DesktopX Dock Help!!

[daoutlawz]

hey guys, i jus finished my dock for desktop x, but i cant seem to make it auto-hide..

i have it set down the bottom of the screen, but when i open a window in full, it covers it, well i actually set it to be 'always on top' but i really want it only visible on the desktop so, what i want it to do is when i move my mouse cursor all the way down to the bottom, i want it to pop up..

anyway of doing this??? btw i am a desktopx n00b :D :D

oh and also, b4 i forget, is it normal for the animations to go on for more then they should? what i mean by this is, sometimes when i move over an icon in the dock, it bounces up and down a few times instead of one, like for a few seconds, is there a way to fix this or is this just normal??

thanx in advance guys... :D

[Blindlabel013]

Right Click on your dock and go to Propities>Relation>Z-Order and put that too Desktop or Normal.

[yayaba]

Originally posted by daoutlawz  

oh and also, b4 i forget, is it normal for the animations to go on for more then they should? what i mean by this is, sometimes when i move over an icon in the dock, it bounces up and down a few times instead of one, like for a few seconds, is there a way to fix this or is this just normal??

THAT my friend is the reason I deleted the dock 5 minutes after I installed it. I couldn't stand the erraticness. If there's a way to fix that, I'm all ears.

[configure Veteran]

Moved from Customizing Windows XP to Project: DesktopX forum.

[daoutlawz]

Originally posted by BlindLabel013

Right Click on your dock and go to Propities>Relation>Z-Order and put that too Desktop or Normal.

yeh, that didnt answer my question..

i want to know how to get the dock to auto-pop up..

[Guest deadzombie]

To get a dock to autohide is a long procedure involving animations, parent relations with objects and basically more than I want to go into. Maybe my autohide dock will be out soon and you can tear it apart and check it out. Otherwise, I suggest you hit the Stardock newsgroups; that's where I finally found the answer to the very same question.

I'm thinking that the new 'jitteryness' of the zoomer objects people are seeing with DesktopX 1.2 comes from a mix of the alpha blending and animation speeds. Let me explain;

If you have a zoomer with transparent areas those areas do not count as an activation area for mouseover. Think of any transparent holes in a zoomer as a "no mouseover zone".

When someone does activate a zoomer it grows larger, including the transparent areas. If a mouse crosses one of these areas as the zoomer grows during it's animation, then the mouseover animation stops and the mouseaway animation begins, causing the zoomer object to shrink. Once the mouse hits an opaque activation area the mouseover animation begins again, causing the zoomer to grow again, repeating the effect. So it appears the zoomer is jumping up and down.

I suggest adjusting placement of the zoomers in the animation frames to make certain that the mid center of an object contains almost no alpha blended (transparent) areas. If it does, take the .png into an image editor and fill those areas with black at a 20% transparency level and then re-save the .png animation.

Also, watch what speed you are setting your animations at. DesktopX 1.2 has a much, much faster engine running it now. I've found I've had to double my animation time in most cases. Animations that used to run fine at 15ms now move to fast to be seen, so I've upped the speed to 35ms.

Alot of this can also be fixed by limiting your size difference between a zoomers at rest state and it's final mouseover state. An object at rest with transparent areas that zooms to 4 or 5 times it's normal size is just asking for problems. Depending on the path of the mouse over an object you have a much greater chance of switching between mouseover opaque areas and mouseaway transparent areas.

Changing the mouseover area from "image shown" to another type has the potential to fix this problem, but in a dock like scenario this can create other problems.

Hope that helps.

[daoutlawz]

yeh, thanx m8, appreciate the help..

i should have jus emailed u.. :D :D

[Guest deadzombie]

Originally posted by daoutlawz

yeh, thanx m8, appreciate the help..

i should have jus emailed u.. :D :D

You should see my email inbox...something like 42 unanswered emails asking for help, themes, icons, wallpapers and other crap.

Hmmm, maybe I should answer some of them...

[sparkyx]

yes please answer them! Mine is in there :p