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@All wiki editors

I start article on wiki, plz let's sort and make a good one about with everything we need: http://wiki.amigaos.net/index.php/The_Docks_and_Dockies

@gazelle

I disagree and vote for an "standalone docky".

But it should change the indicator when its in dock. Can standalone do that ?

no other application will interfere with the dock

But its about making "tray-bar dock", should't another apps interfere with that dock, if there can be another dockies later in that "tray bar" dock ?

@kas1e

Can say more about shortcoming ?:) I write some commodities

It's nothing that would affect common commodities, don't worry. Just the commodity management infrastructure needs polishing a bit.

As for the Dockies wiki-article: as I understand it, AppDockIcons are not real dockies, they are a feature of the Application Library that just represents a running application in AmiDock. So IMHO they should be part of the Application Library documentation. That wiki page is my responsibility, and I'll add the AppDockIcons section as soon as I get some more time.

@Trixie
Btw, pretty good example of "click on docky and it spawn a menu right at bottom of docky" is "Access.docky" from os4 distrib. Seems like what we need when we will click on indicator. Only it somehow reacts strange, sometime enough to press one time, sometime need to press two times..

kas1e wrote:

gazelle wrote:I disagree and vote for an "standalone docky".

But it should change the indicator when its in dock. Can standalone do that?

Of course: Clock.docky or Lens.docky changes all the time

kas1e wrote:

gazelle wrote:no other application will interfere with the dock

But its about making "tray-bar dock", should't another apps interfere with that dock, if there can be another dockies later in that "tray bar" dock?

I was thinking of AppDockIcon applications.

The user should decide which "try-bar like dockies" he will put into his tray-bar dock. There could even be more than one tray-bar dock.

Maybe a "style guide" for tray-bar like dockies could be drafted, eg the docky has to adopt to the size/alignment of the dock.

@gazelle

Maybe a "style guide" for tray-bar like dockies could be drafted, eg the docky has to adopt to the size/alignment of the dock.

I thrown some on wiki, plz if you have account help with: http://wiki.amigaos.net/index.php/The_Docks_and_Dockies

All right, just a question.

It appears that the general agreement is to make the keymap switcher a docky, with commodity functionality (i.e. the interface will pop up when a keyboard shortcut is pressed). Fine. But considering that dockies are in fact Exec libraries, can a library work as a commodity? I'm asking because I really don't fancy spending a couple of days pulling my hair out, only to find that it's not possible

And another one: does it really need to be a commodity only to handle the shortcut? Can't dockies process keymap events to react upon? (I'm sure Fredrik will know.)

trixie wrote:It appears that the general agreement is to make the keymap switcher a docky...

I disagree. Just make it a commodity and be done with it.

I guess the actual keymap-switching functionality can be pretty much isolated from what the program actually is (commodity/docky), how the switch is triggered (hotkey/MB click) and how/where the selected keymap is displayed. So I'll write it with all that in mind (once my developer system arrives in Liverpool).

trixie wrote: But considering that dockies are in fact Exec libraries, can a library work as a commodity?

TBH all you need to do is setup the broker in your DockyClone() function and do the cleanup in DockyRelease(). The broker msgport should be created with action set to PA_IGNORE and no signal should be allocated for it as you will be just pumping it for events with IExec->GetMsg() in your DockyProcess() function.

You could also create a Task or Process in your docky's libInit() to act as a "regular" commodity and forward events to your docky instances but that is more work than is really necessary.

@salass00

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

BTW, such things would be so much easier if AmiDock (a commodity itself) was able to pass CX events on to its dockies! This way a docky that wants to intercept input events would not have to setup its own broker. Currently it's just a waste of system resources.