dock in Linux Mint and why.

[thouartsimple]

cairo-dock -- it has the most features and the most adaptability... and wow, does it look good as a panel.

[Temporary Saint]

Cairo dock has the best configurability, but I prefer the functionality of the applets Avant Window Navigator offers. Really, you're splitting hairs between the two. I say install them both and see which is your favorite.

Steve

[Aging Technogeek]

Persnally, I use AWN 4.1 dock for my working apps. I like the stability and look of the dock with the Darklooks Lucido theme included in AWN 4.1 and the capacity for multiple docks if desired.

For my few arcade type games, I use Docky because I change the games in the dock frequently and the drag and drop feature of Docky makes this very easy.

[ShyGuy]

I've been looking into docks, I will have to try out this cairo dock.

I've found for my widescreen laptop it makes more sense to have a the menu/dock/bar/whatever on the left side rather than the bottom. The vertical space is more of a premium than the horizontal space.

Does Cairo allow you to change the size of the icons independetly?

[svalbard]

If it can be called a dock, I like DockbarX because it resides in the panel (hence not taking up any extra screen real estate) and resembles the Windows 7 superbar (which I actually really like).

As far as conventional docks, I recall finding Cairo Dock to be extremely customizable in almost every way I could think of.

[thouartsimple]

I'm changing my vote to avant-window-navigator. Cairo-dock is quite annoying because I could never get the settings to be consistent across two computers (I have a laptop and desktop, both running Linux Mint 10 Julia), so OCD dictated that I must change to something else!

[ShyGuy]

I tried Cairo Dock, and it was pretty versatile and I liked the GL acceleration. Still, overall I think I prefer the AWM. It seems more polished and consistent. I think I will try this Dockbar X next.

[thouartsimple]

I tried Cairo Dock, and it was pretty versatile and I liked the GL acceleration. Still, overall I think I prefer the AWM. It seems more polished and consistent. I think I will try this Dockbar X next.

Yeah, I don't think Cairo-dock is very polished or easy to use. Mine messed up with docks and everything... and moving docks or anything was just super confusing. AWN has enough features to be really nice, but also not enough to confuse. I like that when it groups windows together it gives a list unlike Docky, which just opens all of them... that was so annoying that I couldn't use the program to replace the window selector applet.

[NormanF]

Docky. It has drag and drop support. You simply locate an application in usr/share/applications and drag and drop it on the dock. If you change your mind, just drag the icon out and poof - its gone. And you can easily rearrange the dock icons to your liking and customize the dock appearance.

[Mozenrath]

AWN: Not as nice looking, but pretty good. Very functional. In fact it's probably the most functional.

Cairo: The dock that looks the best. Has lots of nice effects. Not quite as functional as AWN though, as far as configurability and existing plugins. It's graphics intensive and the effects aren't always very smooth. My computer is very fast but the effects in Cairo seem to have a somewhat low(but fine) frame rate.

Docky: Not as many functions, but looks very nice and clean. The effects have a very high frame rate. No reason more plugins can't be written for it. For a dock that's closest to the one in Mac OS X, I'd probably go with Docky.

DockbarX: Not a lot of effects, but it has the best window thumbnail support of any dock I know. It emulates the dockbar in Windows 7, so if you're used to Windows 7 you'll probably like DockbarX. I use DockbarX with the existing gnome-panel, but it also works as a plugin for AWN so you can have both the benefits of DockbarX and AWN at the same time.

[zengeek]

It would be remiss of anyone to ignore advice from "Aging Technogeek", and the fact that I agree with him helps too

I've just tried out every dock i can think of (5 or more) and for what I(me, and me alone) was looking for, AWN was the best. Trunk Version, not Repo version. ()

ScreenShot
http://ubuntuone.com/p/p60/

[Silent Warrior]

DockBarX is good enough for me, but I'm just in it for the pinning and condensed window-picking. I concede that it doesn't look terribly fancy.

[Troy]

Unity

[mack_guy911]

you guys forget about docky

[grey1960envoy]

My wife and I differ in opinions as to which dock is better, after all I set her up with Docky and I have Cairo Dock which suits us to our personal preferences (a happy home is a harmonious home)

[Isthmus]

Docky has the best combination ease of use, light on system resources and general good looks. Not nearly as fancy as AWN or Cairo dock, but it works extremely well on systems with light resources. now, if you have the hardware to push them, than AWN and Cairodock are much nicer in terms of animation and general eye candy. Plus they also have more docklets. I find them both to be fairly comparable, but generally prefer Cairo Dock over AWN.

[kgarbutt]

I like PieDock. Check it out.

PieDock
Version 1.2.0
Web http://www.markusfisch.de/

If you don't want to build it. They have pre-compiled binaries to try. It worked in mint 11.

Also, you can change the piedockrc file to fit your needs. It is very customizable.

[gordon.cooke]

My personal favorite, and setup, is Docky. I leave the gnome panel alone (as configured by mint) on the bottom and then have Docky along the top with just a couple things I use alot: firefox, terminal, gedit, MATLAB (Im an engineer), LibreOffice Writer, and a cpu monitor. I have a bunch more things on my Favorites in MintMenu, but those 5 are my go-to programs. I have Docky set to autohide and just show up when I mouse up near the top of the screen.

Only problem is I use it so much that whenever Im on another computer Im constantly going to top of the screen instead of the start menu (LOL)

I'll admit my pick is mostly aesthetic and personal preference - I tried a few others and just like Docky's look, feel, and how it works best. All user perspective, not looking at deep technical details.

[Pikachu6708]

What about Wbar or Tablaunch?