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orry for the delayed reply, been very busy.

No worries! I'm much the same...

I wish I could find a screenshot of what you are talking about with KDE's "Panels".

BTW, I noticed you other Post about trying to get KDE to Compile under OS X, and I must say, it seems you are REALLY Swimming Upstream here. I mean, I find TONS of references and even solutions for making KDE Look and even Act like OS X; but really nothing on making OS X look and act like KDE. JUS' sayin'... ;-) but, hey, there isn't anything wrong with swimming upstream: You want what you want. I get that.

Having said that, were you planning on having separate SPACES on each Monitor, or simply having an "Extended Desktop" across both monitors?

I have just done a little more research; but here are a few things you might like. Don't take this as "my final answer"; but rather a few more things to check out along the way, ok?:

If you really like that Win 7-esque "Start Menu and Taskbar" look, this is your guy (if it has proper Multimonitor/Multi-Space support). It looks like it emulates the Taskbar's "Each Document Has An Icon" thing, too.

Also, Did you look at this thing for Focus-Follows-Mouse? You mentioned trying a Terminal Command; but the thread that talked about those said that the Codetek thing I linked here was "the only thing that really worked".

I think that Focus-Folliws-Mouse thing, along with this Menubar-Per-Window thing would get around your objection to OS X's Single Menubar.

A couple of well-liked Alternatives to the Dock I found:

Dock-It. And DragThing.

One thing is for sure, you CANNOT just disable the OS X Dock. It is actually responsible for some stuff you (and the OS) don't want to do without. But with a couple of Terminal commands, you CAN make it really, really tiny, and auto-hide it with a really long time-before-unhide. So, essentially, you can get rid of it for all intents and purposes.

I think you mean this:

The (real) press-release:
http://www.dragthing.com/blog/?p=285

NBC taking the above seriously:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/tech/5318008-is-Too-Dirty-for-the-iPhone-63149437.html

I was making links to unmounted network volumes and arranging them in a window on the OS 8 desktop ages ago. That's a "proto-dock"! Where's my untold billions? And why would some guvmint luser be so naive as to think such a blindingly obvious hack based on prior art would be patentable? The one I still use when I use Macs, is James Thomsen's DragThing , which is very old hat and still extremely useful.

That's a fantastic post that accurately describes my feelings on my recent switch to OS X. Despite some initial discomfort, I, too, have quickly grown to love my new Mac Pro.

I hate Finder almost as much as I the Dock. They're both useless for any sort of development environment. The Dock is quickly overwhelmed by sheer numbers, as you must mouseover the icons to get any sort of textual description. Worse, you only get 1 icon per application, regardless of how many windows it has open. The result is cumbersome application switching. Finder, on the other hand, just comes across as a bit half-assed. You'll probably prefer the shell for anything but the most basic of file operations. (No cut & paste for files? C'mon, you're going to make me open a second Finder window, browse to the other folder, then come back here and drag the files over?)

Fortunately there are some fantastic pieces of shareware and freeware to (mostly) fix these issues. I almost never even see the dock any more.

If you haven't already, get QuickSilver, NOW. ...seriously, go get it. I'll wait.

...good.

Now get DragThing. This will replace the dock. You can make sliding drawers, floating panels, or something in between that can hold icons and folders. It also provides panels for a list of all the windows and/or apps that you currently have open, with or without text. I bought DragThing without thinking twice.

Witch is free and crucial for application switching, too.

With these two apps, I'm just as fast moving from one application to the next as on windows. Also, PathFinder seems to be okay as a semi-replacement for Finder. I'm still in the shareware trial period...haven't decided if I'm going to buy it yet though.

You can watch system resources with Menu Meters. I find that OS X does a fantastic job of splitting work up among my 4 processor cores; much better than windows.

Oh, and if you still have to administer windows machines, Microsoft makes a Remote Desktop Client for OS X. Also, Microsoft Entourage is good (maybe better than Outlook) if you still have to use an Exchange server.

"The new look will be translucent fur."

The superb DragThing has something fabulous you might enjoy.

J

"The new look will be translucent fur."

The superb DragThing has something fabulous you might enjoy.

J

I concur.

You're not the only one who has moved to OSX. A few linux buddies (who used to run it on the Desktop) have all moved to OSX.

When you're 20, tinkering around with Linux was great way to spend time learning.

When you're 30, you just want an OS that works -- so you can spend time on your REAL passions.

With OSX, I get the best of Windows + Unix.

BTW, you'll probably wan these essential Mac UI apps...

PathFinder
http://www.cocoatech.com/

- WindowShade X
http://www.unsanity.com/

- ASM (Application Switching Menu)
http://www.vercruesse.de/software

- FruitMenu
http://www.unsanity.com/

- DragThing
http://www.dragthing.com/

(Four out of the Five are mentioned by here)
http://www.asktog.com/columns/060MonsterMac.html
(Tog was one of the orginal designers on the Mac UI)

Peace

If you want the user to be able to determine what Taskbar/Dock type thing they want, you might want to check out DragThing as a third option, which lacks the visual style of the Dock but works a whole heck of a lot better.

I'm not a big fan of highly customizable interfaces, but man I wish I could just turn the Dock off once and for all.

It's just not very helpful that you can neither ALT-tab through individual terminal windows nor see window titles on the dock. - if you are running panther, try pressing F9. now try F10. http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/expose/

I haven't even found a way to get real *global* keyboard shortcuts, not even with a third party app. With *global* I mean: I expect to press Apple+T at any time, whatever app I'm in, and get a terminal window. Impossible? - not impossible! among the many (many) features of dragthing is the ability to put *global* keyboard shortcuts on any item... say an applescript that brings the terminal to the front and opens a new window? ;)

I really hope apple adds some more flexibility to the UI with their next release (virtual desktops anyone?) - have a look at http://wsmanager.sourceforge.net/ :)

I could go on with many things here but it generally boils down to the fact that the Mac UI is not very customizable. Please! keep them coming! (by the way, a little google never hurt anyone)

Issue 2: The Dock in Mac OS X.

Grousing. In the old Mac OS 9 days, there was a Dock analogue called the Launcher. It was ugly, and I rarely set it up for users, but it worked. Some people still use it for their Classic apps in OS X.

Workaround: Many, most third-party. Apple's interface, until OS X was icon-centric for launching apps, rather than menu-centric (in Windows Start menu). The Dock is no more perfect than the Start menu, but at least it provides a consistent launcher for common apps, instead of having the user search through folders for the right app icon to launch.

Better: Have installers ask user to add icon for applications to the Dock, which isn't done most of the time, forcing users to search about in the Applications folder.

(And hey, it's written by an ex-Apple employee, BTW. James Thompson - nice guy)

nobody asked, but that won't stop me from answering :)

For AIM: Adium
For a tweaked OS: Cocktail and TinkerTool
For a better OS: my collection of haxies for Unsanity's Application Enhancer (ClearDock, FruitMenu, Metallifizer, Mighty Mouse, ShapeShifter, SharedMenus, Silk, WindowShade X)
For privacy/security: NetBarrier, PeerVanguard (not because I trade P2P, but because I wear a tinfoil hat), Little Snitch
Helpful apps: Butler, QuickSilver, DragThing
For everything else: VLC, SBook5, Transmit, Path Finder, Apple Dev Tools

it's more than 10, but those are all put almost instantly on every fresh OS X install I touch.

You mean like dragthing or XBar? Obviously these are OS X apps, but it sounds like the right concept.

What I'd really like to see Apple do is document all the Dock APIs and allow it to be replaced with third party alternatives. For example the program DragThing performs much better than the Dock in many ways. There are better Command-Tab style application switchers, such as KeyboardMaestro. These great third party alternatives cannot truly replace the Dock until more of the workings of the Dock are documented.

There's one more stumbling block: Apple has been migrating more functionality into the Dock (for reasons that are unclear to me). For example, with Jaguar, the Dock owns the Desktop. It's responsible for painting the background image, and handling clicks on the Desktop. Pre-Jaguar this was handled by the Finder. This means that much more than Dock functionality is lost if the Dock is disabled.

The folder method doesn't work for me for two important reasons.

1. Folders in the dock all look alike unless I create custom folders.

2. I have to click hold and drag which is very different than click, click.

In OS 9 I had six labeled tabs each with about 20 items. This gave me two click access to about 120 items. This is the standard I am working against. I'm not saying the dock should emulate this exactly, but fast hierarchical access to a decent number of frequently used items is important for people like me who work with lots of apps.

Truth be told, OS X has two third party apps which ease my pain somewhat:

Launchbar is genius and is my main launching tool these days. It is the perfect geek too. But it doesn't allow me to browse a category... let's say vector graphics apps... in order to "discover" a tool I might use.

Dragthing takes up the rest of the slack providing 90% of the functionality of the old style tabs. My only criticism is that drag thing is not built in and integrated at a core level.

While I love these apps, I believe that Apple could put the same team that came up with Exposé to come up with a fantastic solution to this problem so that all users would benefit.

what does this do to DragThing? DragThing's whole point is to be tabbed pallets!