Preview of Circle Dock 0.9.2 - Windows 7 Theme

Here's some screenshots to pip your eyes:







As of right now, Circle Dock 0.9.2 works and is running on my computer. It looks like what you see in the screenshots above. I have to finish coding it before I make a formal release. Should probably take me a month.

I'm really digging the Windows 7 look.

More info on my website: http://circledock.wikidot.com

 

It looks nice but how much ram does it use?

 

Let's just say those 64-bit rigs with 8GB RAM aren't quite as pointless as you all thought...

 

LOL I'm just wondering because from my personal experience, most docks use about 5-20MB of ram but this one looks a bit more fancy...

 

In those screenshots there, it is using about 18 megs. Memory usage increases for each addition dock item but it only like about 100 kB additional. I think this is perfectly fine.

How much ram usage is too much?

 

Why do we worry about the ram usage of docks when most of us have 2+ GB of ram in our laptops? I never get close to utilizing the 2 GB of ram on my system.

 

Ya, besides the amount of RAM you have available depends on how much you have in your system, so if Vista needed a little bit more room for a dock or program it makes space anyway. >.< What's there to worry about??

Nice app. btw. Likin the look a lot!

 

Mmm... sweet.

If I right click on the program shortcut, will it only show the shortcut settings for the dock (like in RocketDock), or will it able to have a Explorer Menu option?

 

Right now, the right-click menu is the RocketDock style but I'm hoping to figure out how to get the Explorer menu to show up when you right-click on a Circle Dock item.

 

I have figured out how to get the Explorer menu to show up when you right-click one of the dock items so there will be an option to use this in Circle Dock 0.9.2.

 

Nice!

I'm hoping it'll be like NexusFile style, on the Right Click where it shows RocketDock style, there's this "Explorer Menu" so when we click on that, it'll show the Explorer menu.

 

I am waiting for the release already..

Can i PM u my email so u can alert me ?

 

Yeah, I always wonder the same thing. Everyone is so concerned about RAM usage. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

 

The right-click menu for the dock items now looks like what is shown in the screenshot with an option to not show the Explorer either the Circle Dock portion (top) or the Explorer portion (bottom). I can add an "Explorer Menu" to the Circle Dock portion when there is no Explorer portion shown. Yep, now that I think about it, that is the way to go. I'll add it in as an option.

 

Well, I can get you builds of Circle Dock 0.9.2 if you want to be a beta tester.

I'll make an announcement here when I formally release Circle Dock 0.9.2 so there is no need to e-mail me. I'm using G-mail without a mailing-list program.

 

Well... there's a difference between RAM usage that gives you a benefit, and RAM usage that's just inefficiency.

However, I mostly agree with Bart that with 2 gb, I'm not super-concerned about every last megabyte... but at some point it gets a little unreasonable... a whole bunch of RAM hog apps can add up.

Since a dock is something you're running all the time, it's worth considering... but IMO not a really high priority for a program in this stage. Right now the main focus should be on getting it working well with decent usability and enough features to make it useful.

 

Thanks, Swarmer. I like to pick your brain whenever I have the opportunity. Can you describe for me a few ways or reasons that RAM usage is inefficient so I know what to look out for?

 

Heh... you'd have to look at the code, really. Is it using RAM for some kind of faster-performing algorithm, or caching... or is it just poorly optimized? One clue is if other programs do the same thing and are just as fast or faster but use less RAM. Then it's usually inefficiency.

It can depend on the tools used to make the program too. I made a minimal Windows Forms app (just a Window and some text and a button) and it used around 5 mb... the same app in the newer WPF was like 15 mb or so... so that has a whiff of bloat too it. Maybe it's doing something wonderfully useful with all that RAM... but I tend to doubt it.

For an app where you run it, do your stuff, and quit, it might not matter so much... but for something you're running all the time, like a desktop widget... it may be worth thinking about.

 

I think you are referencing .Net programs and the Framework, which Circle Dock 0.9.2 uses. By default .Net programs have a memory overhead compared to programs written in C/C++ but I think this overhead is well worth it for the benefits gained versus the cheap price of ram and the large amounts on most systems.

In .Net you gain managed memory collection, protection from buffer overflows, and managed code that makes programs a lot simpler to develop and secure over C/C++. Think of how many buffer overflow vunerabilities make the news. Most of them are caused by people writing code in C/C++ without adequate data checks. With .Net, it makes it virtually impossible to take advantage of buffer overflows because the Framework does not allow it.

 

Yes, I agree completely. I was comparing the two different .NET presentation libraries... Windows Forms and WPF... and saying that WPF strikes me as being less efficient than Windows Forms, even though both are part of .NET. There may be some benefits to WPF that I'm not aware of, though.

Development and maintenance efficiency is also a big factor, as you mention. A platform such as Java or .NET is well worth the cost for most apps, IMO. For very performance-intensive apps (such as a web server like Apache or a database server, or a device driver), it may not be.

But that's more of a developer benefit. For the end user, the result is just that app A may be more efficient than app B. However, app B may be less crash-prone and updated more frequently too. So there are lots of factors to consider when choosing a dev. technology, such as... how frequently will this app be updated? how often will it be running and by how many people? how noticeable will performance differences be? what are our resources and budget? etc.

 

WPF has impressive 3D graphics and animation capabilities wrapped up in managed code. I think this is the main reason why it uses more memory. There are things you can do in WPF that are not easy to do in .Net, such as defining a 3D object and manipulate it in real time.