Talk:Dock (Mac OS X)

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[edit] Docking Behavior

This definition of "Dock" mentions nothing about the more familiar behavior of docking controls. For example, being able to drag a pane from one section of a UI framework and dock it to another location. Or to drag it out to become a stand-alone window of its own. Or to drag a window to a tab set to become part of the tab set under a new tab, or drag a tab out of a tab set to become a stand-alone window or drop it into another tab set.

The "Dock" referred to here appears to be more of an operating system desktop feature than the desktop application feature. I would like to see a difinitive description of docking as part of an application user interface written up here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwooda (talk • contribs) 18:16, August 18, 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding/removing dock criticism section

I noticed that the section about the criticism of the dock (specifically in OS X) has been removed/added a couple times in a minor edit-war. It was originally located in the OS X article, but since it was a minor criticism that didn't necessarily apply to all versions of OS X, it was removed (except for a note in the context of the article). It was placed here instead, since, if anywhere, this is the most relevant location for that particular criticism. However, that is just one notable man-who-worked-on-the-previous-MacOS-GUI-and-thus-has-POV's non-wildly-followed, largely irrelevant, outdated opinions, and so people are removing it from here, too. I agree that it should not be here, nor anywhere else on Wikipedia (except, maybe, if an entire article was made about the OS X dock, in which case it might merit a 1-2 sentence comment). Simply because it was not suitable for the OS X article is not reason to force its inclusion here. And simply because he said something isn't cause to force its inclusion in Wikipedia. So I am for removing it. Althepal (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Criticism being in the past, doesn't make it invalid. I hate people comparing the Windows and Mac articles, but I guess we should go and make sure none of the articles about Windows contain any criticism that is older than two weeks. Since time makes all criticism "outdated".
  • Criticism being about previous versions of Mac OS X, doesn't make it invalid. And now that Vista and IE7 are out, we need make sure Wikipedia contains no criticism of XP or IE6.
  • "largely irrelevant" So once a software company releases an update that fixes a security problems, or a usability problem, then that problem no longer exists?
  • "not widely followed" is just plain wrong. The dock was widely criticised for the first few years.

I'm frankly disgusted with the way that any criticism of Mac OS X is being systemically removed from Wikipedia. Jesus Christ I thought I was an Apple fanboy. But this is ridiculous. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 03:26, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You're projecting your personal prejudice (and some elaborate reasoning) into a perfectly simple case. No "fanboy" here attempting anything like "whitewash". I'm just trying to remove something that's pretty much a non sequitur from the article and see that it gets put in right place. Tog is pretty much out of the loop now, and his objections don't automatically carry the weight they once did. In this case, his observations are even pretty obscure. By all means put them in an article about him (and even add a sentence here linking to them), but don't take up a whole section of this article with them. They just don't belong. — Aldaron • T/C 03:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

What the hell does "out of the loop" mean? At the time he made the criticism it was widely repeated. And what the hell is "non sequitor" about. The criticism is clearly framed as criticism of the Mac OS X dock which it is. BTW I've removed the vote because we are supposed to seek consensus for article content, not votes. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 18:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

How about waiting for another editor's opinion? Right you you're 1-to-2. I believe "out of the loop" means that he was fired. "At the time it was widely repeated"? First, please show me other sources. Second, this isn't "at that time". If its no longer criticized, why include it? Is there still a criticism section on the Dirgible article, since in the 1900s those aircrafts were loud and bothered people? I guess "non sequitor" is just because its pretty meaningless or insignificant, maybe because it goes into too much detail for one source. And seven years ago, when he wrote it, the OS X dock was the only place there was a dock. This was taken up in Windows, Linux, and SunOS as 3rd party software (as it states in the article), and what he said about the OS X dock applies no more to 10.4 and 10.5 as it does to RocketDock and the others. I've used other dock software, and they "suffer" from the same issues as the OS X dock, so if its going to be there at all, it applies to the whole article now, not just one section. But bottom line, even if at one time people took to the dock with unease, it is now very popular and is no longer criticized. Just like the blimp. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Tog commenting on the Dock is not reason enough to include it in the article. If other people are still complaining about it, show me another source and maybe it would make sense (again, to the whole article since it applies no more to OS X as to other docks) to include a re-write. But I doubt that's the case anymore; I even hear Microsoft is working on a new UI for Windows 7 or 8, and this will likely do away with the taskbar, likely with a dock-like replacement. Althepal (talk) 19:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Tog's comment about the dock in previous versions of Mac OS X are still valid. It doesn't matter whether you think Apple "fixed" these problems in more recent versions. Where did this idea come from that criticism has to only relate to the latest release of a piece of software to be valid?
"other sources"? How about Siracusa? We link to all his reviews of Mac OS X? Are his criticisms of previous releases of Mac OS X still relevant in your eyes? http://arstechnica.com/reviews/01q2/macos-x-final/macos-x-8.html#dock http://arstechnica.com/reviews/4q00/macosx-pb1/macos-x-beta-13.html#b1
Also your suggestion that the problems Tog points to apply to all implementations of dock-like software, only makes his comments more relevant to this particular article, not less. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 00:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Oo look, still criticising the Dock even in the most recent version. "...here's an interface element with some serious, long-standing issues..." http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/4 Want to take a guess which "long-standing issues" he is talking about? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
How about criticism from a site like osnews.com? Is that acceptable? Is that valid? "The OS X dock has been criticised heavily during its lifetime." http://www.osnews.com/story/18941/Common_Usability_Terms_pt._VI:_the_Dock/page2/ AlistairMcMillan (talk) 01:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey, if there are lots of dock criticisms, fine. Include one sentence per source, for example. But no, I don't believe that old criticisms are applicable in current articles. Just like we don't have a screnshot of a Windows 98 in the article of Microsoft Windows. Althepal (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Fantastic example. So we only have screenshots of current Windows in the Microsoft Windows article then? Microsoft Windows#History
"one sentence per source" What do we do if all the sources point out the same problems with the Dock? AlistairMcMillan (talk) 13:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
I was only using that as an example of something past which isn't in the article any more. I shouldn't apply to screenshots any more than to criticisms. Anyhoo... Fine, edit the article as you wish. What I meant by "one sentence per source" is that you should try to take the main point from what each person was saying. (I wish people on Wikipedia would stop obsessing about the exact wording people use on talk pages.) If two people say the same thing, cite both of them. But like, take Tog's #1 problem with it (which is really a joke... its scary that you can easily add and remove shortcuts?.... but that's besides the point), and the main issue that some other people seem to have with it, and make a new section. Althepal (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we can do some back-and-forth editing right here before adding it into the article. (And by the way, once again, since a 3rd party dock you use in Linux or Windows acts exactly the same way as do the docks in OS X, if the section is relevant enough to be in the article, it makes most sense to include it at the end. Not like I'm trying to distance it from OS X or anything, its just that it makes more sense there, since they're all pretty much the same. You can even mention that some criticism was in reference to OS X.) Althepal (talk) 18:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

The dock has been subject to some criticism on various points, usually in reference to docks found in versions of Mac OS X, though they generally apply to docks used in other operating systems as well.

  • Bruce Tognazzini, who worked on the Mac OS user interface prior to Mac OS X, listed ten problems he found with the dock found in the Mac OS X Public Beta in February 2001, reducing the list to nine during the life of Mac OS X Jaguar in January 2004. His main concern is that the ability to use drag'n'drop to easily add and remove shortcuts could potentially be mistaken as actually deleting files when removing shortcuts. Tognazzini also criticized other aspects of the dock, such as the fact that it doesn't constantly show text labels or the fact that its default size consumes too much room. (cite tog)
  • ARStechnica had also pointed out some issues with the dock around the releases of Mac OS X Public Beta. They noted that a centered dock means adding and removing icons results in changing the location of the other icons. After the release of Mac OS X Cheetah in March 2001, ARStechnica also mentioned that the dock handles more tasks than a UI element should for optimum ease-of-use, handling both minimized icons and program/file/folder shortcuts.(cite arstechnica)
  • In October 2007, after the release of Mac OS X Leopard, ARStechnica noted that some of the dock's ease-of-use was sacrificed for eye-candy, such as a reflective and 3D dock, a blue-light active program indicator, and the presence of less-distinguishable system icons. (cite arstechnica)
  • OSnews reiterated some common issues of the dock, including the fact that the dock grows in both directions, has the Trash icon mounted on the dock, and that there are no permanent labels. OSnews also complained about the new look of the dock found in Leopard, but admitted that it may have simply been an adjustment on their part. (cite OSnews)

I think the above would be an acceptable thing to include in the bottom of the article. Naturally, since OS X popularized the dock, most comments (good or bad) about the dock would refer to it, but it would also be nice if there would be one referring to docks in general (or ones used in Linux, etc.) as well. Althepal (talk) 19:23, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It's fine right here. This is pretty marginal stuff, and most of these criticisms are old and have not proven to be issues in actual use. Let it go and move on. — Aldaron • T/C 17:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Pretty marginal stuff? These aren't "old" issues, the only reason current reviews don't mention them is because nothing has changed. The criticism section will be restored to the article. If you want to have a say in what is included fine. Don't imagine for a second that an article on such a heavily criticised feature is going to go without mentioning that criticism. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Huh? " The criticism section will be restored to the article." Who decided that? How about waiting until there's been more discussion here. And stop editing the discussion to make it seem that there's less opposition to it than there is. — Aldaron • T/C 18:51, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I still think that the criticisms aren't really significant enough for mention, but I wouldn't personally object much either, now that it's not just from one person. So let's just wait for maybe a couple other editors to voice their opinions. Althepal (talk) 21:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
An encyclopedia's responsibility is expressly not to "let it go and move on". Absolutely not. We are here to document the topic as best as we can, and in the case of the dock, that means incorporating criticism that has been levelled at it over the course of its life. You wouldn't seriously argue that criticism of, oh, say, Rafael Trujillo should be removed from the encyclopedia because he's dead and it's over now, would you?
.... yeah, didn't think so.
Do not argue for the removal of valid, sourced, notable, oft-repeated criticism just because it's not relevant today. This damages the usefulness and informative value of the encyclopedia, and that will should be allowed here. -/- Warren 22:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
It is being removed for many of the same reasons it was removed from the OSX article, some of which apply even more strongly here. It's a huge section for such a small article, and really doesn't set a precedent that can be maintained. For every piece of software (every product in fact) one could dig up volumes of sourced "criticism", but none of it would be notable or encyclopedic. — Aldaron • T/C 13:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps we check a definition of Real Criticism to apply to all articles. WP:CRIT For example, I don't really see what's so bad about all the icons moving when adding or removing icons from the dock, but its in there. Probably not many people are annoyed by this either. But something like software not doing what its supposed to do, or something objectively bad, like complaining that BonziBUDDY is spyware, everyone can agree is bad. Where is the line be drawn? Looking over the Wikipedia criticism policy for the first time, it doesn't seem there is a defined set of rules to see if something should be in the article or not. All it says is that it should have NPOV and it should be somewhere in the middle between:
1. One extreme: "All articles should always contain criticism about its topic. When Fred criticizes hats, that criticism belongs in the "hat" article."
2. The opposite extreme: "No article should ever contain criticism about its topic. When Fred criticizes hats, that criticism belongs in the "Fred" article -- or, if notable enough, in a "Criticism of hats" article."
This gives a bit of an idea, but it doesn't say what to do. Maybe we should decide on guidelines? Like does it have to be a problem that the majority of people consider it a significant shortcoming? Should criticism that doesn't seem to really be significant be included simply because it was given by a notable source? Althepal (talk) 16:38, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

We have guidelines on this. It is called WP:NPOV. The dock has been widely criticised by people who are seen as significant in the subject area. Siracusa and his reviews of each release of Mac OS X are cited by us throughout the Mac OS X articles. And Tognazzini is famous primarily for his usability work at Apple. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 18:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with taskbar

Someone suggested merging this with the taskbar article. I say "no way". They have supplemental features, but they are totally not the same thing. That would be like mixing the PocketPC with the iPhone article. A dock and a taskbar both show minimized icons and shortcuts, but that is all. A taskbar shows a launch/start menu and shows information like time. A dock shows icons of program shortcuts and the trashcan. A dock is not a taskbar, bottom line, and they should not be merged. Althepal (talk) 00:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Their functionality broadly overlaps, and the differences you cite arenn't even immutable or essential to their definitions (e.g. live time and other information can easily be displayed in the Dock). The essence of the two is the same, and even where they differ, those differences are best discussed in a single article. — Aldaron • T/C 01:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
And what do you intend to call the article? Dockbar? Their overlapping functionality don't mean they are the same thing. Which is why AbulÉdu and Edubuntu don't share the same article. Similarity is no reason to merge. Althepal (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
That's an excellent example that answers your question and should serve as a model for merging these two articles into one called "Task bar", leaving the "Dock" article as a short pointer containing the single sentence "The Dock is Apple's name for it's task bar implementation". — Aldaron • T/C 04:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
The Dock is not Apple's name, no more than taskbar is Microsoft's name. Everyone who makes docks call them "docks", like "rocket dock". A dock is a dock of icons, a taskbar shows open tasks. Sure they are similar, but they are not the same thing. Look at the taskbar and dock articles and you'll see the trademark differences. Can you explain why installing RocketDock doesn't un-install the Windows taskbar? Come on, its obvious that they are different, there is no reason to merge the articles. Just because they can perform similar tasks, resulting in some operating systems to have a dock and some to have a taskbar, doesn't mean they are the same things. Just like telephone and email don't share an article. But you know what? If for some reason Dock is merged with Taskbar, I think a new article of just the OS X dock would be merited, including its criticism section. Althepal (talk) 05:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
None of your analogies apply (or even make much sense to me). These are closely related enough aspects of modern GUIs that a single article describing both of them (along with others) and comparing and contrasting their features is clearly warranted. Where the individual articles describing different products end up, how long they are, and whether they continue to be needed, is something to decide after that consolidated article is created and written. Maybe that's not technically a "merge", but we'll see. In any case, we should wait for other editors to weigh in; we've said enough. — Aldaron • T/C 13:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine, lets see what others say. But analogies... its like two different programs. The Kicker has its article, the Taskbar has its article, and the Dock has its article. Its just like OpenOffice.org to Microsoft Office to Apple iWork. Different programs for the same thing don't need to merge. I can still see what you're saying, but I think it comes down to whether the article should describe a specific program (like the Mac Dock is a specific program with its own version number and icon) or whether the article describes a general element of GUIs. If the former, don't merge. If the latter, merge. I think maybe it makes sense to make a Graphical window indicator (or something like that) article, being a merge of taskbar and dock, with seperate articles for the Windows Taskbar, the KDE Kicker, the Gnome taskber, the Mac OS X Dock, etc. Althepal (talk) 19:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I've decided that its probably best that a Taskbar article should discuss the general GUI element, mentioning the windows taskbar, kde kicker, apple dock, etc., and that individual articles should be made for Mac OS X Dock and Windows Taskbar. How's that? The only thing is that text from the various articles have to really be moved around and re-worded to make up all the articles. Althepal (talk) 06:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This article doesn't need to be merged it needs to be re-titled. It only discusses the Mac OS X (and NEXTSTEP) docks. The "Other operating systems" section just compares the Mac OS X dock to similar features in other operating systems, half of which are direct clones of the NEXTSTEP/OS X docks (i.e. most if not all of the Linux ones). AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:07, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an extremely stupid idea. The dock and the taskbar are two different things. Readers of the encyclopedia would be very poorly served by having these two vastly different implementations of task launching and switching mechanisms merged into the same article. -/- Warren 21:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. The Apple Dock, the Microsoft Task Bar, the Next Dock, and all the variants you enumerate should fall under a single topic (probably "Task bar"). They are fundamentally the same kind and level of UI abstraction, and should be treated the same way we treat the entry for "Menu bar." That's a solid precedent. (You're not going to propose the "Menu bar" entry should be split into multiple entries for the various implementations across operating systems, are you?) Skintight 21:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.231.62.131 (talk)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:OPENSTEP Dock.jpg

Image:OPENSTEP Dock.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This should be separate from Dock (computing)

This article is supposed to be about the actual Dock in Mac OS X, and only in Mac OS X. (It was originally Dock.app, with an infobox and all.) The entire content from Dock (computing), however was moved here. This should not be the case. The Dock Computing article can be general about all docks, Rocket Dock, the Mac Dock, etc., but this is supposed to be about the Dock application. AlistairMcMillan renamed Dock.app article to Dock (Mac OS X) but also basically made it back into the original Dock (Computing) article. Basically, this needs to be about Mac OS X, the old article needs to be about everything else. Kind of like the way it was. Althepal (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Please point out which parts of this article are not about the Mac OS X dock. The criticism section is all about the Mac OS X dock. The clones section is all about software that duplicates the Mac OS X or NEXTSTEP dock on other platforms. The content that was previously in a section called "Mac OS X" is all about the Mac OS X dock. The content that was previously in a section called "History" was all about the NEXTSTEP dock, which directly lead to the Mac OS X dock. The intro was primarily about the Mac OS X dock. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 00:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
There is a lot of information on other docks, clones. Even though they may have been based on the OS X dock, there shouldn't be much of a focus... And that information should be on the Dock (computing) article. Also, the infobox needs to be re-added. Althepal (talk) 02:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)