Thursday, January 29, 2009

Gnome Do 0.8 released; awesomeness ensues!

Gnome Do 0.8 has just been released! If you don't know anything about Do, I HIGHLY recommend that you check it out. It is a magical launcher inspired by Quicksilver that is super powerful, plugin-rich, intuitive, and rather polished.

The 0.8 release added a bunch of bling in the form of smooth animations and more attractive interfaces. One of the most interesting aspects about the release, however, is the addition of a Dock interface called Docky:




At first glance it appears to be just yet another Linux dock and a random feature for Do to add. However the dock is actually automatically and dynamically populated based on your most launched applications in Do. You can also add and remove launchers by dragging them to and from the dock. This would be cool enough, but it doesn't stop there because Docky is a first-class Do interface where you can perform all your actions!




Oh yeah, and it features a silky smooth parabolic zoom. Instead of repeating what the developers have already said better themselves, let me link you to their blog posts. If you want to get Do, check out the first link which is the official release announcement (or skip right to the PPA :). For more in-depth information, I highly recommend jassmith's post who was the main Docky developer. Happing Do-ing, and don't forget to Digg it!

Release announcement: http://do.davebsd.com/release.shtml
jassmith: http://jassmith.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/gnomedo080release/
pengdeng: http://b.pengdeng.com/2009/01/do-08-rock-out-with-your-dock-out.html

6 comments:

Jan Moren said...

Gnome DO is really nice; you just made me start using it.

However, the Docky interface is a dud for me. It obscures my normal panel, and it is way, way, _waaayyy_ too big, with no way to make is smaller or move it away from the bottom. Did I mention just how humongous that Docky thing is?

Also, the Evolution contacts search plugin doesn't seem to work; a shame as that could come in really useful.

Other than that, though, it really seems to be a pretty useful app, and I intend to keep using it for now.

Michael said...

Hi Janne! You can grab the divider between your launchers and trash to size Docky vertically, and to resize it horizontally you can grab either end.

When using Docky, I would recommend removing the bottom panel, as it becomes rather unnecessary and is what most docks anticipate. If there are any panel applets you miss, just add them to the top panel!

Jan Moren said...

Thanks; didn't know you could resize it.

Still not an option though, as I only have room for one panel; with a 1024x768 size screen, two panels already eat too much into my screen estate. So until/if Docky becomes a full replacement I'll do without. Gnome DO works perfectly fine without it after all.

Tomasz 'Zen' NapieraƂa said...

Im using gnome-do since it's beggining, but now I cant use themes without using compiz :( I cant use compiz, so do's usability is kinda limited for me, especially while default theme is to big and doesn't fot to my desktop.

Michael said...

Janne, Docky doesn't have to take up any screen real estate, and I prefer that it doesn't. Just right-click on the Do icon in the left of Docky and enable "Allow Window Overlap". This will make Docky behave like most docks and give you that bottom area back.

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