'Stand Up' Mac Dock Mockup on Vimeo

See all Show me

9. Ornament Mac Desktop prototype

by Keith Lang

1 month ago

8. Dock Mockup iteration #2 'Ghost and Glow'

by Keith Lang

2 months ago

7. 'Stand Up' Mac Dock Mockup

by Keith Lang

2 months ago

6. The Science of Aesthetics by Keith Lang

by Keith Lang

2 months ago

5. Keymote 2 review from the future

by Keith Lang

3 months ago

4. Skitch Icon Spinning - with motion blur

by Keith Lang

5 months ago

3. Skitch Icon spinning - No blur

by Keith Lang

5 months ago

2. Abstract Social Interface

by Keith Lang

10 months ago

1. UIandus.com Interview with Wil Shipley

by Keith Lang

1 year ago

A mockup of a proposed slight improvement to how the Mac Dock works when accepting dragged-on files. Made in Quartz Composer

Credits

90 Likes

Momo the Monster
1 month ago
macfidelity
2 months ago
Julian Schrader
2 months ago
Luke weyman
2 months ago
Jeremy Orion Walker
2 months ago
Mark Coleran
2 months ago
Josh Lewis!
2 months ago
karthiksetty
2 months ago
Kamil Dzielinski
2 months ago
Jeff Fitzgerald
2 months ago
See all 90 likes

Tags

Marius M. 2 months ago

Hey hey, this looks really delicious. I'd like to have such a feature on the OS X Dock, although the highlighting should be variable. For example I could think of "shadowing out" all Applications that the file is *not* compatible with. The "rising"-feature looks cool, though it also might be too abstracting for some users.

Very cool! :)
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Thanks Marius,

I think 'darkening out' the apps that can't open that filetype might be too confusing since that's how the current Dock shows an app *can* open a file. But perhaps making them more transparent?
Marius M. 2 months ago

Hi Keith,

you're right about the shadowing on the current Dock, I forgotten that. However, of course transparency should also do the trick, although I believe that in some situations (e.g. someone's having a black Wallpaper) the opacity would result in *nearly* the same effect as the shadowing does now. :-/
Mo McRoberts 2 months ago

I had the same thought as Marius—make the apps which don’t accept the drag dimmed/translucent (as they are when they are hidden), while apps which can are full-intensity and so stand out.

Any hidden apps temporarily show according to drag acceptance state until the item is released.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Hi Mo—I think I understand what you're saying and agree—you could have *all* applicable apps show up in a mechanism triggered this way, even if not in the Dock beforehand.
Emanuele Vulcano 2 months ago

Even better: icons could raise in a way inversely proportional to the distance between the dragging cursor and the Dock.

Think icons being magnetically attracted to the file as you near the Dock, but going down again if you move the arrow away.
Jules Stoop 2 months ago

Your modification would more or less defy the purpose of this proposition, which is not having to drag the item along the whole of your Dock to find out which applications accept/open the item.
Dev Null 2 months ago

No, Jules, Keith's idea still requires you to drag along the Dock -- the apps don't "stand up" until you reach the first app capable of handling the file, in the demo. Emanuele is proposing that they "stand up" when the file gets near the Dock. Which would obviate the need for dragging just as you advocate.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Sorry—my demo wasn't clear. I meant that as soon as you reach the dock, the applicable apps would stand up, even if you weren't over them at the time. It was sheer luck that I didn't show that.
Emanuele Vulcano 2 months ago

To clarify, I meant to say the effect could be exactly the same, except with the icons being gradually moved up rather than jumping up at approach (and backing down if the mouse cursor approaches) to make it a little more nice-looking and "intuitive" in the "pinching-to-zoom-is-intuitive" meaning.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Hi Emanuele,

I understand what you mean—I'll see if I can mock it up. There would need to be a 'border' of perhaps 500px above the dock where the change would occur. Although I'm thinking more that the second mockup (See below) is a better match to the problem because it negates the changing perceived target area problem with the moving (standing up) icons.
Björn Sackemark 2 months ago

Cool idea! If I've got it right, you've accomplished this neat effect via Quartz Composer.

Do you have any plans on sharing your code, or making it a downloadable “Dock Plugin”? I (and I'm sure, a lot of others as well) would love to hear about that!
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Hi Björn, thanks for the kind words!

This is actually a mockup, not a prototype. What you're looking at is not actually the dock, but a separate Quartz Composition that is emulating the dock. So unfortunately no, there's nothing I can share with you that will give you this ability.
Daniel Markham 2 months ago

It might even be nice to have the apps which will accept that file to stand up either as soon as you begin the drag of the file or, possibly, while you have "ahold" of the file with your track-pad/mouse and are pressing a modifier key.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

I don't think you'd wan't this animation everytime you drag a file around, but certainly I could extend the 'MouseOver' area which triggers the effect.
Adam Bridge 2 months ago

A somewhat different take - suppose instead of dragging you could sort of "flip" the icon toward the dock like you could do with cards in Erik's Ultimate Solitaire? The application closest to the trajectory of the file would "catch" it and open it. If you populate your dock with the programs you use this might work well and with a gesture-based system could be spiffy.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Interesting idea adam—but I'm not familiar with 'Erik's Ultimate Solitaire' do you have a link for it?
Thaddeus Quintin 2 months ago

You could add to this by shrinking down the other applications. This would push together the available applications while making them that much more visible.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

That's probably a good point, this way the target application hitpoint (the apps can accept the file) don't move. I'd probably just slide the non-applicable apps down, rather than minimizing them which would make it look a bit 'gappy'
Aaron Davies 2 months ago

One caveat--it would be important to make sure the "live" target for the drop remains extended all the way to the bottom of the screen. Nothing's worse than a UI "improvement" that breaks Fitt's Law!
Keith Lang 2 months ago

I totally agree. Even if the perceived drop-target moved (like my mockup) that might be annoying, so I like Thaddeus' comment above which says to instead make the non-applicable apps shrink/get out of the way.
abundance 2 months ago

Hey! slight but very neat idea!

The suggestion of dimming/shrinking the apps that don't accept the file is interesting too.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

That's a nice idea too. :-)
Bill Hurt 2 months ago

Looks like the kind of nice UI improvements that I always like to see in OS X. Not earth shattering, but one of the details that could make every day use more intuitive and natural.

I think over thinking the feature could be detrimental to it's elegance as it stands and probably an automatic shading out of non-applicable apps would be all that that I would consider adding.

I hope your idea catches on though and it would be great to see it either as a plugin or as a standard feature in a future release.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

I agree—this would need some testing. :-)
Noel Hurtley 2 months ago

I really like your idea, it's clean and effective (just like OS X). Nice work!
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Thanks :)
AD Torossian 2 months ago

About 60% of apps on my dock will accept a text file. If this idea was implemented it would dislocate half of my dock.

While this sounds like a cool idea, it's not elegant and would have varying results for different people.
Marius M. 2 months ago

This is why ideas like "dimming out" the icons have been proposed - they would solve exactly those problems. :-)
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Both good points. :-)
Ash Laws 2 months ago

That is a very neat idea, it would make hunting for file/program associations a lot faster.
Tarun Nagpal 2 months ago

Are you surrendering the infinite targeting at the bottom by having them elevate? I'd suggest scaling the icons to be larger since that creates more target area to hit rather than lifting them up.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

No, I would plan the target area to extend all the way to the bottom, but it's a good point which was raised earlier. Even if the perceived target moves (the user can't tell that they can also click below the raised app), that could cause hesitation
Ron Adair 2 months ago

I'm liking. Way to go. Very useful variation on the single app indicator now present.
dru 2 months ago

Terrible idea, it won't scale well for those using magnification. It would be better to offer a glowy 'highlight' around the icons that can accept the drag operation.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

That's a good point. I often wonder how many users continue to use magnification, as I find it very annoying.
Joel Dueck 2 months ago

I would make the whole screen go black except for those three icons. Then it would be REALLY clear.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

I personally find 10.6's approach to this (when right clicking in dock) a little harsh! Glad to hear someone likes it though.
Joe H. 2 months ago

Oh SNAP! Very Nice!
Chris Marmo 2 months ago

Just wondering how this would work for those that use the fish-eye/magnification feature? Cool idea though!
Keith Lang 2 months ago

As Dru mentioned above, probably poorly. I'm liking the general trend in comments to 'glow' apps that can accept the app, and halve opacity of those that cannot.
Cris Pearson 2 months ago

Good stuff Keith :) I'd love this.

Another possible addition is to make the icons that can accept the file become bigger re-using the zooming that the dock already has. This gives the user a bigger target to drag to.
Keith Lang 2 months ago

Thanks mayt. :- The problem here is that multiple apps would need to scale, which probably screws up the sizings.
Benjamin Sunarjo 2 months ago

It looks great. However, when dragging a file to the dock, I've never actually found myself asking: what other applications could open this file?
Marius M. 2 months ago

... and I bet you would be shockingly surprised to see, what other Apps you have that could also open the specific file-format. :-)
Keith Lang 2 months ago

If you Right Click on a file now, and mouse to 'Open with' you can see that list. Unfortunately it sometimes takes some time to appear, but it's often longer than you'd expect.
Sam Beckett 2 months ago

That's brilliant! Apple, are you listing?
Keith Lang 2 months ago

I've put up version 2 of this idea here:
uiandus.com/2009/09/25/video/iteration-2-on-dock-mockup-idea/

Would love to know what you think!